Co-producing knowledge for Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystem Nexus Transition through Responsible Research and Innovation – results from four Mediterranean Countries

<p>Climate change mitigation is becoming increasingly important for curbing severe hydrological events and at the same time for effectively managing natural resources. The nexus among water, energy, food, and ecosystem has recently evolved as a resource-management concept to cope with this interlinked set of resources, their complex interactions and their effect on the natural, innovation and social ecosystems. The transitioning towards the Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystem (WEFE) Nexus for climate change mitigation requires knowledge exchange and co-production among resource managers, policymakers, farmers and other societal-stakeholders, and scientists.&#160;&#160;&#160; &#160;&#160;For such WEFE-NEXUS transformation and adoption, it is necessary for actors and stakeholders to actively participate in the WEFE-NEXUS transition process and to take co-ownership of the&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160; &#160;transition. In this respect, the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and its application through the RRI Roadmap is very suitable for facilitating the transition towards WEFE-Nexus. The RRI Roadmap applies an interactive process, where societal stakeholders, scientists andpolicymakers actively engage to share knowledge and to together co-define, co-design and co-construct a WEFE-Nexus Transition vision and plan with solutions and services.</p><p>&#160;</p><p>This paper will illustrate how the RRI Roadmap has been applied for creating interdisciplinary knowledge co-production collaborations for co-designing and co-agreeing a WEFE-Nexus transition. The paper shows how individual disciplinary perspectives can converge and how these converged perspectives have fed the adaptation of hydrological models to specific conditions. This is part of the work executed in the EU PRIMA-funded project NEXUS-NESS, where the RRI Roadmap has been applied for transitioning towards WEFE-Nexus. The paper exemplifies the preliminary results of activities where social stakeholders together with scientists and policymakers have been actively engaged to co-produce knowledge in four locations: a) Cornia watershed, in coastal Tuscany, Italy; b) Duero watershed, Spain, c) Wadi Jir watershed in Tunisia and d) Wadi Naghamishwatershed, Egypt.</p>