This session explores the links and trade-offs between water, energy, and food security. It identifies key threats to water security and debates appropriate responses. Speakers will explore how to assess trade-offs and how they might be mitigated or resolved. Speakers have expertise in hydrology, climate-change science, engineering, geography, resource management, and environmental policy. Experiences with multidisciplinary collaborative initiatives will be described to explore the advantages, disadvantages, and challenges of integrating different conceptual approaches (e.g., linking modeling and qualitative assessments of decision-making by water managers to develop applied water security assessment frameworks). Speakers will also be encouraged to emphasize aspects of their research that have included a solutions-oriented approach (e.g., impacts on policy or water management outcomes). These data will include research based in arid zones, in both urban and rural areas, at multiple scales from the sub-watershed to the global, and in both North American and international contexts. Throughout, the barriers and opportunities for mobilizing information resources in collaborative research networks will be explored, with emphasis on the need for collaboration between physical and social scientists, particularly with respect to water governance.