Back to Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems: the Nexus between Water, Energy and Food
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems: the Nexus between Water, Energy and Food

In this course you will become familiar with the ideas of the water-energy-food nexus and transdisciplinary thinking. You will learn to see your community or country as a complex social-ecological system and to describe its water, energy and food metabolism in the form of a pattern, as well as to map the categories of social actors. We will provide you with the tools to measure the nexus elements and to analyze them in a coherent way across scales and dimensions of analysis. In this way, your quantitative analysis will become useful for informed decision-making. You will be able to detect and quantify dependence on non-renewable resources and externalization of environmental problems to other societies and ecosystems (a popular ‘solution’ in the western world). Practical case studies, from both developed and developing countries, will help you evaluate the state-of-play of a given community or country and to evaluate possible solutions. Last but not least, you will learn to see pressing social-ecological issues, such as energy poverty, water scarcity and inequity, from a radically different perspective, and to question everything you’ve been told so far. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Part of the results and case studies presented have been developed within two projects: MAGIC and PARTICIPIA. However, the course does not reflect the views of the funding institutions or of the project partners as a whole, and the case studies were presented purely with an educational and illustrative purpose.

Status: Systems Thinking
Status: Social Impact
IntermediateCourse23 hours

Featured reviews

AL

5.0Reviewed Mar 31, 2018

Everybody should learn this !It will change my way of looking at sustainability as promised by Prof. Giampietro.THX

JR

5.0Reviewed Jun 30, 2024

Studying complexity science and my interest in ecological economics made this course a very nice complement!

AE

5.0Reviewed Jul 30, 2024

The content is so informative and invaluable, every single lesson was clear and straight to the point

MA

5.0Reviewed Nov 9, 2023

This course was amazing, it gave me an insight about the connection between water, energy and food.

NT

5.0Reviewed Jun 29, 2025

Great diverse overview! Appreciate the effort put into hearing different perspectives / speakers =)

RM

5.0Reviewed Jun 21, 2021

I found this course to be very interesting and a great overview of the science behind the WEF nexus.

SG

5.0Reviewed Sep 21, 2020

I am so grateful to all the teachers of this course. I am basically a social work student (miles away from science), but this was interesting and benefitting. That you very much

SR

5.0Reviewed Jan 21, 2023

Great learning experience, I enjoyed this course.

PP

5.0Reviewed Jan 23, 2021

this course changes your mind and the way you look at sustainability, with a real systemic view

LC

5.0Reviewed Mar 17, 2026

The most insightful course for each graduate related to environment sciences should have.

AD

5.0Reviewed Dec 12, 2019

Wonderful course about us and the environment! If you are a data loving philosopher this will be your dream (as it was for me) :) - Would love to get more lectures from this courses' teachers!

All reviews

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Xavier Gonzalez
1.0
Reviewed Jun 11, 2021
Anja Dhinagaran
5.0
Reviewed Dec 13, 2019
Ricardo Vargas Carpintero
5.0
Reviewed Apr 7, 2020
Gustavo Adolfo Delgado Alvarez
5.0
Reviewed Oct 21, 2017
Anthony Lehmann
5.0
Reviewed Mar 31, 2018
rob miller
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Reviewed Jun 22, 2021
Chantal Treinen
3.0
Reviewed Jun 4, 2020
Azra Tanovic
5.0
Reviewed Nov 6, 2019
Sutirtha Guha
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Reviewed Sep 21, 2020
Anibal Ayala-Raso
5.0
Reviewed Mar 13, 2019
Martin Calisto
5.0
Reviewed Feb 12, 2018
Marina Ravicini
4.0
Reviewed May 29, 2020
Scott Podvin
4.0
Reviewed Apr 22, 2019
Martin Elizalde Lecuona
5.0
Reviewed May 24, 2021
Niveditha Barige Rajaram
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Reviewed Jun 18, 2022
Taurai Chigovanyika
5.0
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Nicolas Sarmiento Sierra
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Reviewed Sep 24, 2020
Jeremy Roy
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Abdelrahman abdelmoeen mohamed elkemary
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Reviewed Jul 31, 2024
Niklas Todenhoefer
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Reviewed Jun 30, 2025