Building food-smart cities: embedding urban food systems in the WEF nexus

1 Introduction

The Water–Energy–Food (WEF) nexus has become a prominent framework for examining interdependencies among resource systems in the context of sustainability and climate change (Purwanto et al., 2021; Mooren et al., 2025). Yet within this nexus, the “F = food” dimension has largely focused on agricultural production and supply security, while paying limited attention to how food is consumed in urban settings (Mooren et al., 2025). This oversight is critical, as cities are not only centers of resource demand but also primary arenas of dietary consumption, where daily food choices directly shape population health (World Economic Forum, 2023).

Urban residents face an escalating burden of diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs) (Al-Mawali et al., 2025; Godbharle et al., 2024), including cancer, obesity, diabetes (Godbharle et al., 2024), and cardiovascular disorders (Bhuiyan et al., 2024). Rapid dietary transitions marked by the proliferation of ultra-processed foods, high-sugar beverages, and energy-dense meals are driving these trends far more intensely than in rural areas (Hemram et al., 2025). Across Asia (Bhuiyan et al., 2024) and globally (Kang et al., 2021), urban areas report the fastest increases in obesity prevalence and diet-related disease risks, underscoring the structural influence of urban food environments on health outcomes.

Despite the growing recognition of food within the WEF nexus, urban food governance, including food environment planning, retail regulation, zoning instruments, and nutrition-sensitive urban policies, remain weakly integrated into nexus oriented urban planning frameworks (Endo et al., 2017; United Nations, 2025). This conceptual and policy gap limits cities' capacity to address preventable NCDs and to transform food systems into drivers of public health, equity, and sustainability. Addressing this gap is essential for repositioning cities from passive sites of dietary risk to proactive agents of health-promoting and resilient food systems.

Figure 1 presents a governance-oriented framework for building food-smart cities within the WEF nexus. The framework links key drivers, associated risks, and policy pathways, which are coordinated through integrated governance mechanisms. Circular connections between components indicate dynamic interactions and feedback loops, through which policy responses continuously adapt to evolving urban food system conditions. At the center, “building food-smart cities” represents the integration of these elements into a coherent urban planning strategy.

2 Methodology

This study adopts a qualitative, evidence-informed narrative synthesis to examine the integration of urban food systems into the Water–Energy–Food (WEF) nexus in urban governance. Relevant literature was selected based on three criteria:

• (i) relevance to urban food systems and the WEF nexus,
• (ii) inclusion of governance or policy dimensions,
• (iii) publication within the last decade, with priority given to peer-reviewed studies and institutional reports (e.g., WHO, FAO, UN).

The analysis focuses on three dimensions: key drivers and risks in urban food systems, governance mechanisms, and policy pathways for integrating food into urban planning. Illustrative examples from rapidly urbanizing contexts, including Vietnam, are incorporated to strengthen the empirical grounding of the analysis.

3 Reframing urban food policy: from WEF nexus to actionable pathways for healthier cities

3.1 Food as the missing pillar in WEF–urban planning

Within the Water–Energy–Food (WEF) nexus, the “food” dimension is predominantly defined by agricultural production, supply security, and upstream safety concerns (Tye et al., 2022), with urban food consumption remaining institutionally and conceptually marginalized (Sun et al., 2024). Policy interventions and public investments continue to concentrate on production and processing, while urban food consumption where food systems intersect most directly with everyday life, remains weakly embedded in urban planning and governance. In rapidly urbanizing societies, “food” in the WEF nexus must be reconceptualized not merely as an object of production and safety compliance, but as a governed socio-spatial system of consumption shaped by urban planning, market regulation, and public health policy (Torres-Lima et al., 2026).

Dietary behaviors in cities are not solely the outcome of individual choice (Huang et al., 2025); they are structurally produced through spatial zoning of food retail, pricing structures and fiscal mechanisms, unequal access to healthier foods, and the density and distribution of food outlets, which together condition population level dietary patterns (Abdul Razak et al., 2025). In addition, a quantitative urban case study applying a production–consumption gap analysis in Leeds demonstrates that the city meets only approximately 48% of its caloric demand, highlighting significant structural vulnerabilities and underscoring the need for integrated urban food governance (Jensen and Orfila, 2021). Food systems must be institutionalized within urban governance in the same manner as water and energy systems, embedded in infrastructure investments, regulatory mandates, and long-term resilience planning (Jensen and Orfila, 2021; Codex Alimentarius, 2019). Treating food primarily as a private consumption issue constrains cities' ability to leverage food systems for public health protection, social equity, and environmental sustainability. Elevating urban food environments to a core domain of urban governance is therefore essential for operationalizing the WEF nexus and addressing diet-related health risks in contemporary cities (Burgaz et al., 2024).

