Abstract
Despite the known benefits of integrated policy and planning, traditional governance decisions in the food-energy-water (FEW) nexus are often made without cross-sector collaboration, potentially leading to unintended consequences and decreased resource security. Applying collaborative governance approaches to the FEW nexus provides an opportunity to shift towards integrated policy of food, energy, and water governance; doing so first requires an understanding of the limitations of current governance structures and the opportunities for change. We conduct a social network analysis of stakeholders in Phoenix, AZ using secondary data sources to construct the social network of collaboration and to analyze the ability of the governance landscape to facilitate or hinder collaborative governance. The social network measures indicate potential challenges to collaborative governance of FEW nexus stakeholders, such as limited trust between actors. However, leveraging bridging actors provides opportunities to increase collaborative governance between sectors. This research is important for implementing collaborative FEW nexus governance in practice.
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Data Availability
Social network analysis matrix is available at: https://github.com/VADERASU/Social-Network-Analysis.
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This research is supported by the National Science Foundation under award no. CNS-1639227, INFEWS/T2: Flexible model compositions and visual representations for planning and policy decisions at the sub-regional level of the food-energy-water nexus.
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DDW received grant funding for the study; JLJ and DW designed the study; JLJ conducted the analysis; JLJ drafted the manuscript; and DDW revised the manuscript.
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Jones, J.L., White, D.D. A social network analysis of collaborative governance for the food-energy-water nexus in Phoenix, AZ, USA. J Environ Stud Sci 11, 671–681 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-021-00676-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-021-00676-3