Abstract
Water plays a vital role in human socioeconomic development and overall well-being, making its effective management essential in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. The close interlinkage between water, other environmental resources, and socioeconomic development have prompted the emergence and adoption of holistic and trans-sectoral concepts such as integrated water resources management and, more recently, the resource nexus. However, even such holistic approaches often exclude the one health approach, particularly at the transboundary water basins (TWBs), which not only dominate 40% of the earth but are vital in environmental and human sustainability. This review aimed to understand, evaluate, and compare assessment tools for water, energy, food, and one health (WEF + H) nexus management in TWBs. The review applied the systematic review guidelines for articles published in the Scopus database. The inclusion criteria encompassed English-language articles featuring case studies, meta-studies, or review articles with no less than three nexus resources. The review categorized the article based on criteria that focused on identifying tools capable of analyzing scenarios and policies for WEF + H in TWBs and their accessibility and easiness of implementation in case studies. Of the eighteen analyzed tools, 13 (72%) had limitations in their application at various geographical scales. Additionally, they could not integrate one health into the nexus or analyze policies through running scenarios. On the contrary, the Bayesian networks, system dynamics, agent-based models, life-cycle assessments, and input-output tools were highly accessible for efficiently conducting scenario-based WEF + H nexus assessments in TWBs.
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All the data generated and analyzed in this review was obtained from the Scopus database.
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Acknowledgements
This manuscript is a part of the Ph.D. research conducted by the first author at the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS). We want to sincerely thank the Japan Foundation for the United Nations University (JFUNU) for providing a scholarship that enabled the first author to pursue doctoral studies at UNU-IAS. In addition, we would like to acknowledge the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for their generous funding support of the 'PAJAKO-NASCENT' project (project ID 57611715), which granted the first author a visiting fellowship to the UNU-Institute for Integrated Management of Material Fluxes and of Resources. During the fellowship, the first author had the opportunity to work alongside nexus experts to complete this manuscript effectively. Lastly, we are grateful for the valuable feedback the two anonymous reviewers provided, which significantly contributed to improving this work.
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All authors made substantial contributions to the systematic review and analysis of the paper. Constance Bwire conducted the systematic review and analysis with input and guidance from Jian Pu, Mohan Geetha, Karthe Daniel, and Serena. Constance Bwire drafted the manuscript, which was then critically reviewed, revised, and edited by all authors. All authors have read and approved the revised version of the manuscript.
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Bwire, C., Mohan, G., Karthe, D. et al. A Systematic Review of Methodological Tools for Evaluating the Water, Energy, Food, and One Health Nexus in Transboundary Water Basins. Environmental Management 72, 598–613 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-023-01841-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-023-01841-w