ABSTRACT
The nexus has gained momentum at the expense of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), which has, according to Bird (2012: 397), “tended to stay within the domains of the water, agriculture and environment professionals and not had much traction with energy sector professionals”. However, for some water specialists, the nexus may be viewed as old wine in new bottles. The presentation of hard statistics about water consumption in food and energy and the proposal for nexus approaches, may give a veneer of newness to global policy makers, and yet looking in more detail at the discourse of the nexus to date, there is far less clarity on what a new common integrative approach might look like beyond the existing water-centric paradigm of IWRM (see Mueller 2015 and Wichelns 2017). Indeed, seen this way the nexus is based on the same idea of IWRM where there is a need for cross-sectoral integration to accommodate the need for water for people, water for food, water for nature, and water for industry.
