Building sustainable local nexuses of food, energy and water: from smart engineering to shared prosperity (The Local Nexus Network)

从历史上看，人类的工业和经济活动在很大程度上受到当时有利于资源利用的模式的影响。在1800年前的数千年里，物质和能源资源，主要是可再生的，都是在当地开采和使用的。随着能源密集型化石燃料的开采范围不断扩大，1800年后的工业已转向更集中的生产，主要基于地理上集中的资源，辅之以大规模的配电基础设施。虽然这些大型系统的规模经济在某些方面为我们提供了良好的服务，但对集中资源开采和生产的持续依赖导致了当今全球社会面临的一系列尖锐问题的形成，如基本供应的不安全、气候变化、社会经济失衡和不公正。在提高资源利用率和更广泛的可持续性的愿望的推动下，重新分配的制造业专门关注本地化生产和本土可持续资源，以支持当地经济和社区。在可能受益于本地化生产的产品和服务中，食品、能源和水是每个社会最基本的商品。此外，人们越来越认识到，这些商品之间存在密切联系，表现为(1)粮食生产中巨大的能源和水足迹以及能源和水生产之间的相互足迹，以及(2)它们与土地和更广泛的生态系统的相互交织联系。这三个部门的挑战密不可分，需要采取综合办法，而不是各自为政。地方联系，涉及与食品系统相互作用的本地化食品制造和分散的能源和水供应，是再分布式制造(RDM)的一个专门章节，重点放在资源、生产和消费的可持续本地调整上。到目前为止，对当地粮食、能源和水的生产/制造或当地联系的全面技术、经济和社会/政治理解仍有待发展。通过工程学和社会科学之间的协作，当地联系网络将开展可行性项目和活动，以(I)确定当地粮食、能源和水生产的技术和社会经济最新水平，(Ii)产生初步见解，指导热衷于探索当地联系潜力的研究人员、企业、政策制定者和社区，(Iii)制定基于证据的研究议程，(Iv)形成一个包容各方的研究和利益攸关方社区，以及(V)为有关区域发展的其他相关研究提供信息。将利用分别代表“新发展”和“改造”的两个“主要”案例研究地点收集经验数据，并将其作为发展新思维的背景。

Historically, human industrial and economic activities have been shaped greatly by the pattern of resource utilisation in favour at the time. For thousands of years pre-1800, material and energy resources, mostly renewable, were extracted and used locally. With the widening exploitation of energy-dense fossil fuels, post-1800 industry has been diverted to more centralised production primarily based on geographically concentrated resources, accompanied by large-scale distribution infrastructures. Whilst the scale economies of these large systems have served us well in certain respects, continued reliance on centralised resource extraction and production has contributed to the formation of a range of acute issues facing the global society today, such as insecurity of essential supplies, climate change, and social-economic imbalance and injustice.Driven by the desire to improve resource utilisation and broader sustainability in response to the above issues, a special chapter of re-distributed manufacturing is concerned with localised production with indigenous sustainable resources to support local economy and communities. Among products and services that can potentially benefit from localised production, food, energy and water represent the most essential commodities for every society. Furthermore, it has increasingly been recognised that there exist close ties between these commodities, manifested by (1) the significant energy and water footprints in food production and the mutual footprint between energy and water production, and (2) their intertwined connections with land and the broader ecosystems. The inseparable challenges from the three sectors require an integrative approach as opposed to tackling them in silos. Local nexuses, involving localised food manufacturing and decentralised energy and water supply that interact with the food system, are a special chapter of re-distributed manufacturing (RDM) with a focus on the sustainable local alignment of resources, production and consumption. To-date, a comprehensive technological, economic, and social/political understanding of local production/manufacture of food, energy and water, or local nexus, is still yet to be developed. By collaboration between engineering and social sciences, the Local Nexus Network will carry out feasibility projects and events to (i) establish the technical and socio-economic state-of-the-art of local productions of food, energy and water, (ii) generate initial insights for guiding researchers, businesses, policy makers and communities who are enthusiastic about exploring the potential of local nexuses, (iii) develop an evidence-based research agenda, (iv) form an inclusive research and stakeholder community, and (v) inform other related research on RDM. Two "master" case study locales, representing "new development" and "retrofitting" respectively, will be employed for empirical data collection and used as the background for developing new thinking.