Descriptive Fields
The WEFE+H Nexus (Water–Energy–Food–Ecosystems–Health) provides a practical lens for water governance because water challenges rarely sit within one sector. Decisions on allocation, infrastructure, agriculture, energy production, ecosystem protection and public health interact, sometimes creating unintended impacts. The Nexus approach helps make these interdependencies visible, anticipate trade-offs, and identify solutions that deliver co-benefits rather than shifting pressures from one sector to another.
In InnWater, applying a Nexus perspective relies on a few core requirements:
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Systemic thinking, to recognise cross-sector dependencies and feedback loops.
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Coordination across sectors and levels, to align strategies, rules and investments.
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Context sensitivity, to adapt solutions to local constraints, capacities and priorities.
This part provides the essential foundations needed to use the WEFE(+H) approach in practice. It clarifies what is meant by the five domains and their typical interactions, explains why this cross-sector lens is increasingly necessary in Europe, and links the Nexus perspective to broader global and EU policy agendas. It also highlights the main implementation challenges that repeatedly emerge in real governance settings—fragmented mandates and sectoral silos, data and interoperability gaps, misaligned incentives, and the persistent difficulty of moving from integrated analysis to decisions that are accepted and maintained over time.