A new paradigm for sustainable, integrated, water resources management is emerging from international conferences around the world. Its most succinct description is ‘the water–food–energy nexus for a green economy’. The water, food and energy nexus aims at the most efficient, best practice principles applied throughout the full food supply chain. This includes consideration of reducing wastage of the food for various reasons in the supply chain. This paper describes the global opportunities for better efficiency and resources conservation in the water, food, and energy supply chains with examples from Australia. Food wastage equates on average to 243 l day⁻¹ of water per person in the food they throw away, which is 1.5 times the daily water use per person in the UK. The concepts of virtual water and water footprint can help in identifying opportunities to save water by targeting reduction of wastage of food that has the highest virtual water content. A green economy aims at achieving optimised supply chain objectives in a manner that espouses the sustainability principle, gives due attention to environmental concerns and helps with eradication of poverty and hunger.

Bird feeding in residential gardens is an increasingly popular human–wildlife interaction. In Australia, the practice is discouraged by most government and nongovernment wildlife conservation agencies, although advice varies and the most common recommendation is to provide water and habitat for birds rather than supplementary food. This study compares bird abundance and diversity when residents in a Melbourne municipality provide water for birds versus food. Bird abundance was greater when food was provided compared with water, but avian assemblages did not differ.

Phosphorus is essential to food production, but current management practices fail to ensure equitable access to farmers globally and often results in polluted waterways. There is a lack of local and global governance mechanisms to ensure phosphorus is sustainably managed. The P-FUTURES research initiative aims to address this gap by working with stakeholders to explore visions and pathways of social transformation towards food and water security. In the seed phase of the project, academic, civil, industry, and municipal stakeholders interacted as partners in Blantyre (Malawi), Hanoi (Vietnam), Sydney (Australia), and Phoenix (USA) to collaboratively develop a full proposal and build capacity for transformational change. The article offers guidance on the opportunities and challenges of co-developing a research approach and proposal in a transdisciplinary, international setting.

We analyse how salinity, acidity and erosion threaten the ecosystem services of food production and the regulation of water quality in the Murray–Darling Basin, Australia’s most important food producing region. We used the Drivers-Pressures-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework, to show that each of these threats undermines the functioning of the Basin’s agro-ecosystems and the two major ecosystem services (four other ecosystem services are briefly considered). These threats are driven by natural processes (e.g. rainfall) and anthropogenic activity (e.g. land clearing), and this leads to pressures exerted by hydrology, nutrient cycles and wind. Satisfactory information is available on the state of acidity and wind erosion, but information on the state of water erosion and salinity is inadequate. The impact of these threats on food production was primarily by reducing crop yield, while the impacts on water quality were to increase sediment, salt and nutrient loads. Management responses were either adaptive or mitigative; the former targets impacts while the latter focuses on drivers and pressures. Most management responses involved trade-offs between ecosystem services, although some synergies were found. Scale and spatial variability strongly influence the selection of responses. Understanding the mechanisms underpinning land degrading threats and the associated relationships allows better assessment on impacts to ecosystem services.

The Murray–Darling Basin (MDB) covers 1.1 million km², involves six legislative jurisdictions, a myriad of different agencies and illustrates the many complexities of managing fishes, people and water. Its rivers provide water for agriculture, are highly regulated and generally in poor health. Water allocation reform is underway to improve ecological condition but provision of water for environmental outcomes competes with agricultural requirements. Murray–Darling Basin rivers and fishes are important culturally and contribute substantially to tourism and recreational fishing. The MDB has a low number of fish species, now estimated to be at 10% of their pre‐European abundance, and all subject to a range of threats, many related to water use and associated infrastructure. The MDB Native Fish Strategy takes a coordinated, long‐term, whole‐of‐fish‐community approach to address priority threats and rehabilitate populations. This strategy provides a holistic approach with many actions that complement the potential benefits of water reform.

Companies are responsible for reporting not only their own water practices but also those of their suppliers. An evaluation of the supply chain water information in the sustainability and integrated reports of 49 food, beverage and tobacco firms listed on the JSE (South Africa), ASX (Australia) and Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) exchanges, respectively, was conducted. It was found that the companies fall short in their disclosure of consumption of water-related supply chain information. The firms listed on the DJSI and JSE outperformed the Australian companies. This paper presents and applies a novel water disclosure index of supply chain information.