Environmental Livelihood Security in South-East Asia and Oceania: A Water-Energy-Food-Livelihoods Nexus Approach for Spatially Assessing Change. White paper

This document addresses the need for explicit inclusion of livelihoods within the environment
nexus (water-energy-food security), not only responding to literature gaps but also addressing
emerging dialogue from existing nexus consortia. We present the first conceptualization of
‘environmental livelihood security’, which combines the nexus perspective with sustainable
livelihoods. The geographical focus of this paper is Southeast Asia and Oceania, a region currently
wrought by the impacts of a changing climate. Climate change is the primary external forcing
mechanism on the environmental livelihood security of communities in Southeast Asia and
Oceania which, therefore, forms the applied crux of this paper. Finally, we provide a primer for
using geospatial information to develop a spatial framework to enable geographical assessment
of environmental livelihood security across the region. We conclude by linking the value of this
research to ongoing sustainable development discussions, and for influencing policy agendas.