The growing interconnections among water, energy, food, and ecosystems (WEFE) in small-scale farming systems call for holistic tools to assess and manage sustainability.
This session will introduce the WEFE Nexus Indicator (WEFNI) framework, designed to quantify and balance trade-offs among resource use, productivity, and environmental integrity at the farm level. Building on recent studies (Rhouma et al., 2025a; 2025b; Merheb et al., 2024), participants will explore how water, carbon, and energy footprints can be integrated with socio-economic and ecological metrics to derive a composite WEFE score—supporting adaptive management under climate and resource constraints.
The lecture will also examine links between the Sustainability Index and the WEFE Nexus Index, showing how these complementary frameworks together offer a more complete picture of farm sustainability and resilience. Applications to livestock systems will highlight how feed, water, energy, and welfare factors jointly shape environmental outcomes.
The Nexus Seminar Series is coordinated by Prof. Serena Coetzee and Prof. Samanthi Dijkstra-Silva as part of the course Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Sustainability (the Nexus Approach), jointly offered by UNU-FLORES and TU Dresden.
