The evolution of an idea: 15 years of the water–energy–food–environment nexus

Imagine you had an idea that could help secure the lives and livelihoods of populations around the world facing increasing food and water scarcity. How would you ensure the idea is put into practice effectively?

That has been the ongoing challenge for researchers and policy experts who study the interconnections between water, energy, food, and environment (WEFE) – and devise ‘nexus’ solutions to secure these collective resources. 

Formally introduced fifteen years ago at the 2011 Bonn Conference, the ‘WEFE nexus’ concept is simple: you cannot manage one resource without impacting the others. And many of the problems we face arise when these resources are considered separately.

Yet, today, most governments and development banks still operate in silos: water ministries deal only with water infrastructure, energy ministries fund energy projects, and the interconnected web continues to tear. 

At Stockholm World Water Week 2026, experts gathered to address this in a critical session: Operationalizing the WEFE Nexus for Climate-Resilient and Equitable Water Security. 

As session moderator Dr Novaira Junaid from the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) put it: “The question is not whether the nexus concept is sound, but why it has struggled to move from frameworks and pilots into mainstream governance and investment, and what needs to change for the next 15 years.”

Data foundations: Making hidden trade-offs visible

While the WEFE nexus is an inherently practical concept, there’s always a requirement for more data. You cannot manage what you cannot measure. However, traditional scientific modeling is often too dense for local planners to accessibly use. 

In his presentation, Dr Mohsin Hafeez (IWMI) demonstrated how to overcome this data gap in one of the most complex, water-stressed regions on Earth: the Indus River Basin in Pakistan. Here, agriculture accounts for a staggering 90% of water use. Previously, policymakers lacked field-level information on how effectively this water was being utilized. To solve this, IWMI and its partners have deployed a suite of targeted digital tools. For macro-level planning, Dr Hafeez’s team partnered with the University of Manchester to build a spatial simulation model tracking how water moves across the entire basin, from upstream reservoirs to downstream farms. This tool is helping the Punjab Irrigation Department and Indus River System Authority safely balance the daily trade-offs between holding water back to generate hydropower and releasing it to irrigate farms. To address local challenges like severe groundwater shortages, decision-support dashboards are deployed to manage agricultural water demand. These tools help the government confidently guide farmers to diversify their crops – shifting away from thirsty plants like rice and sugarcane toward alternatives that require less water and generate higher economic returns per drop.

Similarly, in Mongolia's capital, Ulaanbaatar, water demand is rapidly outpacing supply. Ms Tania Imran, Water Management Expert at FutureWater, introduced an accessible, Excel-based tool called WatNEX that helps politicians see the real-world consequences of their choices. For example, the tool showed that tapping into more groundwater could close the city’s water deficit by 36% – but it would result in a 273% increase in energy consumption for pumping. By putting these numbers side-by-side, decisionmakers can quantitatively evaluate synergies and tradeoffs across the nexus and ensure sustainable solutions.

Ground-level interventions: solar pumps, wetlands, and rice restrictions 

Ultimately, high-level data must translate to the ground, guiding practice and interventions. In Pakistan, for instance, an unreliable electricity grid has led farmers to embrace solar panels to power their irrigation pumps. While a clear win for clean energy, Dr Claudia Ringler (International Food Policy Research Institute [IFPRI]) pointed out a catch. Because solar energy is essentially free, there’s a risk of overextraction and deployment of inappropriately large pumps in Pakistan. This can be addressed at a community-level through a combination of groundwater literacy and solar pump-sizing tools. Meanwhile an advanced Groundwater Management Information System provides Pakistan government authorities with real-time aquifer data to enforce localized pumping moratoriums where necessary.

Moving east to the Barak-Meghna river basin shared by India and Bangladesh, worsening floods cause hundreds of millions of dollars in damage annually and devastate the fisheries and agriculture sectors. Mr Vishwa Ranjan Sinha (International Union for Conservation of Nature [IUCN]), argued that we must stop seeing nature conservation and infrastructure as being in opposition. For example, wetlands can be seen as natural water infrastructure since they slow floodwaters and even store them to support irrigation during the dry season. This multifunctionality makes natural water ecosystem infrastructure incredibly valuable in achieving WEFE nexus solutions. Indeed, restoring a wetland is often cheaper and more effective for flood control than building a concrete embankment – nature itself is the infrastructure. 

In Northern India, evidence-based policy interventions have helped mitigate considerable strain on groundwater. Dr Anton Urfels (International Rice Research Institute [IRRI]) explained how precise mapping of the vast quantities of water drained specifically by a third season of summer rice led the authorities to implement a targeted ban on this practice – cutting local water use by 25% in just one year (saving 48 million cubic meters of water). Crucially, scaling back thirsty crops does not have to mean a loss in food security; IRRI’s data show that modernizing irrigation on just 9% of agricultural land in South Asia could feed an additional 33 million people.

