Research

INTRODUCTION

Food-energy-water (FEW) nexus governance is the collaboration between stakeholders in decision making and the development of coordinated policy across the three resources (Lele et al. 2013). As an approach for managing the relationships, trade-offs, and co-benefits between the three resources, it can simultaneously increase food, energy, and water security by considering the connections between the resources, for enhancement of the human-environmental system (Pahl-Wostl 2019). The FEW nexus concept was developed in 2011 (Hoff 2011), emerging as an approach to address global sustainability challenges by interconnecting resources (Estoque 2023). Research on the FEW nexus has since grown rapidly, with over 1300 publications as of 2022 (Lv et al. 2023). As the FEW nexus has been argued to increase resource security and decrease unintended consequences (Hoff 2011, Finley and Seiber 2014, Leck et al. 2015), scholars have noted the potential of FEW nexus governance to improve sustainability and resilience within the system (Rasul 2016, Stephan et al. 2018, Hogeboom et al. 2021).

Despite the theoretical benefits of FEW nexus governance, numerous studies have noted the lack of implementation of nexus approaches in practice (Romero-Lankao et al. 2018, Opejin et al. 2020). Scholars have identified numerous barriers to this implementation, including lack of policy coherence, rigid sectoral regulations, and power asymmetries (Howarth and Monasterolo 2016, Liu et al. 2018, Pahl-Wostl 2019, Jones and White 2022). The identified barriers have spurred theoretical discussions of the governance factors that may support successful integrated governance across the three FEW nexus sectors, including policy coherence (Benson et al. 2015, Schreiner and Baleta 2015, Pahl-Wostl 2019), stakeholder participation (Roidt and Avellán 2019, Kapucu et al. 2023), and institutional capacity (Benson et al. 2015, Pahl-Wostl 2019, Urbinatti et al. 2020). However, most research examining such governance factors focuses on the theoretical conditions for FEW nexus integration or on the empirical identification of barriers to such governance. That is, there are relatively few empirical studies that explore the explicit causation, correlation, or association between theoretical governance conditions and realized nexus integration in practice.

To address this knowledge gap, this paper seeks to explore the association between theoretical conditions for nexus governance, including resource insecurity conditions and governance factors, and integrated FEW nexus practice. It seeks to answer the following research questions:

1. How are resource insecurity risks associated with FEW nexus collaboration in a city’s resilience planning?
2. How are theoretical governance conditions associated with practical FEW nexus collaboration in a city’s resilience planning?

Here, FEW nexus collaboration refers to the connection between food, energy, and water resource sectors. Addressing these research questions brings understanding to how theoretically proposed governance recommendations lead toward practical implementation of integrated FEW nexus approaches. This is important to increase nexus governance in practice. To answer these research questions, the study employs a fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) approach to examine 22 cities in the United States. An fsQCA is a set-theoretic method to identify the conditions that are necessary and sufficient to achieve a desired outcome (Schneider and Wagemann 2012). Set-theoretic methods, coming from set theory, are approaches to analyzing social phenomena by grouping cases together based on shared characteristics and considering the relations between those groups (Schneider and Wagemann 2012). It is an approach that integrates and analyzes qualitative and quantitative data together to determine associations between conditions and outcomes (Schneider and Wagemann 2012, Pappas and Woodside 2021). Thus, the fsQCA method was chosen because it allows for the integration of the richness of qualitative-based data with the generalizability of quantitative analysis, improving on the use of traditional qualitative or quantitative analyses individually (Pappas and Woodside 2021). It draws directionality in relationship based on the understanding of the theoretical literature (Schneider and Wagemann 2012). Additional details about the fsQCA methods are provided below. The approach here includes two fsQCA analyses using documents and secondary datasets: one with the three resource insecurity conditions of food, energy, and water insecurity and one with the three governance conditions of policy coherence, stakeholder participation, and institutional capacity. Taken together, these two analyses demonstrate how certain factors across resource insecurities and the governance landscape correspond specifically with FEW nexus governance, providing insight into increasing nexus governance in practice. They help address a debate in the literature with limited empirical evidence: does FEW nexus governance arise from pressures from a risk of resource insecurity, from pre-existing governance mechanisms, or both?

