Oral contribution to the session “The irrigation challenges to cover social issues in the XXI century” during the European Geophysical Union (Egu) hold in Vienna.
The introduction of participatory processes directly and actively involving stakeholders has been steadily gaining importance also in the definition of water management policies. Moreover, for policies to be sustainable, the decision-making process has to keep a multisectorial vision of water management, for instance taking into account the mutual interactions between water, agriculture and energy production, while being careful to move within the limits of the ecosystem. This inclusive approach to the water-energy-food-ecosystem nexus (WEFE Nexus) is the way in which a community of practice made by both technicians and stakeholders can make conscious and sustainable decisions. With this presentation, authors pointed out that the use of an inclusive approach to the water-energy-food-ecosystem nexus (WEFE Nexus) is the way in which a community of practice made by both technicians and stakeholders can make conscious and sustainable decisions. To reach this aim, they presented the NEXUS NESS DUERO NEL case study as an example of how an hydrological model named WATNEEDS has been used to describe the current status of water resources and to evaluate the management alternatives proposed by the different stakeholders.