Water¿energy¿food nexus in a multi-product biomass supply chain Academic Article in Scopus uri icon

abstract

  • Brazil faces persistent undernutrition and increasing resource pressures across its agricultural, food, and bioenergy sectors. Existing Water¿Energy¿Food nexus models rarely integrate nutritional security as a primary optimization objective, which limits their relevance for sustainable development policy. This study addresses this gap by optimizing the Brazilian agri-food and bioenergy supply chain through a multi-objective mixed-integer nonlinear programming model that simultaneously incorporates social (food security), environmental, and economic objectives. The formulation explicitly links food distribution to nutritional density, redirecting flows toward states with the highest vulnerability. As a result, undernutrition decreases sharply, reaching near-zero values in the most effective scenarios. For example, Maranhão declines from 2.59 % to 0.0014 % and Pará from 2.16 % to 0.0011 %, with reductions exceeding 90 % in several northern and northeastern regions. Economically, the most efficient configurations achieve annual net profits of up to USD 13.89 million per year. Simultaneously, the valorization of agro-industrial residues for biofuel production reduces dependence on fossil fuels and strengthens the circular bioeconomy. By incorporating indicators of water use, energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and economic value generation, the model demonstrates that it is possible to satisfy a significant share of food and energy demand without overexploiting natural resources. Overall, this research provides an integrated decision-support framework for policymakers and planners to balance nutritional equity, energy transition, and environmental resilience, advancing the Water¿Energy¿Food nexus toward actionable sustainability solutions. © 2025 Elsevier Ltd.

publication date

  • January 1, 2026