Water, Energy and Food are the key resources to sustain life as well as global, regional and national economies. Exacerbating demands of the three resources combined with concerns over environmental and climate change presents a set of scientific, policy and management issues that are critical for sustainability. The three resources are interlinked in many ways. Understanding and quantifying the links and addressing them can contribute to efficient use and sustainable management of these resources. The term “nexus”, which emerged as the ‘new kid in the block’ of development disclosures since 2008, can best describe the interconnections between the three resources. It has shifted the focus of water resources management from ‘watersheds’ to ‘problem-sheds’ and from ‘what society should do for water’ to ‘what water can do for society’. It addresses the concerns of key constituencies, governments and their citizens and business. It has therefore been the highly debated topic in most of the international flora. The “nexus” has been discussed, researched, and advocated widely since 2008. However they are mostly focused either on “water-energy” or “water-food” or “energy-food” domains. To get the real benefit of the nexus approach in terms of resource use efficiency, it is necessary to understand, operationalize and practice the nexus of all the three resources, i.e., water-energy-food. However, there are very limited knowledgebase and publications in the arena. To contribute to the global debate on water-energy-food nexus through knowledgebase generation, we propose to develop an edited book titled “water-energy-food nexus: principles and practices”. The single volume of the proposed book covers theoretical and/or conceptual aspects of the water-energy-food nexus, ways to overcome operational challenges of the nexus approach of the resources management, cases of the nexus approach in practice from different regions of the world, and opinions on future of the nexus agenda. The book consists of four sections - i) Understanding the nexus, ii) Operationalizing the nexus, iii) Nexus in practice, and iv) Future of the nexus agenda.