3.2 Urban food consumption and health risks

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), global food safety is committed to reducing the health, economic, and social burdens associated with foodborne diseases by supporting Member States in minimizing exposure to, and strengthening monitoring of, unacceptable levels of chemical, microbiological, and physical hazards (World Health Organization, 2022). Beyond these conventional risks, WHO increasingly emphasizes the importance of addressing nutrition- and behavior-related dietary exposures including high consumption of ultra-processed foods, sugar-sweetened beverages, and diets rich in salt, fat, and refined sugars (De Araújo et al., 2022). In rapidly urbanizing cities, these hazards converge into a complex “food risk ecosystem” (Lundberg et al., 2025). In Hanoi, 95% of low-income households rely on informal markets and 32% on mobile vendors for fresh produce, highlighting both accessibility and vulnerability (Hsiao et al., 2018). Diets dominated by ultra processed foods (UPFs), which are energy dense and nutrient poor products formulated through industrial processing, are consistently associated with obesity, metabolic disorders, cardiovascular disease, certain cancers, and increased overall mortality (Chen et al., 2020, 2022). Compared with rural populations, urban residents often exhibit higher prevalence of metabolic syndrome and nutrient imbalances, reflecting the structural influence of the urban food environment (Afshin et al., 2019).

These consumption-related risks are compounded by persistent food safety challenges in urban supply chains, including microbial contamination, pesticide residues, and cold-chain failures, which expose urban populations to overlapping acute and chronic health threats. Climate extremes, pandemics, and supply-chain disruptions intensify these vulnerabilities, disproportionately affecting low-income urban households (Chang et al., 2023) by pushing consumption toward cheaper, highly processed, and less nutritious foods. Together, these dynamics underscore that urban food consumption is not merely a matter of individual choice but a structurally mediated determinant of population health.

Vietnam illustrates these global challenges in its rapidly urbanizing food environment. Guided by the Food Safety Law, the Ministry of Health has prioritized microbiological surveillance, chemical residue control, packaging standards, and nutrition policies (National Assembly of Vietnam, 2010). Policy responses illustrate both progress and gaps: evidence from multiple countries suggests that SSB taxes can reduce consumption by approximately 10−12%, while Vietnam is piloting SSB taxation, front-of-pack labeling, and school meal standards to promote health (Nguyen et al., 2023; World Health Organization, 2023; Government of Vietnam, 2025). These measures highlight the urgent need for integrated strategies that address both food consumption behaviors and health risks in urban populations, ensuring safer, more nutritious, and more equitable food systems.

3.3 Policy pathways for healthier urban food environments

Developing healthier urban food environments requires a multi-layered policy package that simultaneously shapes knowledge, incentives, and access. Education and learning are foundational levers for transforming urban food consumption patterns. School-based nutrition programs, food literacy curricula, and community education initiatives equip children and families with the knowledge and skills to make healthier dietary choices, even in environments saturated with ultra-processed foods (Carr et al., 2025; Karpouzis et al., 2025). Evidence shows that integrating nutrition education into school curricula not only improves students' understanding of healthy eating but also reduces the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and increases fruit and vegetable intake at home (Dudley et al., 2015; Sacks et al., 2025). Comprehensive school food and nutrition education programs significantly improved diet quality and long-term eating habits among urban youth (Medeiros et al., 2022). Similarly, a large cohort study demonstrated that higher household food literacy scores were associated with lower intake of ultra-processed foods and better cardiometabolic outcomes in adults (Darmon and Drewnowski, 2008; Williams et al., 2025). These findings emphasize the need to institutionalize food education early in the life course and to implement it across multiple societal levels, including schools, households, and local governance structures, in order to achieve sustained improvements in urban dietary behaviors and population health outcomes.

Complementing education, communication and economic incentives are powerful, complementary strategies for reshaping urban food environments. Mass media campaigns, social marketing, and clear front-of-pack (FOP) nutrition labels can nudge consumers toward healthier choices by increasing awareness and simplifying decision-making (Ganderats-Fuentes and Morgan, 2023). At the same time, economic tools like SSB taxes and subsidies for fruits and vegetables directly alter price signals to favor nutritious options (Dogbe et al., 2024). Digital platforms and social marketing strategies can effectively normalize plant-forward and sustainable dietary patterns, with recent meta-analytic evidence demonstrating that digital interventions, particularly those using social media and interactive messaging, significantly promote healthier and more sustainable eating behaviors (Vanwinkelen et al., 2025). Together, well-designed communication campaigns and fiscal policies can reinforce each other informing consumers, reshaping market dynamics, and accelerating population-level dietary improvements.

Long-term success also depends on monitoring and equity mechanisms that track progress and prevent widening health disparities. Developing urban nutrition indices to measure fruit and vegetable availability, food price volatility, and household diet quality allows policymakers to identify high-risk neighborhoods and direct resources effectively (Aggarwal et al., 2019). Equity measures, such as subsidized healthy meal programs in schools, community kitchens, and home-cooking support, help reduce socioeconomic gaps in diet quality (Odoms-Young et al., 2024). At the neighborhood level, zoning policies and urban agriculture initiatives can mitigate “food deserts” by increasing access to fresh produce and affordable groceries while simultaneously strengthening the balance of labor, financial resources, and, in some cases, securing long-term land tenure, thereby enhancing community resilience and promoting more equitable and sustainable urban food systems (Horst et al., 2017). The importance of the Water–Energy–Food (WEF) nexus approach in urban food systems and highlights the need for integrated, cross-sectoral policies and governance to address the complex challenges of food security, sustainability, and equity (Doustmohammadian et al., 2022). By combining real-time monitoring with equity-driven interventions, cities can build resilient food systems that protect public health while narrowing the nutritional divide across urban populations.

