Water-Energy Nexus, Sustainable Development and Low-Carbon Transitions: A New Era of Advancing Technology, Engineering, Management and Governance of Water

Dear Colleagues,

Water and energy are indispensable inputs to modern economies and sustainable development. In recent years, driven by the needs of addressing climate change, the energy and water sectors are facing new challenges and need rapid reforms. Historically, there has been a presumption that water was not a threat to energy security, nor energy a threat to water security. With the effects of climate change and the need to decarbonize, water–energy threats are increasingly reported, and more unanticipated threats are ahead of us.  The water–energy nexus is now in a new era. Reform not only requires innovating technologies and engineering, but also advancing our existing management and governance on water and energy. How to sustainably develop our water and energy sectors while decarbonizing is an inescapable issue. Opportunities and challenges both exist, and new insights are needed from collaboration to break the interface between disciplines, research and practice, as well as science and policy. 

This Special Issue is focused on novel approaches for water–energy analysis, planning and practices to meet the technical, economic, environmental and social challenges in the transition to decarbonized and sustainable water and energy sectors. Contributions to this Special Issue are expected to address the most debatable topics and most relevant challenges of today’s water–energy nexus.

The Special Issue welcomes manuscripts on topics from the following list (however, topics are not limited to only these):

• Energy-saving or -recovering water treatment technologies and engineering;
• Water footprint analysis of fossil fuels and renewables;
• International technical solutions that successfully couple energy and water generation, for instance, powering desalination plants with renewables;
• The role of pump-storage hydropower in decarbonization and sustainable development, including new pump-storage schemes that use old infrastructure or residues, e.g., mining sites;
• Co-benefits and side-effects of decarbonizing water sectors;
• The effects of water governance on energy supply and demand;
• The effects of energy governance on water demand;
• Water–energy–food nexus in climate change;
• Connecting water and energy through green hydrogen.

References

Hussey, K. and Pittock, J., 2012. The energy–water nexus: Managing the links between energy and water for a sustainable future. Ecology and society, 17(1).

Hamiche, A.M., Stambouli, A.B. and Flazi, S., 2016. A review of the water-energy nexus. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 65, pp.319-331.

Schnoor, J.L., 2011. Water–energy nexus. Environmental science & technology, 45(12), pp.5065-5065.

Scott, C.A., Pierce, S.A., Pasqualetti, M.J., Jones, A.L., Montz, B.E. and Hoover, J.H., 2011. Policy and institutional dimensions of the water–energy nexus. Energy Policy, 39(10), pp.6622-6630.

Chang, S., Hu, C., Beyhaqi, A., Wang, M. and Zeng, Q., 2019. Highly efficient hydrogen and electricity production combined with degradation of organics based on a novel solar water-energy nexus system. ACS applied materials & interfaces, 12(2), pp.2505-2515.

Kim, S., Piao, G., Han, D.S., Shon, H.K. and Park, H., 2018. Solar desalination coupled with water remediation and molecular hydrogen production: a novel solar water-energy nexus. Energy & Environmental Science, 11(2), pp.344-353.

Panagopoulos, A., 2021. Water-energy nexus: desalination technologies and renewable energy sources. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 28(17), pp.21009-21022.

Salehi, A.A., Ghannadi-Maragheh, M., Torab-Mostaedi, M., Torkaman, R. and Asadollahzadeh, M., 2020. A review on the water-energy nexus for drinking water production from humid air. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 120, p.109627.

Mehrjerdi, H., 2020. Modeling and optimization of an island water-energy nexus powered by a hybrid solar-wind renewable system. Energy, 197, p.117217.

Dr. Jiayu Xu
Dr. Meng Peng
Dr. Hongzhang Xu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• decarbonization
• energy policy
• energy–water nexus
• governance
• just transition
• integrated management
• water policy