Equitable governance for a shared understanding 

Trade-offs are part and parcel of nexus management, which inevitably leads to clashes and competition on the ground – most obviously when farmers, energy companies, and cities all need water at the same time. This is where equitable governance comes into play, as Ms Yumiko Asayama (Japan Water Forum) detailed in a case study of the Yoshino River Basin.

Following a devastating drought in 1994, local governments and power companies realized physical infrastructure alone couldn’t manage growing climate uncertainty. This led to the development of an integrated institutional framework for basin-wide decision-making. Crucially, through continuous data sharing, water-using stakeholders established a shared understanding and trust that proved invaluable in dry conditions. Instead of forcing everyone to cut their water use by the same amount, the framework protects historical baseline farming rights. Under the new framework, the newest industrial and municipal users, who generally secure water access through recent dam constructions, are the first to bear the burden. 

From isolated projects to economic corridors

Building on evidence from pilots, the final hurdle for nexus operationalization is financing solutions at scale. For decades, infrastructure funding has been piecemeal. A government might fund a concrete embankment to stop flooding, only to realize years later that cutting off the river’s natural flow destroyed the local fish population and dried up groundwater for farmers – exactly what happened along the Ichamati River in Bangladesh. 

To stop this cycle, the approach to financing must change from the top down. Mr. Satoshi Ishii (Asian Development Bank [ADB]) highlighted the sheer scale of the problem. Nearly half of the 50 economies in the Asia and the Pacific region are showing signs of declining ecosystem health – often resulting from unchecked development and pollution, which threatens the natural foundations of the region's water supply.

In response, ADB is reshaping its financing priorities to accelerate progress on water security across the region. Mr. Ishii announced that the Bank is planning to launch an ambitious 10-year water security initiative at its annual meeting in Nagoya, Japan, in May 2027 – with the aim of systematically connecting water, energy, agriculture, and ecosystem protection across whole river basins. Underpinning this strategy is the ADB-CGIAR Clearinghouse Facility, which directly links global research networks with major investment pipelines. 

On the ground, this strategic pivot means moving away from funding isolated projects to support integrated investments at the river-corridor scale, as Ms. Tanya Huizer (ADB) illustrated with a case study from Bangladesh. The Jamuna–Dhaka river system is a lifeline that supports 80 million people and accounts for half of the nation’s GDP. The Bank is working to integrate investments across water, agriculture, livelihoods, urban development, inland navigation, and environmental management through a sequenced corridor approach – under the umbrella of the Jamuna–Dhaka River–Canal Integrated Development Initiative. Crucially, this approach makes trade-offs visible before money is committed.

The road ahead

Reflecting on the session, Dr Mark Smith, Director General of IWMI, noted that the WEFE nexus is not a final destination or a box to be checked off; instead, it is an evolving ‘way of working’. Achieving this shift requires a specific set of unlocks, many of which were showcased throughout the session: accessible data analytics to visualize trade-offs, evidence-based field interventions, multi-sector governance platforms, and sequenced corridor investments. 

Yet, even with these operational tools in place, Dr Smith emphasized that the most stubborn barrier remains human. Transforming aspiration into action requires confronting the entrenched mindsets and working habits in both individuals and legacy institutions. Moving from aspiration to operationalization has been a long process, but we are now well down that pathway and fully equipped to take the next steps forward.

Novaira Junaid is a Socio-Economist at the International Water Management Institute (IWMI); Mohsin Hafeez is Strategic Program Director for Water, Food and Ecosystems at IWMI and Global Lead of AoW4 (WEFE Nexus Policy) under the CGIAR Policy Innovations Program; Tania Imran is a Water Management Expert at FutureWater; Claudia Ringler is Director of the Agrifood Innovation and Resilience Unit at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI); Vishwa Ranjan Sinha is a Senior Programme Officer at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN); Anton Urfels is a Senior Water Scientist at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI); Yumiko Asayama is Chief Manager at the Japan Water Forum; Satoshi Ishii is Director of the Strategy and Partnerships Team at the Asian Development Bank (ADB); Tanya Huizer is a Senior Water Resilience Specialist at ADB; and Mark Smith is Director General of IWMI.

This work was carried out under the CGIAR Initiative on NEXUS Gains and finalized with support from the CGIAR Policy Innovations Program. We would like to thank all funders who supported this research through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund (www.cgiar.org/funders).

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