The Intersection of Urban and Rural Communities: Building Resilience through the Food Energy Water Nexus

This presentation will highlight integrated strategies and policies to build resilience across energy, water and food systems using case studies from NREL’s work in islands, remote communities, urban, and rural areas to highlight the intersection and opportunity for improved urban-rural system resilience. While urban resilience strategies are not necessarily applicable to rural settings, they are inherently interrelated. The majority of America’s agricultural production occurs in rural areas, and urban centers are dependent on energy, water, and food systems that exist and intersect in rural areas outside of their jurisdictional boundaries.

Key differences between urban and rural contexts, including distinct built environments (e.g., building types, density, transportation networks, energy and water infrastructure), economic drivers, and other physical and demographic factors highlight the need for integrated planning of urban and rural energy-water-food systems. These strategies are important for rural communities themselves, and the urban populations that depend on rural areas for energy, water, and food services.

Extreme events have highlighted weaknesses in energy, water, and food systems as a result of supply chain disruptions and cascading system failures. These events have challenged both urban and rural communities to adopt policies that improve their resilience and to seek new strategies to ensure continued security of energy, water, and food resources. Continued access to energy, water and food is not just essential in post disaster scenarios, it also fuels the socioeconomic growth and prosperity of rural communities, where the mindful management of energy, water and food systems is increasingly critical to their survival.