Led by ISTPP Director Dr. Portney, co-authors Dr. Vedlitz, Dr. Sansom, Dr. Berke, and doctoral candidate Mr. Daher delineate their article, “Governance of the Water-Energy-Food Nexus: the Conceptual and Methodological Foundations for the San Antonio Region Case Study,” a strategy for conducting both applied and proof-of-concept research related to resource governance and policy systems and their influence on the water-food-energy nexus.
The ISTPP team will focus their first of its kind research on San Antonio, Texas where there are vast numbers of organizations – both in the private and public sectors – that have financial, political, and legal influence on decisions that affect water, energy, and food resources. The researchers intend to identify and analyze the governance structures of water, energy, and food through recording the responsibilities and capabilities of the organizations that have an influence on each of these domains. They will then utilize social network analysis and game-theoretic formulation to understand the relationships within these governance organizations and their constituents for each domain. The team will also determine whether any such relationships and connections exist across the nexus domains. The team will also utilize spatial land use analysis to compare governance interconnection in different areas around San Antonio.
It is possible that by identifying the networks involved with governance of the nexus and the ways in which related policies affect individual behaviors, that strategies may be developed to improve and interlink the governance structures so that area residents will benefit from more efficient and sustainable use of water, energy, and food resources.
Kent E. Portney, Arnold Vedlitz, Garett Sansom, Philip Berke, and Bassel T. Daher. 2017. “Governance of the Water-Energy-Food Nexus: the Conceptual and Methodological Foundations for the San Antonio Region Case Study.” In the Topical Collection on Nexus of Food, Water, Energy, section edited by R. Mohtar, for Current Sustainable/Renewable Energy Reports, volume edited by Michael E. Webber. Springer International Publishing. doi: 10.1007/s40518-017-0077-1
