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As the world's population grows, food and energy supply will be one of the most important challenges. Agriculture, as the most important food producer, is not only a consumer of water and energy but also a major supplier of energy. Consequently, a balance must be struck between the harvest and utilization of production resources and the amount of agricultural production. The UN's Third Millennium Goals are on the agenda of achieving sustainable long-term development of human societies and ensuring food, water, and energy availability for future generations. To accomplish these goals, researchers have developed numerous interdisciplinary and specialized frameworks and approaches to achieve a dynamic and optimal balance of production and resource utilization, one of which being water, energy, and food. The water, energy and food Nexus approach is an overall vision of sustainability that strives to balance the various goals, interests, and needs of people and the environment by quantifying water, energy and food relationships through qualitative and quantitative modeling as well as advancing research for Integrate modeling and management to deliver important sustainable development strategies in today's dynamic and complex world. Given the environmental and water crises that threaten the Iranian nation's food and energy security, water, energy, and food, Nexus management can bring about change and balance in different sectors, depending on the needs and participation of all stakeholders. In this paper, a novel model for the Nexus approach governance model using the multi-layer visionary is being developed for the Iranian region for the water and food crisis the country is facing today.

• Coordinated efforts are often deemed critical to minimize trade-offs, while maximizing synergies in use among FEW. • All the nexus indicators can be classified as flux; structural; environmental impact and efficiency indicators. • Results highlight the necessity of developing new indicators. • It would be vital to incorporate as many flows as possible, to represent urban systems as a whole. The unprecedented surge in urbanization and population growth rates is generating multiple impacts, affecting food, energy and water (FEW hereafter) demands. Moreover, the adverse effects are extending to climate, as well as to human and ecosystem health. Coordinated efforts are often deemed critical to minimize the trade-offs while maximizing the synergies in the use and the effective analysis of the interlinkages among food, energy, and water within urban ecosystems. Data are collected and transformed into useful information through different indicators, which are often applied to guide several policies in the urban domain. However, their different nature now asks for a critical reanalysis to collate them into different groups, understanding their guiding principles and identifying possible gaps for further policy- and design-oriented studies. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art on existing urban FEW nexus indicators. Indicators were found to belong to four main distinct groups, measuring resource fluxes (52%); quantifying environmental impacts (13%), and efficiency aspects (29%). Results highlight a need to develop new indicators, considering the inclusion of all involved factors within new integrated metrics. However, prior to developing an overall sustainability indicator system is presented, it would be vital to incorporate as many flows as possible to represent the entire urban systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban metabolism analyzes the supply and consumption of nutrition, material, energy, and other resources within cities. Food, water, and energy are critical resources for the human society and have complicated cooperative/competitive influences on each other. The management of interactive resources is essential for supply chain analysis. This research analyzes the food-water-energy system of urban metabolism for sustainable resources management. A system dynamics model is established to investigate the urban metabolism of food, water, and energy resources. This study conducts a case study of Shihmen Reservoir system, hydropower generation, paddy rice irrigation of Taoyuan and Shihmen Irrigation Associations, and water consumption in Taoyuan, New Taipei, and Hsinchu cities. The interactive influence of the food-water-energy nexus is quantified in this study; the uncertainty analysis of food, water, and energy nexus is presented., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.