Integration of energy, water and environmental systems for a sustainable development

Abstract

Joint efforts and interdisciplinary approach are proper means to face the issue of global warming. An adequate response should be to employ state of the art scientific knowledge for the technology advancement, as well as for fostering new scientific insights. Together with resource efficiency, circular economy is getting in focus of researchers and consequently policymakers. Sustainable development is a multidisciplinary topic and interaction of energy, water and environment systems plays one of the central roles. Within the paradigm of circular economy, there is growing need for system integration where a by-product of one system can represent resource for the other. This review is dedicated to the 12th Conference on Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Sysmems, and discusses some latest developments in three main areas of sustainability themes: (i) Energy, (ii) Water and (iii) Environmental Systems. Examples of circular economy approach have been emphasized which improve economic efficiency of the whole chain and further decrease environmental burden, enabling cleaner production. Although integrative concept of energy, water and environmental systems is coming in the research focus, more effort is necessary for further integration of those systems, whereby increased complexity is going to be handled only by multidisciplinary, intersectoral scientific cooperation.