Water, energy, and food security are inextricably linked to each other (Olsson, 2013; Lawford et al., 2013). The persistence of sectoral approaches to policy-making and segmented frameworks for planning and decision-making, however, fostered key resource constraints and environmental governance failures (Leck et al., 2015). The nexus between water, energy, and food security (in the following: W-E-F) aims to address these limitations by focusing on the complex interactions between these resources and their dynamics with the goal of identifying of more appropriate approaches and methods for successful cross-sectoral integration and realising positive synergies between them (Pittock et al. 2013). Despite the lack of clear definitions or characterizations of the W-E-F nexus, it rests on the normative basis that effective governance and the promotion of resource security is based on the identification and accommodation of cross-sectoral, multi-scale policy interdependencies, the reduction of mismatches in policy making, and increased synergies (Benson et al., 2015; Bizikova et al., 2013).
Despite this strong focus on integration, cooperation, and coherence, only limited attention is paid on how to analytically grasp and operationalise policy coherence and fragmentation to make it accessible for empirical research and ultimately to policy recommendations. Hence, this research paper strives to address this gap by providing an understanding of the role of policy coherence in the study of the W-E-F nexus. Policy coherence (May et al., 2006) and integration (Visseren-Hamakers, 2015; see e.g. Jordan and Lenschow, 2010) are defined as “the consistency of policy goals and instruments and the reduction of conflicts within and between policy domains” (Kivimaa and Virkamäki 2014, 30, drawing on May, Saptichne, and Workman 2006). Drawing on the established literature in the field, coherence is theorized as a multi-dimensional concept, including the goals, intentions, institutional settings, and actual measures. Considering the complex, multi-scalar interactions characterising the W-E-F nexus, coherence will be grasped horizontally between states, sectors and policies, and vertically in the nested multi-level governance system (cf. Reyes-Mendy et al., 2014).
To illustrate and empirically support the relevance of policy coherence a comparative case study of two multi-level systems will be conducted. The cases of Lower Saxony and Transylvania were chosen as they offer two very different configurations when it comes to the interlinkages between water, food, and energy. While Lower Saxony is characterized by intensive agriculture and increasing energy crop production, Transylvania is still a rather traditional rural landscape that still plays an important role in providing for the livelihood of the population. Beyond, these cases differ considerably in their institutional set-up and embeddedness into their respective multi-level governance systems. Lower Saxony, as a German federal state, possesses considerable autonomies, while in Romania the national level serves as the prime actor. Hence, the setting provides for an apt comparison of the institutional accommodation of the W-E-F nexus, particularly regarding the coherence of their policies and may lend itself to further insights for the wider study of the nexus.
Presentation

Mainstreaming the ecosystem services (ES) concept in EU policy-making comes along with great expectations from practitioners, policy-makers, and scientists to improve environmental policy and halt the loss of biodiversity. This presentation, first, addresses three major conceptual challenges for such a mainstreaming: the need for (1) vertical and (2) horizontal policy integration, and (3) the question of stakeholder involvement in policy-making. Second, this paper investigates empirically the way in which – and the extent to which – selected EU policies, covering policy fields ranging from biodiversity and water policies to climate policies and policies for rural and urban areas as well as a mobility and infrastructure-related policy, enable or impede the mainstreaming process. Here, the design of those policies at EU level as well as their implementation in the EU Member States and at regional level is looked at. This presentation assesses how existing EU policies address ES explicitly or implicitly. Further, it investigates the extent to which the different policies at the level of definitions, objectives, and implementation (including policy type, mode of steering, reporting, monitoring, evaluation, and financing mechanisms) are able and ready to incorporate the ES concept to ‘produce’ a meaningful and integrated policy, focussing on the Water-Energy-Food Nexus. Here, the presentation draws empirically on a review of legal, policy, and scientific documents, on a focus group with policy-makers from several EU Directorate Generals, and regional case studies. The results may help to estimate the potential of the ES concept, the related governance challenges, and the impact of EU policies for providing water, food and energy security.
Presentation

Institutional fit is operationalized by transferring transaction costs economics (TCE) to the analysis of instances of social-ecological interdependence.We carefully spell out the differences with conventional TCE and outline analytical steps based on discriminating alignment that enable a TCE analysis of environmental governance of “nature-related transactions”. In applying TCE to nature-related transactions, we argue that characteristics of nature-related transactions can be subsumed under the core categories of jointness, uncertainty, asset specificity, frequency, rivalry, excludability and social relational distance. Benefits of this approach include its generating a narrow list of descriptors of instances of biophysically-mediated interdependence related to one evaluation criterion: cost-effectiveness. The TCE of nature-related transactions thus identifies sets of stylized contextual factors and aspects related to the governance of hazards of ex-post opportunistic behavior that cut across scales. They can be used as composite descriptors that facilitate analysis of complex multi-scalar arrangements of natural resource governance. We propose the concept of ‘governance challenge’, derived from TCE, as being useful for building research on environmental governance. We particularly spell out how biophysically mediated interdependence, conceptualized as jointness can be analyzed from a governance perspective addressing the degree of modularity of governance arrangement. In that way, our conceptualization directly relates to nexus governance, for example in relation to water and energy,and its evaluation.

The paper will reflect on some of the main aspects that emerged in a Foresight study commissioned by the EU DG RTD looking at “The water-energy-food nexus: Foresight for Research and innovation in the context of climate change”, an 8th month long study undertaken in 2015 that combined elite interviews, expert surveys and a global RTD Delphi study. In particular, the paper will zoom on aspects related to governance and the main results in the study in relation to Nexus Policy Coherence and Multi-Level Nexus Governance. The results point to three main issues: first) the central role of participative governance and bottom up approaches as pillars for integrated resource management. That is the central importance of decentralised solutions and the local level. Second) this emphasis is balanced with the need to have a clear political will, vision and ultimately action. Third), and finally experts raised the geopolitical nature of these resources, and changes in geopolitical and geo-economic powers are highlighted for future potential impacts. Regions mentioned as of particular identified nexus relevance were China, the Middle East and North Africa, together with the governance of corporations, Finally, the paper will reflect on what it means for nexus governance to tackle new challenges with a ‘security first’ agenda.
Presentation