In this paper we present the elements of a nexus approach linking water and energy and soil (or WES) to address urban environmental issues. If the notion of "nexus" has become mainstream in order to grasp the interactions between priority issues (especially between Water-Energy-Food or WEF nexus), it is considered both undisputed and ambiguous. After a review of the scientific literature on the concept of nexus, this paper proposes a WES nexus approach that focuses on: the urban scale as a priority action context, on soil - and its multidimensional trait (land, substrate, subsurface) - as a factor not yet sufficiently taken into account and on a heuristic approach that is not intended to give a prior definition of the nexus but rather to explore how the (WES) "nexus" is locally appropriated.