80 sustainable development of the energy–water–food nexus in Ghana Despite significant contributions from analyses of various potential energy–food–water scenarios, major shortcomings remain in the sc[.]
80 sustainable development of the energy–water–food nexus in Ghana Despite significant contributions from analyses of various potential energy–food–water scenarios, major shortcomings remain in the scenarios developed in existing studies, as their assumptions and discussions on policy implications and trade-offs exist in terms of socio-economic and environmental aspects For example, scenario assumptions are defined primarily based on technological changes while neglecting the country or region’s long-term strategic development Moreover, the role of technology in improving sectoral efficiency is overemphasized while developing drivers and assumptions for various scenarios Consequently, these scenarios fail to develop a coherently logical assessment of socioeconomic and environmental impacts to offer deeper implications for policymaking Moreover, any policy choice is inevitably “double-sided”, and hence, lack of debate in existing studies on policy synergies and trade-offs among their various scenarios provides a narrow analysis that inadequately reflects the unfolding future Further, the research methods and tools applied in existing studies primarily focus on the following aspects: i) analysing the physical linkages between energy, food, and water to identify opportunities for future technological changes, ii) quantitative assessment of socio-economic impacts from technological changes, and iii) discussing policy implications in terms of their socio-economic and environmental impacts The review in the section of major shortcomings (as discussed above) indicates the need to develop a more appropriate methodological research framework, which will enable a broader investigation of the energy–food–water security challenges and a deeper debate on the two-sided facets of the particular policies in each specific scenario Thus, the discussion of socio-economic and environmental impacts and their policy trade-offs should be considered as a foundation for all energy–food–water nexus research or policy analyses 3.3 Methodological framework for this research Based on a review of existing studies on energy–food–water nexus and their research methods (as discussed in Sections 3.2 and 3.3), this research holds (?), a more appropriate methodological research framework is needed that will enable not only analysing the energy–food–water security nexus, but also assess its impacts on future socio-economic development and the environment of the country Specifically, this will involve integrating the following methods: i) a historical analysis, accompanied by a discussion of the historical evolution of Vietnam’s energy–food–water security over time; ii) an IO