ABSTRACT
In 2011, the World Economic Forum published Water Security: The Water–Energy–Food–Climate Nexus to draw attention to the looming global water supply crisis. That document observed that within two decades, the collective demand of humans for water could exceed supply by about 40 percent with associated escalations in food prices, disruptions of energy supply, constrictions in trade, increased refugee populations, and disrupted authority structures. In 2014, the Nexus Declaration expressed a series of sustainable development goals including eliminating hunger, using energy and water more efficiently in the agriculture and food sector, and strengthening ecosystems. Such broad statements of macro-environmental threats and macro-social goals provide a demanding agenda for national and international governance and there is broad consensus on the need to respond. Rural areas and rural communities will not only be exceptionally impacted by the crisis but will also have an exceptionally important role in sustaining and managing environmental resources over the coming decades. But there remains substantial room for debate about how policy can effectively respond. This chapter surveys the work of a series of environmental economists, policy analysts, and planners who offer alternative models of the nexus and make policy recommendations based on those models. Additionally, it offers a set of rural policy regimes policy analysts suggest for responding to the looming crises of water, climate, energy, and food.
