A Narrative Review of Food, Energy, and Water Systems for Disaster Resilient Communities in Puerto Rico

Frequent and intense natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes in Puerto Rico contribute to unreliable access to food, energy, and water (FEW) resources. Pre-existing political, socioeconomic, and environmental constraints in the archipelago can further complicate access to FEW resources. Bolstering FEW resource security by localizing resource production through household or community-scale projects improves community resilience to natural disasters and strengthens local supply chains. This narrative literature review compares and contrasts projects from around the world designed to strengthen resilience through local resource production or access. Explored solutions address water sources and treatment, land suitability and a variety of food production types, and microgrid solar power systems. The availability of natural resources was determined to make recommendations for how FEW systems could be implemented in Puerto Rican communities seeking to improve their disaster resilience. We seek to provide a framework that allows similar communities outside Puerto Rico to assess potential solutions to improve FEW resource access and understand how to implement them based on their needs and constraints. With systems adaptable to both nominal and disaster resilient conditions, communities can confidently design solutions that create sustainable FEW systems that improve overall FEW resource access. • A recent rise in natural disasters has made food, energy, and water access unreliable • Puerto Rico is a vulnerable community that can exemplify how to face such problems • Strengthening local production of key resources can promote disaster resilience • Communities can be empowered against disasters with localized resource production