From traditional crisis response to engineering dynamic resilience: A review of urban food–energy–water security under the changing environment

The emerging popularity of resilience discussion under constantly evolving environmental perturbations compels cities to scrutinize security status of the three essential resources: food, energy, and water (FEW). This paper synthesizes the triggers of system-wide changes in urban FEW security and the relevant assessment and modeling methodologies considering climate and social variability, with the aim of developing a multifaceted framework for scientific analysis and policy making of urban FEW resilience enhancement. While urban FEW flows and interactions have been widely studied, a process-based interpretation of dynamic mechanism within urban FEW system is required urgently to equip cities to cope with the risks posed by the changing environment. As such, an integrated analytical framework considering climate change, urbanization, FEW response mechanism, system-wide performance, and resilience enhancement, based on the review of current research status of urban FEW system, the evolutionary trajectories towards building resilience, the driving forces of environmental change, the response relationships associated with the FEW nexus, as well as assessment and simulation methods for urban FEW security. This framework is useful in steering resource collaborative management and urban sustainable development. Future research directions in urban FEW security were discussed, including dynamic resilience assessment, cascading pathway tracking, intelligent tool development, and adaptive strategy planning.