Applying the concept of the nexus of climate, land, energy and water systems (CLEWs) to sustainable development requires the integration of knowledge from different disciplines to solve complicated multi-systems challenges. Such knowledge and expertise are not solely situated in scientific research’s theoretical realm (i.e. branch of knowledge). For the approach to be successful, integration is also required in a variety of decision spaces. The development of nexus knowledge, which we define as information related to systems’ physical, natural and socioeconomic interactions, broadly emerged from project-oriented research and case
study applications, extending the system’s coverage to several resource systems, climate and governance.