Resource Nexus AID: Enabling the Nexus Approach to Sustainable Development

News

  • 2022/03/22     Dresden, Germany

    Man hand holding a green plant growing and ESG icon concept on nature field grass Forest conservation concept.ESG Environmental, social and corporate governance concept

    Image: pcess609/iStockphoto

    UNU-FLORES launches a new research programme in Analytics, Informatics, and Data (AID).

    To enable the Resource Nexus approach to integrated resource management and sustainable development, UNU-FLORES is launching a new research programme. The new programme that will turn UNU-FLORES into the global hub for Resource Nexus Analytics, Informatics, and Data (AID) is focused on identifying, developing, and promoting data, information, computational techniques, and analytical tools that facilitate the sustainable management of water, soil, waste, energy, and geo-resources based on nexus thinking.

    The Resource Nexus AID Research Programme will benefit and involve an international network of AID scientists and professionals who work at the interface of science-policy-society to facilitate the regional and global collaborative efforts to tackling the triple planetary crisis of climate, nature, and pollution and fulfilling the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As suggested by its name, the programme has three main pillars: 

    1. Resource Nexus Data
      The Data pillar aims to facilitate data exchange and fill the data gaps for analyzing resource nexus in coupled human-environment systems. This pillar inventories the existing resource nexus data and identifies the data gaps using a problem-driven approach that help governments, societies and businesses tackle the global environmental challenges.
    2. Resource Nexus Informatics
      The Informatics pillar aims to build and improve the capacity for computing and processing resource nexus data. This pillar inventories, develops, and promotes the state-of-the-art tools and best practices to store, process, analyse, and manage resource nexus data in coupled human-environment systems.
    3. Resource Nexus Analytics
      The Analytics pillar aims to facilitate the extraction of information from data and inform decision making by inventorying, developing, and promoting the state-of-the-art resource nexus analytical tools and frameworks.

    The AID programme will be managed by Prof. Kaveh Madani, a former Vice President of the UN Environment Assembly Bureau, who joined UNU-FLORES from Yale University in 2021. Madani is a globally renowned expert in modelling and managing complex human-nature systems with a unique combination of experience in high-level policymaking, prominent practice-relevant research, and high-impact societal interactions. The new research programme under his leadership will aid academics, businesses, policymakers, societies as well as the United Nations and intergovernmental agencies navigate through complexity and examine the interrelatedness and interdependencies of the components of coupled human-environment systems.

«