Avaliação do Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus em propriedades agrícolas de pequeno porte

Abstract

The Water-Energy-Food Nexus (WEF Nexus) approach stands out for its ability to consider interdependencies between resources at a variety of spatial scales that may be overlooked in a single disciplinary approach. Food, energy and water security are inextricably interdependent and require integrated management of the three sectors through cross-sectoral coordination. To this end, tools have been developed to support the WEF Nexus evaluation teams. Agriculture is one of the key sectors of WEF Nexus. In order to contribute to this research topic, the overall objective of this dissertation is to propose a systemic and participatory approach tool to assess water-energy-food (WEF) Nexus interactions in the context of family farming. Through a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) a set of potentialities and limitations were identified that should alert evaluations in future studies. Among the methods studied, the method Evaluation of Natural Resource Management Systems incorporating Sustainability Indicators (MESMIS) has the capacity to support participatory sustainability assessment at small scales. As a result, the MESMIS-Nexus systemic and participatory approach tool is proposed to assess WEF Nexus interactions on farms. This tool was applied to seven family farms, in real cases and made it possible to map the systemic approach interactions, identify main challenges in the perception of family farmers and four practical lessons for the studied context. As a result, it is also expected to contribute to water, energy and food security and access policies through the operationalisation of the approach, in addition to proposing future research agendas in this area.