By exploring the conditions that support integrated FEW nexus practice, the research provides three important contributions. First, this study addresses calls for increased research on FEW nexus governance from an empirical perspective using qualitative methods. Previous scholars of FEW nexus research have noted the overrepresentation of quantitative over qualitative investigation (Albrecht et al. 2018, Wang et al. 2022) and the limited consideration of governance in nexus studies (Newell et al. 2019, Opejin et al. 2020). This study seeks to address these limitations in the literature by examining governance systems of the FEW nexus in practice using qualitative data. Second, it empirically considers the relationship between FEW nexus governance and resource security in resilience planning. Previous scholars have called for increased scholarship that examines governance of the FEW nexus within resilience (Hogeboom et al. 2021), thus this paper contributes toward this call. Third, it begins to explore the causal factors that lead cities to include a FEW nexus approach in governance practice, a research gap in the nexus governance literature (Mouraviev and Koulouri 2019). This supports recommendations for actions that implement FEW nexus governance in practice, as most studies focus only on the conceptual aspects of WEF nexus governance (Albrecht et al. 2018). Taken together, these three contributions are critical because they advance scholarship on FEW nexus governance to move toward deeper understanding and toward greater application of nexus governance practices.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

The conceptual framework considers integrated FEW nexus collaboration in cities’ resilience plans to be a result of present resource insecurity and of a supportive governance landscape, following arguments made by Hogeboom et al. (2021). The conceptual framework is presented in terms of the outcome and conditions in the fsQCA analysis by first introducing the outcome of FEW nexus collaboration in resilience planning and then presenting the conditions examined in this study. In fsQCA, the outcome is like a dependent variable and the conditions are similar to independent variables.

Outcome: FEW nexus collaboration in resilience planning

The outcome for the fsQCA is cross-sector FEW nexus collaboration within resilience planning. Considering outcomes of increased system resilience within FEW nexus studies has become increasingly common, as more comprehensive assessment of resource security shocks may come from a better understanding of the interactions between multiple resources. Both resilience and the FEW nexus seek to integrate governance and increase resource security (Hogeboom et al. 2021).

Nexus thinking is the focus on the interlinkages between resource sectors or sub-systems, to address social-ecological challenges in an integrated way (Allouche et al. 2015, Albrecht et al. 2018, Estoque 2023). It is similar to systems thinking (Estoque 2023), and here the focus is explicitly on nexus thinking related to the interconnections between food, energy, and water resources within governance. There are three framings of the food-energy-water nexus: as an analytical tool, as a conceptual framework or discourse, and as an approach to governance (Keskinen et al. 2016). Focusing on an approach to governance, the FEW nexus integrates across policies and decision-making sectors to address nexus interactions (Keskinen et al. 2016, Srigiri and Dombrowsky 2022). It argues that FEW nexus governance can reduce unintended consequences, increase resource security, and improve resilience of the system (Rasul 2016, Stephan et al. 2018). In governance, the FEW nexus is a useful concept to address complex challenges in resource management (Srigiri and Dombrowsky 2022), as it strives toward the sustainability of natural resources by promoting cooperative, coordinated governance and decentralized decision making (Yuan and Lo 2022).

Resilience is the ability of a system to “bounce back” after a disturbance or shock (Walker et al. 2004). Resilience is common in the social-ecological systems’ literature as a concept for understanding the broad interplay between components of a system, its response to outside shocks and stresses, and the decision-making processes that promote recovery from such shocks (Anderies et al. 2013). Resilience and nexus thinking, particularly in relation to food, energy, and water security issues, have increased in their overlap in the literature (Hogeboom et al. 2021). Both resilience and nexus thinking seek to address calls for integrated governance and practice for increased resource security outcomes (Hogeboom et al. 2021). This overlap emphasizes the shared goals between the two concepts and potential opportunities for increased resilience through a FEW nexus approach in governance. With this overlap in goals, urban resilience plans provide a landscape to examine FEW nexus integration, resource security, and governance. Table 1 provides an overview of the outcome variable and its associated measurement in the fsQCA.

Resource insecurity conditions enabling FEW nexus collaboration

The conditions for the first fsQCA were determined based on a review of the literature on key frameworks for resource insecurity conditions that may be associated with FEW nexus governance. Synthesizing across numerous papers (see citations below), it examined the three conditions of food, energy, and water insecurity to identify if cities that experience insecurity in one or more resource would also implement FEW nexus approaches to strive toward security. Scholars have argued that a FEW nexus approach to governance can increase resource security (Finley and Seiber 2014, Leck et al. 2015), and the FEW nexus concept emerged from concern around periods of resource insecurity (Allouche et al. 2015, Hogeboom et al. 2021). Thus, governance bodies may use the FEW nexus as an approach to address such security issues. Therefore, the first fsQCA considers the role of resource insecurity across all three nexus sectors (food insecurity, energy insecurity, and water insecurity) as conditions that provide a landscape for FEW nexus collaboration in practice.

