Boundary Science: Re-imagining Water-Energy-Food Interactions in the Context of a Data Light Approach to Monitoring the Environment- Development Nexus

Boundary Science and the Pursuit of Sustainable Development: Lessons from Global Public Goods Research on the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus addresses the problem of how global research can reorient itself to better address sustainable goals and objectives through the use of place-based observatories that support multi-dimensional modelling. The book will provide an overview of the impact of case studies and field trials in addressing critical questions of poverty reduction and sustainable development. This discussion will be followed by an examination of a theoretical framework for boundary science that elaborates upon the Nexus approach to environmental management.

Mathew Kurian is consortium lead for the Belmont Forum project on cyber-enabled disaster resilience involving partners at Penn State University, Cranfield University, University of Sao Paulo, UNHABITAT, Geneva and Ministry of Water and Irrigation, Tanzania. He was previously head of the Capacity Development and Governance Unit at United Nations University, Germany where he established the Africa Points of Excellence consortium on drought risk monitoring by negotiating agreements with respective ministries in Ethiopia, Malawi and Tanzania. He served as the focal point for implementation of a Memorandum of Understanding between UNU-FLORES and UNHABITAT focused on development, validation and pilot-testing of a monitoring methodology for Sustainable Development Goal target 6.3. Dr Kurian previously served as a Senior Water and Sanitation Specialist at The World Bank and has held faculty positions at University College London (UK) and UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education (Netherlands). He began his career as a Robert S. McNamara Fellow at Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI) and subsequently served as a Dutch government supported Associate Expert at the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) offices in Thailand, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia.
Dr. Yu Kojima has Ph.D. degree in Development Studies from the Institute of Social Studies, Netherlands and she has over 14 years of international experience in the area of gender, migration and development through programme management/gender research for public policy and planning and advocacy in Asia and the Pacific region. Yu offers expertise drawn from combination of experience in both academic and policy research while she brings in development planning experience earned through working with several UN agencies including UNDP, UNIFEM and UNICEF-Innocenti Research Cenre. Yu served as an Expert on Migration, Women and Mobility- Asia for the United Nations University Institute on Globalization, Culture and Mobility (UNU-GCM) in Barcelona, Spain. Yu is also a member of Regional Gender Specialist Group hosted by UNICEF in Asia and a member of Gender Specialist Roster, the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) based in Rome, Italy.