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的资源利用模式的影响。在1800年之前的几千年里，材料和能源，大多数是可再生的，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不断扩大，1800年后的工业已转向主要基于地理集中资源的更集中的生产，并伴随着大规模的分销基础设施。虽然这些大型系统的规模经济在某些方面为我们提供了很好的服务，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严重问题的形成，例如基本供应的不安全，气候变化，和社会-经济不平衡和不公正。在提高资源利用率和更广泛的可持续性以应对上述问题的愿望的驱动下，重新分配制造业的一个专门章节涉及利用当地可持续资源进行本地化生产，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，这些商品之间存在着密切的联系，表现在：（1）粮食生产中的重大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的联系。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。地方关系，涉及本地化的食品制造和分散的能源和水供应，与食品系统相互作用，是再分布制造（RDM）的一个特殊章节，重点是资源，生产和消费的可持续本地调整。到目前为止，对当地生产/制造粮食、能源和水或当地关系的全面技术、经济和社会/政治理解仍有待发展。通过工程和社会科学之间的合作，地方联系网络将开展可行性项目和活动，以（i）建立当地食品，能源和水生产的技术和社会经济最先进水平，（ii）为指导研究人员，企业，政策制定者和热衷于探索地方联系潜力的社区提供初步见解，（iii）制定循证研究议程，（iv）形成一个包容性的研究和利益相关者社区，以及（v）为其他有关RDM的研究提供信息。两个“主”案例研究地点，分别代表“新的发展”和“改造”，将用于经验数据收集，并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.