In the second fsQCA, water is included as a contextual condition along with the governance conditions discussed below. FEW nexus practice may be likely where there is greater water insecurity, as suggested by the many nexus studies that have noted the centrality of water within nexus analysis and implementation (Finley and Seiber 2014, Allan et al. 2015, Hogeboom et al. 2021, Sušnik et al. 2023). Water has been found to be a key point of connection within the nexus and as an agent of change for governance implementation (Pahl-Wostl 2019, Sušnik et al. 2023). Table 2 provides an overview of the resource insecurity conditions and their associated measurements in the fsQCA.

Governance conditions enabling FEW nexus collaboration

The conditions for the second fsQCA were determined based on a targeted review of theoretical and empirical studies to identify the conditions that may contribute toward FEW nexus governance in practice. This literature was synthesized by identifying repeated governance conditions that occurred across multiple, widely cited papers on the factors within resource governance that may contribute toward improved outcomes (see citations below). Based on the literature, three governance factors were identified that are argued to increase the integration of governance between food, energy, and water sectors: policy coherence, stakeholder participation, and institutional capacity. Table 2 provides an overview of the governance conditions and their associated measurements in the fsQCA.

Policy coherence

Policy coherence is the presence of coordinated or integrated policies across food, energy, and water sectors (Benson et al. 2015, Schreiner and Baleta 2015, Pahl-Wostl 2019). It consists of coordinating and combining existing policies into a new one or considering the concerns of one policy in another (Gain et al. 2015). Policy coherence can reduce instances of redundancy or conflict between the policies, making the policy system more effective (Gain et al. 2015). Within the FEW nexus specifically, policy coherence can incorporate the interconnections between the three resources for more effective implementations (Bizikova et al. 2013, Benson et al. 2015, Pahl-Wostl 2019). Thus, policy coherence can reduce unintended consequences and negative trade-offs by including these interconnections from the outset of policy creation. Implementing FEW nexus policy in practice can be difficult because of the complex nature of sectoral policy systems (Benson et al. 2015). However, policy coherence is important for the implementation of FEW nexus approaches within a system (Schreiner and Baleta 2015), and an urban governance landscape that embraces policy coherence may also approach food, energy, and water systems with an integrated policy approach.

Stakeholder participation

Stakeholder participation is the intentional involvement of non-state actors in governance, management, and decision making (Roidt and Avellán 2019, Kapucu et al. 2023). In the case of food, energy, and water resources, as in other domains, it may involve community outreach, community-level empowerment, projects and programs in collaboration with stakeholders, and other activities. Including stakeholders in the governance of the interconnected FEW nexus is a needed step toward increased integration in practice (Kapucu et al. 2023). It can help to increase understanding of local FEW nexus systems and bring a diversity of knowledge types into the governance arena through knowledge sharing (Bielicki et al. 2019). This can thus lead to shared understanding of how to minimize trade-offs, explore synergies, and develop actions for change, can promote multi-stakeholder partnerships and collaborations for shared desired outcomes across the FEW nexus, and can produce shared solutions that are beneficial to local communities (Bizikova et al. 2013, Kliskey et al. 2021). Finally, stakeholder participation provides a direct avenue for the collaboration of actors across food, energy, and water resources. Thus, cities that provide an avenue for stakeholder participation may contain a governance landscape that supports FEW nexus governance.

Institutional capacity

Institutional capacity considers that the arrangements of rules, norms, strategies, and organizations are aligned with one another such that they can work together in accomplishing tasks (Benson et al. 2015, Pahl-Wostl 2019, Urbinatti et al. 2020). The application of institutional capacity used here comes from the polycentric governance literature (Ostrom 2010, Pahl-Wostl and Knieper 2014, Pahl-Wostl 2019). A lack of institutional coordination can be a barrier for integrated governance within the FEW nexus (Benson et al. 2015), so systems that overcome this barrier may be more likely to effectively implement FEW nexus governance approaches. The study operationalizes institutional capacity using the dimensions of polycentric governance that lead toward adaptive capacity from Pahl-Wostl and Knieper (2014): power sharing, horizontal coordination, and vertical coordination. These three dimensions support institutional capacity because adaptive capacity can be considered the precondition for coordinated institutional arrangements (Fidelman et al. 2017).

