Water, energy, food, and ecosystems (WEFE) form an interconnected nexus that is central in providing resources and services needed to sustain human activity. The nexus is affected by changes in climate, precipitation, and land cover as well as economic development, agriculture, and urban growth. Availability and quality of resources in WEFE sectors and policy goals and instruments can support or hinder the economic growth at national and regional level. To effectively manage resources and avoid conflicts between users, many relevant policies must be intelligently designed to address nexus interconnectedness at multiple spatial scales.
The Lielupe River Basin covering the area in Latvia and Lithuania is one of the Case studies in NEXOGENESIS project: are planned elaborative activities for novel policy suggestions considering interlinkages and footprint by water, energy, food, ecosystems, and climate components. Stakeholders are invited to express their opinion and to participate actively in finding of pathways for improved management of international Lielupe River Basin considering the climate change and socio-economic development scenarios.
First international stakeholder workshop “Exploring and linking water-energy-food-ecosystem (WEFE) Nexus in the Lielupe River Basin” on February 10, 2022 was aimed to initiate discussion on the critical WEFE Nexus interlinkages in the Lielupe River Basin.
Content:
- Introduction to NEXOGENESIS project and Lielupe Case Study;
- Nexus governance and policy in the Lielupe river basin: analysis, co-creation and implementation (WP1);
- Introduction to the NEXOGENESIS system dynamics modelling approach;
- Related policies and their interactions in WEFE sectors (working group discussion):
- Where do policies interact with the Nexus?
- How do they affect the Nexus interlinkages in Latvia/ Lithuania?
A discussion on the interactions between water management, energy and food production and ecosystems (WEFE) in the Lielupe river basin in the context of municipal and regional development has already been launched in Latvia. The proceedings of the 27 January meeting are available HERE.
NEXOGENESIS project flyer in English.
The workshop is organized within the frame of HORIZON2020 project “Facilitating the next generation of effective and intelligent water-related policies utilizing artificial intelligence and reinforcement learning to assess the water-energy-food-ecosystem (WEFE) nexus” (NEXOGENSIS, Nr. 101003881)
