ABSTRACT

We congratulate Heal et al. for initiating an important discussion on how to broaden the scope of the water–energy–food nexus. We agree that more explicit inclusion of water quality into the nexus is an important step forward. At the same time, water quality is itself an indicator of e.g. ecosystem services and biodiversity, and improvement of water quality comes with a cost in terms of resource consumption that is typically not included in models studying the water–energy–food nexus. We already see hesitation in using the nexus for policy development, and further complexity may be an additional barrier to its practical implementation. So, while the consideration of water quality is indeed important for the nexus, it also suggests that perhaps it is necessary to consider more local contexts than striving for one global framing for analysis of the water–energy–food nexus.

摘要

我们祝贺 Heal等 人。发起关于如何扩大水-能源-食物关系范围的重要讨论。我们同意将水质更明确地纳入关系是向前迈出的重要一步。同时，水质本身就是生态系统服务和生物多样性等指标，水质的改善伴随着资源消耗方面的成本，这通常不包括在研究水-能源-食物关系的模型中。我们已经看到在政策制定中使用这种关系的犹豫不决，进一步的复杂性可能是其实际实施的额外障碍。因此，虽然考虑水质对于这种关系确实很重要，但它也表明，也许有必要考虑更多的当地环境，而不是努力建立一个全球框架来分析水-能源-食物关系。