Power sharing refers to the level to which decision-making power within resilience planning is distributed across the different FEW nexus sectors. Power imbalance among the sectors has been identified as a barrier to FEW nexus coordination and governance because it can cause the policy or lobbying of one sector to dominate over another (Pahl-Wostl 2019, Jones and White 2022). Polycentric governance emphasizes the significance of distributed power centers as important for effective coordination structures because it can allow for more flexible decision making and provision of services (Pahl-Wostl and Knieper 2014). Similarly, high levels of power imbalances between organizations or sectors can hinder positive outcomes from governance engagements (Ansell and Gash 2008). Thus, power sharing within governance environments may lead toward greater FEW nexus integration.

Both horizontal and vertical coordination are important for managing complex, integrated systems such as the FEW nexus (Pahl-Wostl 2019). Horizontal coordination is the level of coordination and collaboration between food, energy, and water sectors and organizations. It helps to overcome the challenge of sector mismatch or imbalance, where the structural differences between the sectors inhibit effective outcomes in FEW nexus governance (Jones and White 2022). This inter-sectoral coordination allows for better governance and understanding of the trade-offs between resources (Pahl-Wostl and Knieper 2014, Leck et al. 2015).

Vertical coordination is the level of coordination and collaboration between different levels of governance and government. These levels can include coordination across national, subnational, and local government levels, as well as between organization types such as government and grassroots organizations. Multi-level coordination across different levels of decision making is key for avoiding scale mismatch, which can undermine the collaborative process (Cumming et al. 2006). It may also lead toward greater resource security for all three FEW nexus resources (Pahl-Wostl 2019).

METHODS

To understand what combinations of conditions contribute toward the outcome, FEW collaboration in resilience planning, the study employed fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. The fsQCA method is an approach to describe cases as configurations of conditions that lead toward a particular outcome (Schneider and Wagemann 2012). It provides a way to understand selected cases through their conditions, developing pathways toward the outcome of interest. The QCA method has become more popular over time (Thomann et al. 2022) and has been used to examine the conditions of related empirical domains (e.g., Pahl-Wostl and Knieper 2014, Molenveld et al. 2021).

Sample

All United States’ cities with resilience plans within the Resilient Cities Network (RCN) is the inclusion criteria. The RCN, started by the Rockefeller Foundation, is a group of cities that bring together their knowledge and skills to support one another in developing social, economic, and environmental resilience. All of the cities in the network have committed to prioritizing resilience by appointing a Chief Resilience Officer and developing a city-wide resilience plan. These cities were selected because membership in the network implies that a city has prioritized resilience planning and has allocated resources for such plans. Although 25 U.S. cities are part of the RCN, only 22 were included in the study because the remaining 3 had not yet developed resilience plans as of the date of study (September 2022).

Data collection

The study used multiple sources of data: resilience plans, water insecurity metrics, energy reliability measures, and food insecurity measures. The outcome (FEW nexus collaboration) and the three governance conditions (policy coherence, stakeholder participation, and institutional support) were collected from resilience plans from each of the cities. The resilience plans outline the strategy of governance approaches for developing resilience in the city, focused on actions for the resilience of the social, economic, and environmental aspects of the city. Each resilience plan was developed by the city government in partnership with residents, local stakeholders, and the RCN. The list of the included resilience plans can be found in Appendix 1.

For the water insecurity condition, this study used the database from the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy [date unknown]). This network of cities has committed to investing in climate and energy initiatives for a more resilient future. Cities within the network report on the risk of climate-related disasters, and the data on the water-related risk of drought from this database was used. For the few cities that did not list water risks, data on the future probability of water risk from the Cities Climate Hazards dataset in the CDP (formerly Climate Disclosure Project) database was used (CDP 2021). This dataset, which includes city-reported data on climate hazards, is connected to the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy. Finally, the remaining cities without data used the drought sensitivity risk from the Urban Adaptation Assessment, a tool developed by University of Notre Dame researchers to evaluate key measures of climate risk and readiness (University of Notre Dame 2019). No single dataset contained data for all the cities in the study.

For the energy insecurity condition, this study used reliability data for cities’ electricity utilities from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (US EIA 2020). It used the Customer Average Interruption Duration Index (CAIDI) measure of electricity reliability, which is the average number of minutes that the power is out from a power outage. It used the CAIDI value without major events, as this gives a good picture of normal operations (IEEE 2012).

For the food insecurity condition, this study used data for the percentage of people using Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits from the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC 2019). Higher levels of enrollment in SNAP demonstrate lower levels of food insecurity (Mabli et al. 2013).