Governance and cross-sector collaboration provide the structural backbone that integrates these strategies into city planning. Establishing multi-sector urban food councils that unite stakeholders from health, agriculture, education, and urban planning enables coordinated decision-making and policy coherence (Zerbian et al., 2023). Rather than treating food access as an isolated policy concern, integrated governance mechanisms such as interdepartmental coordination platforms, digital data sharing systems, and participatory planning processes enable municipalities to enhance supply chain efficiency, reduce food waste, and promote nutritional equity through more coherent and evidence based urban management strategies (Payán et al., 2022). Aligning food system initiatives with broader smart city agendas further enhances operational performance, accountability, and adaptive capacity, ensuring that technological advancements reinforce inclusivity and ecological responsibility. By linking education, communication, fiscal incentives, equity monitoring, and cross-sector governance, cities can build resilient food systems that advance health, sustainability, and social justice in an era of rapid urbanization (Orimoloye, 2022).

Importantly, while these policy tools demonstrate effectiveness individually, their impact at scale remains limited by the absence of coherent, multi-level governance frameworks. The lack of vertically integrated, top-down coordination linking national policy design with local implementation often results in fragmented interventions and reduced system-wide effectiveness. This underscores the need for structured, cross-sectoral governance approaches that align policy instruments across levels, enabling more effective and equitable urban food system transformations.

3.4 From plates to planning: embedding food systems in urban governance

Building food-smart cities integrated education, regulation, and market pathways, health-smart urban planning positions food policy as a structural requirement of city development rather than a peripheral health initiative. Instead of limiting urban design to green spaces or climate mitigation targets alone, city master plans can embed food systems into zoning regulations, fiscal instruments, and social protection programs to prevent diet-related chronic diseases and promote long-term health equity (Jury et al., 2025).

This transition implies moving from reactive, health-focused interventions to proactive urban planning strategies. This approach aligns closely with the WEF nexus, which recognizes that food production, distribution, and consumption are deeply interlinked with water use, energy demand, environmental sustainability, and human health outcomes (Mahdad et al., 2024). Embedding nutrition considerations into urban infrastructure such as planning for food markets, cold-chain logistics, and equitable food distribution networks ensures that access to safe, affordable, and minimally processed foods is treated as critical urban infrastructure, on par with transportation, water supply, and energy systems (Polman, 2025).

Concrete actions can be implemented across multiple governance levels. At the household level, nutrition education and cooking-skills programs enhance food literacy and empower healthier daily choices (Kim et al., 2025). At the neighborhood scale, cities can establish “healthy food zones” by restricting fast-food density near schools, expanding farmers' markets, supporting mobile produce vendors, and installing safe public drinking-water stations (Hsiao et al., 2018). Institutional settings, including schools and hospitals, can adopt plant-forward procurement standards, mandate fruit and vegetable servings, and limit sugar-sweetened beverages (Grigsby-Duffy et al., 2022). At the municipal level, fiscal and regulatory tools, such as sugar-sweetened beverage taxes, subsidies for fruits and vegetables, and mandatory front-of-pack labeling can shift consumption patterns at scale (Valizadeh et al., 2022).

Crucially, future strategies must emphasize cross-sector coordination, data integration, and participatory governance. Establishing urban food councils and digital monitoring systems can enhance policy coherence, accountability, and adaptive capacity. Collectively, these coordinated interventions embed urban food systems within the WEF nexus and elevate food policy from a voluntary health initiative to a core planning requirement (Simon, 2025). By institutionalizing food within urban planning, cities can simultaneously reduce health burdens, strengthen climate resilience, and promote social equity.

4 Conclusion

Urban planning in the 21st century moves beyond low-carbon and green agendas to recognize food systems as essential urban infrastructure. Reframing urban food environments as a core component of city governance offers a practical pathway to address diet-related health risks and reinforce long-term societal resilience.

By positioning food systems alongside water, energy, and transport within integrated planning frameworks, cities can address noncommunicable diseases through structural interventions rather than relying solely on individual behavior change. Embedding nutrition-sensitive zoning, public procurement standards, and equitable access strategies into urban master plans enables municipalities to confront the root drivers of dietary risk, social inequity, and environmental stress. Food-smart cities offer a coherent and actionable model for building vibrant, resilient, and equitable urban futures in an era of rapid urbanization and escalating chronic disease burden.

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Footnotes

Edited by: Naser Valizadeh, Shiraz University, Iran

Reviewed by: K. Sheikdavood, M. Kumarasamy College of Engineering, India