This report presents the results of the application of an integrated analysis approach, the Multi-Scale Integrated Assessment of Society and Ecosystem Metabolism (hereafter MuSIASEM), to three case studies: (i) An analysis of the option to produce biofuel from sugarcane in the Republic of Mauritius; (ii) An exploration of the future of grain production in the Indian state of Punjab; (iii) An assessment of two alternative energy sources to produce electricity in the Republic of South Africa.

MuSIASEM, originally developed for analyzing the metabolic pattern of energy of modern society, is now extended to consider the energy-food-water nexus thus characterizing simultaneously the metabolic pattern of energy, food and water in relation to socio-economic and ecological variables. This challenge had not yet been addressed as such. The work in this project was focused on three objectives:

1. Developing and consolidating an integrated accounting method by implementing the MuSIASEM rationale to characterize simultaneously energy, food, and water flows and their interrelations for a complex system (society) interacting with its environment;
2.  Application of the accounting method to three case studies, including data collection and analysis, with the aim to show its potential to assess (a) the desirability, viability and feasibility of the actual metabolism of socioeconomic systems (diagnosis) and (b) the feasibility of development scenarios and policy options (simulation) so as to generate usefulness quantitative analysis (integrated set of indicators) for governance;
3.  Generation and presentation of the results in a user-friendly format.

This report provides a summary of the final results and is organized in three sections: chapter 1 provides a general description of the multi-scale integrated assessment of society and ecosystem metabolism applied to the nexus-assessment; chapter 2 illustrates the application of the developed approach to the three case studies; and chapter 3 summarizes lessons learned in terms of strength and weakness of the proposed tool.

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