Data analysis

The study used MAXQDA 2022 qualitative data analysis software to conduct qualitative coding on the resilience plans. Theoretical literature was used to develop a codebook (see Appendix 4) for coding the outcome and governance conditions. The plans were manually coded using deductive thematic coding. The coding was then used to qualitatively classify the outcome and governance conditions into groups for QCA analysis (Table 2).

Using fsQCA to analyze the conditions that lead toward FEW nexus collaboration in resilience planning, the study followed the protocols provided by Oana et al. (2021) and Schneider and Wagemann (2012). In fsQCA, conditions and the outcome are regarded as sets, and cases are assigned membership scores between 0 and 1 of non-membership or membership, respectively, for each of these sets (Schneider and Wagemann 2012). A membership score of 0 indicates that a case is fully a non-member of that set, while a membership score of 1 indicates that a case is fully a member. With fsQCA, there can also be partial memberships. A case with a membership score of 0.33 is mostly out of the set, while a membership score of 0.67 is mostly in the set. The process of assigning scores of set-membership to each case based on the data is called calibration (Schneider and Wagemann 2012). This used a four-value calibration structure to determine the membership of each of the cases. The four-value calibration allows for partial membership in each of the conditions and outcomes, rather than a dichotomous approach of being either fully in or fully out of the set, which allows for greater detail to be retained for each case. Tables 1 and 2 show the membership scores for the outcome and the conditions. The calibration data table can be found in Appendix 2.

The study conducted two fsQCA analyses with the six conditions above. The combinations of conditions that were included are based on theoretical understanding of nexus thinking. The first analysis included the three conditions of food insecurity, energy insecurity, and water insecurity. This identifies pathways of resource insecurity measures that lead cities to implement nexus collaboration in their resilience planning because experiencing greater resource insecurity risk may make a case more likely to implement novel approaches such as FEW nexus integration (Romero-Lankao and Gnatz 2019). Because the FEW nexus originally held a strong resource security focus when it emerged at the World Economic Forum in 2011 (Hoff 2011), cities that experience resource insecurity may be more likely to implement nexus approaches to increase their resilience of resources against disaster. The second analysis included the three governance conditions of policy coherence, stakeholder participation, and institutional support, because these governance conditions have been identified as important for the successful implementation of nexus collaboration in practice (Benson et al. 2015, Schreiner and Baleta 2015, Pahl-Wostl 2019, Roidt and Avellán 2019, Urbinatti et al. 2020, Kapucu et al. 2023). This second analysis also included the condition of water insecurity; other studies have suggested that water may be the center of the nexus, over insecurity in the other two resources (Ringler et al. 2013, Finley and Seiber 2014, Allan et al. 2015, Pahl-Wostl 2019, Sušnik et al. 2023). The other resource insecurity conditions—energy insecurity and food insecurity—were not considered as aspects because these two conditions have less evidence in previous literature that they are the center of FEW nexus considerations (Hogeboom et al. 2021) and to limit the number of combinations of conditions.

Both fsQCA analyses used the QCA package (Dusa 2019) and the Set Methods package (Oana and Schneider 2018) in R version 4.2.1. Each analysis conducted tests of necessity and of sufficiency. Analyzing both necessary and sufficient conditions are important steps for best practice in QCA (Schneider and Wagemann 2012).

An analysis of necessity is used to determine any necessary conditions for the outcome. If a condition is necessary, whenever the outcome is present, that condition is required to be present (Schneider and Wagemann 2012). To analyze the necessary conditions, the study evaluated the consistency and coverage values of the conditions. Consistency values are the level to which the condition consistently leads to the same outcome (Schneider and Wagemann 2012). Coverage values are the level of importance of a condition as necessary or sufficient (Schneider and Wagemann 2012). Conditions are considered necessary if their consistency score is 0.9 or higher (Rihoux and Ragin 2008) and their coverage score is 0.51 or higher (Oana et al. 2021). Best practice for analyses of necessity examines both the conditions and the negated conditions; negated conditions are the logical complement to the conditions (e.g., NOT water insecure, NOT having policy coherence) and denoted by the “~” symbol. Analyses of necessity were conducted for each of the two fsQCA analyses.

