Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystem Nexus Transition through the Responsible Research and Innovation Roadmap - Lessons learned from four Mediterranean countries.

Climate change mitigation is becoming increasingly important for curbing severe hydrological events and at the same time for effectively managing natural resources and ensuring food secutiry. The nexus among water, energy, food, and ecosystem has evolved as a resource-management concept to cope with this interlinked set of resources, their complex interactions, and their effect on the natural, innovation, and social ecosystems. The transitioning towards the Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystem (WEFE) Nexus requires awareness among stakeholders, knowledge exchange and mutual learning, before they are able to co-create their WEFE Nexus transition plan and to adopt it for execution. In this respect, the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and its application through the RRI Roadmap is suitable for facilitating the WEFE-Nexus transition through an action plan. This paper will illustrate the RRI Roadmap application for creating WEFE-Nexus awareness among stakeholders enabling them to co-create their common WEFE-Nexus transition plan. The paper exemplifies the lessons learned for creating stakeholders’ awareness in four Mediterranean countries.