Abstract The interrelation of the water-energy-food nexus and processes of globalization has to be understood thoroughly in order to address socio-economic inequalities and environmental change. However, unravelling the complexities of the water-energy-food nexus in the context of globalization poses conceptual and empirical difficulties. Economic globalization, e.g. through transnational trade and foreign direct investment, results in a global conjunction of actors, interests and impacts, strongly affecting patterns of resource extraction and environmental degradation, and local capabilities for its governance. In environmental economic geography, the global value chain and global production networks approaches have proved useful for the analysis of interrelations between governance structures, value, institutional contexts, and modes of resource consumption. In this paper, we discuss the potential of the global production networks approach to analyze society-environment relations in the context of the water-energy-food nexus and processes of globalization. To make our argument, we will use the case of manure and digestate, which results from meat and bioenergy production in the Oldenburger Munsterland, the center of livestock farming in Germany. The region is Germany’s best developed agribusiness cluster, which is integrated into a transnational network of animal producers, feedstuff producers and meat processors. And it is also home to many biogas plants and several market leaders in bioenergy technology, strongly related to the livestock husbandry business. The case is an example of the three-way-mutual interactions among food, energy and water. The analysis will combine the perspective of the water-energy-food nexus with the analytical categories of the global production networks approach to provide a nuanced understanding of the socio-environmental implications of the global integration of a regional agri-food production cluster.

中文翻译：

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全球化与水-能源-食物的关系——使用全球生产网络方法分析社会-环境关系

摘要 为了解决社会经济不平等和环境变化问题，必须彻底了解水-能源-食物的关系和全球化进程之间的相互关系。然而，在全球化背景下解开水-能源-食物关系的复杂性带来了概念和经验上的困难。经济全球化，例如通过跨国贸易和外国直接投资，导致行动者、利益和影响的全球联合，强烈影响资源开采和环境退化的模式，以及当地的治理能力。在环境经济地理学中，全球价值链和全球生产网络方法已证明对分析治理结构、价值、制度背景、和资源消耗方式。在本文中，我们讨论了全球生产网络方法在水-能源-粮食关系和全球化进程背景下分析社会-环境关系的潜力。为了论证我们的论点，我们将使用粪便和消化物的案例，它们来自德国畜牧业中心奥尔登伯格明斯特兰的肉类和生物能源生产。该地区是德国最发达的农业综合企业集群，已融入由动物生产商、饲料生产商和肉类加工商组成的跨国网络。它也是许多沼气厂和几个生物能源技术市场领导者的所在地，与畜牧业业务密切相关。该案例是食物、能源和水之间三方相互作用的一个例子。