An analysis of sufficiency is used to determine any sufficient conditions for the outcome. If a condition is sufficient, then whenever that condition is present, the outcome is also present (Schneider and Wagemann 2012). Analyzing the sufficient conditions involves two steps: creating a truth table and minimizing it. A truth table contains all the logical combinations of the possible conditions in the rows of the table (8 combinations for the first analysis and 16 combinations for the second analysis) and assigns cases to each of the corresponding rows. Table 3 displays the truth table for the first fsQCA on resource insecurity conditions, and Table 4 displays the truth table for the second fsQCA on governance conditions. Based on the assigned cases, rows are then assigned values for the outcome depending on whether the cases show that that combination of conditions consistently leads to the same outcome. For example, in the seventh row (row no. 1) of Table 3, the case “Boston” scores 0-0-0 on the conditions and 0 on the outcome for the resource insecurity truth table. This means that, for this case and all the cases in this row, all three conditions are absent and nexus collaboration (the outcome) does not occur consistently. Each of the two fsQCA analyses created a truth table based on the calibrated data matrix, displayed in Tables 3 and 4. Truth table minimization, the second step in the analysis of sufficiency, is the process of reducing logical contradictions in the truth table for a simplified solution term. In the analysis of sufficiency, as in the analysis of necessity, it is important to consider the consistency and coverage parameters. The threshold for consistency values was set to 0.75 and the threshold for coverage values to 0.51 in the analysis of sufficiency because these values fit with best practice recommendations (Schneider and Wagemann 2012, Oana et al. 2021). Each of the two fsQCA analyses minimized the truth table to identify the configurations of conditions that are associated with the presence of the outcome. The conservative solution is presented below, which only considers the truth table rows with empirical evidence (Schneider and Wagemann 2012); this is a modest approach to analysis and interpretation. The intermediate and parsimonious solutions are in Appendix 3.

RESULTS

The results of the fsQCA analyses show that there are four configurations of governance conditions that enable cities to include nexus collaboration in resilience planning. Below are the results of the two fsQCA analyses, first presenting the analyses of necessity and sufficiency for the resource insecurity conditions and then presenting the analyses of necessity and sufficiency for the governance conditions.

Resource insecurity conditions

The first fsQCA included three conditions for resource insecurity: food insecurity, energy insecurity, and water insecurity. Below are the results of the analyses of necessary conditions and sufficient conditions.

Necessary conditions

The analysis of necessity shows that none of the resource insecurity conditions are necessary for the outcome of nexus collaboration to be present in resilience planning. Conditions should only be considered necessary if their consistency score is 0.9 or higher (Rihoux and Ragin 2008). Based on the calculated consistency values (Table 5), none of the conditions are considered necessary for the outcome nexus collaboration.

Sufficient Conditions

The analysis of sufficiency shows that none of the resource insecurity conditions are sufficient for the outcome of nexus collaboration to be present in resilience planning. In the truth table for resource insecurity conditions (Table 3), all the output values were coded as zero because none of the cases had a consistency over the threshold of 0.75. Therefore, the analysis of sufficiency shows that there are no sufficient resource insecurity conditions for the outcome.

Governance conditions

The second fsQCA included the three conditions for nexus governance—policy coherence, stakeholder participation, and institutional support—and the context condition of water insecurity. Below are the results of the analyses of necessary and sufficient conditions.

Necessary conditions

The analysis of necessity shows that none of the governance conditions are necessary for the outcome of nexus collaboration to be present in resilience planning. Because conditions should only be considered necessary if their consistency score is 0.9 or higher (Rihoux and Ragin 2008), none of the conditions has a value that meets the threshold (Table 6). This indicates that neither policy coherence, nor stakeholder participation, nor institutional support, nor being a city that experiences water insecurity is a necessary condition for nexus collaboration in resilience planning.

Sufficient conditions

The analysis of sufficiency shows there are four configurations of conditions that enable cities to include nexus collaboration (NC) in resilience planning (Table 7). These four configurations are briefly presented below and expanded upon in the discussion. The consistency of the solution formula was 0.874, which means that the empirical evidence supports these configurations indeed being sufficient for the outcome because this is above the consistency threshold of 0.75 (Schneider and Wagemann 2012). The coverage value of the solution formula was 0.618, which means that 61.8% of the cases that contain the outcome are explained by the solution formula. Note that Houston appears in all four configurations because it has all four conditions, though a minimum of three are sufficient for the outcome.

Configuration 1 (WI*PC*SP → NC) shows that cities that experience water insecurity and that have policy coherence and stakeholder participation in their governance structure do incorporate FEW nexus collaboration in their resilience planning. This configuration applies to two cases: Honolulu and Houston.

