Energy-Water-Food-Environment Nexus and Circular Economy: A Systematic Review

Abstract

The increasing demand for essential resources such as water, food, and energy will hurt the environment. Nexus thinking emerges as a way of thinking about the interdependence of multiple resource flows within a specific temporal and spatial context, such as energy, water, and food flows in a region. The nexus approach is a type of systems thinking that focuses on natural resource interdependence and how that interdependence can be managed and steered into more integrated and sustainable configurations. The goals of this paper are to systematically review existing research on the energy-water-food-environment nexus and circular economy implementation globally published in the last five years (2019 – 2023) and to identify future research needs in the context of Indonesia. The Scopus database was used in this study. Microsoft Excel and VOS viewer software were applied for the bibliometric analysis. Almost all of the articles reviewed in this study were taken place in other countries. Energy, water, and food security as well as environmental sustainability have become major challenges in Indonesia. Therefore, research regarding the energy-waterfood-environment nexus and circular economy to support the SDGs for Indonesia context is required in the future.