Abstract:
Access to clean water, reliable energy services and adequate food supply are basic needs
for life and contribute to the reduction of national and global levels of human poverty and forced
migration. This study concentrated on reviewing progress made in understanding the relationship
between the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus and climate change adaptation, using Africa as a
case study. The method used to achieve this objective was the bibliometric analysis, covering the
period from 1980–2021. Data used for this study were acquired from theWeb of Science (WoS) and
Scopus databases. Initially, 95 documents were retrieved from theWoS and Scopus core collection
databases, but 30 duplicates were removed, and 65 documents were used. The outputs were further
analysed using the bibliometric R package and VOS viewer. Analysis of the top 100 keywords in
the 65 publications that link WEF nexus with climate change adaptation for Africa showed that 46
keywords fall under the application of WEF nexus, 31 keywords under the implementation of WEF
nexus and 23 keywords under the implication of WEF nexus. Researchers from countries around the
world have published the WEF nexus work undertaken on the African continent. Countries with
the highest number of publications were South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States of
America, Germany, Kenya and Zimbabwe. Thematic analysis was used to explore the conceptual
structure of WEF publications, and it produced four themes: (i) well-established concepts appropriate
for structuring the conceptual framework of the field of WEF nexus in Africa; (ii) strongly developed
concepts but still marginal for the field of WEF nexus in Africa; (iii) not fully developed or marginally
interesting concepts for the field of WEF nexus in Africa, and (iv) significant cross-cutting concepts in
the field of WEF nexus in Africa in relation to climate change adaptation. This study contributes to
the growing body of literature on the WEF nexus by pointing out dominant themes from those that
are still emerging in the scholarly work done in Africa.