Configuration 2 (WI*PC*IS → NC) shows that cities that experience water insecurity and that have policy coherence and institutional support in their governance structure do incorporate FEW nexus collaboration in their resilience planning. This configuration applies to three cases: Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Houston.

Configuration 3 (WI*SP*IS → NC) shows that cities that experience water insecurity and that have stakeholder participation and institutional support in their governance structure do incorporate FEW nexus collaboration in their resilience planning. This configuration applied to two cases: Berkeley and Houston.

Configuration 4 (PC*SP*IS → NC) shows that cities that have policy coherence, institutional support, and stakeholder participation do contain FEW nexus collaboration in their resilience planning, regardless of whether or not the city experiences water insecurity. This configuration applies to two cases: New York and Houston.

DISCUSSION

The four configurations of sufficient conditions show that cities that experience water insecurity ought to possess two of the three governance conditions—policy coherence, stakeholder participation, or institutional support—to incorporate FEW nexus collaboration in their resilience planning. However, for cities that may not experience water insecurity, all three governance conditions are needed to implement FEW nexus collaboration. Based on this finding, the discussion presents (i) an examination of the individual conditions in relation to the theoretical expectations and examples from the case cities, (ii) the implications of the two analyses on resource insecurity and governance conditions, (iii) recommendations for incorporating nexus collaboration into resilience planning, and (iv) limitations of this study.

Conditions for FEW nexus collaboration

Resource insecurity alone is not sufficient for a city to implement nexus collaboration. The results show that for the resource insecurity conditions—food insecurity, energy insecurity, and water insecurity—no single condition nor combination of only resource insecurity conditions is sufficient for a city to include nexus collaboration in resilience planning. This finding emphasizes the shift away from FEW nexus approaches being merely about resource insecurity toward a broader framing that includes policy implications and governance configurations (Pahl-Wostl 2019, Zhu et al. 2020). However, the condition water insecurity in combination with two governance conditions (Configurations 1, 2, and 3), representing five cities, does appear consistently with the outcome nexus collaboration, suggesting that cities with concerns about water scarcity may need fewer governance preconditions to implement nexus approaches.

For the condition policy coherence, integrated or coordinated policies can contribute toward nexus collaboration in resilience planning. For example, in Atlanta, resilience planning involves integrating urban agriculture into policies related to land use and conservation, creating policy coherence across multiple departments and disciplines. A tendency toward policy coherence in a city demonstrates the willingness to consider how distinct resources and concerns could be integrated together, which thus provides a foundation for coordinated policies specifically between food, energy, and water resources (Benson et al. 2015, Pahl-Wostl 2019).

For the condition stakeholder participation, the inclusion of stakeholders in the decision-making process can contribute toward nexus collaboration in resilience planning. For example, in Los Angeles, the city government is working to revitalize the Los Angeles River by engaging with community members and various stakeholders to create and implement a river revitalization plan. Although all the resilience planning processes included stakeholders in plan development, cities with a culture of stakeholder inclusion beyond the planning process demonstrate a greater commitment to stakeholder participation in the long-term. This allows for increased spaces for diverse stakeholders to be involved and where food, energy, and water organizations outside of local government may be able to participate in decision making, resource management, and governance, increasing opportunities for FEW nexus implementation (Roidt and Avellán 2019, Kapucu et al. 2023).

For the condition institutional support, strong institutional support can contribute toward nexus collaboration. Institutional support includes three components that are important for nexus collaboration and governance. First, power imbalances are key barriers to nexus governance (Pahl-Wostl 2019) because they can hinder communication channels and collaborative decision-making opportunities (Howarth and Monasterolo 2016, Jones and White 2022); thus, power sharing is important for distribution of authority and influence across interested parties because distributed power is an important component for an institutional environment that supports integrated and nexus governance (Pahl-Wostl and Knieper 2014). For example, in Houston, the city is sharing power and responsibility with the neighboring Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD), where the city will have responsibility for all the storm sewers and HCFCD will be responsible for other channels to manage flood risks. Second, horizontal coordination provides a governance environment where tasks are allocated across different departments or organizations at the same level, providing an environment for coordination across food, energy, and water departments and organizations (Pahl-Wostl and Knieper 2014). For example, in Chicago, the city government is partnering with ComEd, the local electrical company, to promote affordable housing for low-income residents with energy efficient and affordability power systems. Finally, similar to horizontal coordination, cities with an environment of vertical coordination share responsibilities across different levels of decision making, which provides opportunities for new governance configurations that implement nexus collaboration. For example, in New York City, the city government is partnering with the state to preserve upstate farmland that protects the city’s water supply and feeds the residents of the city.

Implications of identified pathways toward nexus collaboration

The finding that resource insecurity alone is not sufficient for cities to include nexus collaboration in their resilience planning is an important contribution to the literature because logic suggests that cities may be more likely to implement nexus collaboration when faced with resource insecurity. This is because the FEW nexus was originally presented as an approach to improve resource security (Hoff 2011, Lele et al. 2013, Leck et al. 2015). However, the findings demonstrate that resource insecurity alone is not sufficient for cities in the United States to implement nexus approaches in resilience planning. This supports the framing of the FEW nexus moving beyond analyzing resource flows toward considering governance of the nexus in practice (Newell et al. 2019, Zhu et al. 2020). Although this may hold true across the Global North, future research is necessary to identify how cities in the Global South that experience different forms of resource insecurity may consider FEW nexus collaboration in governance and planning.

The analysis of governance conditions with water insecurity demonstrates that different configurations of governance conditions provide pathways toward nexus collaboration in city resilience planning. Of the four configurations of sufficient conditions, cities that experienced water insecurity ought to possess at least two of the three governance conditions—policy coherence, stakeholder participation, or institutional support—to include nexus collaboration in their resilience planning. All three governance conditions have been identified in previous FEW nexus literature as being important for nexus governance (Benson et al. 2015, Schreiner and Baleta 2015, Pahl-Wostl 2019, Roidt and Avellán 2019, Urbinatti et al. 2020, Kapucu et al. 2023), in line with the findings here. However, for cities in this study that may not experience water insecurity, all three governance conditions were needed to develop a sufficient pathway toward the outcome. As scholars have noted the centralization of water within FEW nexus framing and practice (Sušnik et al. 2023), this may be because the FEW nexus emerged from the water space (Allouche et al. 2015, Hogeboom et al. 2021) and is seen as an extension of Integrated Water Resource Management (Benson et al. 2015, Roidt and Avellán 2019). Thus, increased urgency in addressing the water scarcity issues may make cities more likely to elevate water in their decision making (Sullivan et al. 2019) and consider new integrated approaches to resilience for increased water security.

Recommendations for implementation

Based on the identified pathways, there are two recommendations for the incorporation of nexus collaboration into resilience planning. First, cities that do experience water insecurity should implement at least two governance conditions into their resilience planning and governance. This would provide a governance landscape that is conducive for a nexus collaboration in resilience planning, especially while addressing water insecurity. Which conditions to pursue is up to the city. Second, cities that do not experience water insecurity should strive to implement all three governance conditions into their resilience planning. This implementation would create a foundation for nexus collaboration because a strong governance environment may be needed to implement integrated FEW nexus approaches into resilience planning and practice without the urgency of impending water stress.

Limitations

Although the study here provides an important contribution toward the consideration of the overlap between resilience and the FEW nexus, there are some limitations of the study. First, using resilience plans alone may not cover all adaptation measures in a city because resilience plans demonstrate intention rather than an assessment of actual implementation of practice, and the plans have limited explicit mention of the term “FEW nexus.” Future research should consider approaches to evaluate how implemented resilience actions (beyond simply resilience planning) connect to FEW nexus integration. Additionally, the fsQCA method is limited by only being able to consider a small number of conditions in analyses with small N case studies (Schneider and Wagemann 2012); there may be other conditions not considered here that contribute toward the outcome of nexus collaboration. Future work should employ additional methods to further investigate relationships of causality.

CONCLUSION

Previous studies have presented theoretical physical and governance conditions for food-energy-water nexus collaboration, however there is limited explanation of how the configurations of these theoretical conditions can lead toward nexus collaboration in practice. To investigate this association between theoretical conditions and realized outcomes, the study conducted a fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis, an approach to analyze the depth of qualitative data and the generalizability of quantitative analysis together. Examining the 22 U.S. cities in the Resilient Cities Network, it found that no single factor can explain nexus collaboration, but a combination of factors can. Although no combination of resource insecurity conditions is sufficient to lead toward FEW nexus collaboration, there are four combinations of governance factors that do enable FEW nexus collaboration. These include the presence of two of the three explored governance factors—policy coherence, stakeholder participation, of institutional support—in cities that experience water insecurity and all three governance factors in cities that do not experience water insecurity. These findings are important because they demonstrate how theoretical governance characteristics may contribute toward FEW nexus integration in practice, an important contribution in understanding governance causality of the FEW nexus, and they can help to increase nexus integration in planning and practice in cities.

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