Food-energy-water (FEW) systems are increasingly vulnerable to natural hazards and climate change risks, yet humans depend on these systems for their daily needs, wellbeing, and survival. We investigated how adaptations related to FEW vulnerabilities are occurring and what the global community can learn about the interactions across these adaptations. We conducted a global analysis of a data set derived from scientific literature to present the first large scale assessment (n = 1,204) of evidence-based FEW-related climate adaptations. We found that the most frequently reported adaptations to FEW vulnerabilities by continent occurred in Africa (n = 495) and Asia (n = 492). Adaptations targeting food security were more robustly documented than those relevant to water and energy security, suggesting a greater global demand to address food security. Determining statistically significant associations, we found a network of connections between variables characterizing FEW-related adaptations and showed interconnectedness between a variety of natural hazards, exposures, sectors, actors, cross-cutting topics and geographic locations. Connectivity was found between the vulnerabilities food security, water, community sustainability, and response to sea level rise across cities, settlements, and key infrastructure sectors. Additionally, generalized linear regression models revealed potential synergies and tradeoffs among FEW adaptations, such as a necessity to synergistically adapt systems to protect food and water security and tradeoffs when simultaneously addressing exposures of consumption and production vs. poverty. Results from qualitative thematic coding showcased that adaptations documented as targeting multiple exposures are still limited in considering interconnectivity of systems and applying a nexus approach in their responses. These results suggest that adopting a nexus approach to future FEW-related adaptations can have profound benefits in the management of scarce resources and with financial constraints.

The food-energy-water (FEW) nexus is an emerging field that studies the connections between systems involving agriculture and food, energy and electricity, and water as well as the vulnerabilities of access to and availability of these resources. Understanding the interdependencies between these systems is crucial for decision making to ensure the long-term sustainability of resources considering the impacts of climate change. This study analyzes a data set of documented climate change adaptations that are relevant to the social and environmental vulnerabilities of the FEW nexus. One of our outcomes found that adaptations targeting food security are more robustly documented than adaptations relevant to water and energy security. Additionally, these adaptations share common characteristics such as their associations to cities and infrastructure, sea level rise, and deserts. Several of these relationships show potential for mutually beneficial adaptations, while others may negatively impact another system with tradeoffs in their implementation.

Abstract The identification of pollutants is crucial to protect water resources and ensure food safety. The available analytical methodologies allow reliable detection of organic pollutants such as pesticides; however, there is the need for faster, direct and continuous methodologies for real‐time monitoring of pesticides. Fluorescent‐based biosensors have been recently proposed as a valid alternative due to their advantage of being easy, cheap and specific. In this context, the aim of the present EU‐FORA fellowship programme was to develop and apply a fluorescence‐based biosensing device for the detection of organophosphate (OP) pesticides in water samples and drinkable food. The study was addressed using a mutant of the thermostable esterase‐2 from Alicyclobacillus acidocaldarius (EST2‐S35C) as a bioreceptor for OP pesticides. The use of EST2 involves some significant advantages including specificity and affinity towards OPs, and high stability over time in a different range of temperatures and pH. The protein was labelled to the fluorescent probe IAEDANS and fluorescence measurements of quenching in solution and in immobilised form were performed. The results showed good stability and sensitivity, reaching low limits of detection and quantification and a constant signal intensity over time. The addition of paraoxon quenched the fluorescence of the complex, reaching a plateau at 100 pmol paraoxon. The decrease of enzymatic activity of EST2‐S35C‐IAEDANS in the presence of paraoxon correlated the inhibition of the labelled enzyme with the decrease in fluorescence. The results from the application of the biosensor with real samples showed a decrease in fluorescence in surface water samples, contaminated by OPs. The use of the developed fluorescence‐based biosensor demonstrated its applicability for real samples monitoring and could ensure the production of large amounts of data in a short period of time which can be used to address environmental and food safety risk assessment.

Largely due to manure management, intensive livestock production is known to negatively impact air, water, and soil quality. Excessive manure is often applied to soil as fertilizer or stored in lagoon. However, some thermo-chemical methods, such as gasification and pyrolysis, can transform manure from waste into a valuable resource. The closed-loop dairy concept employs these methods to create biochar derived from cow manure for use as a soil amendment and a water filtration medium. This closed-loop concept has the potential to produce syngas and bio-oil for production of electricity, and to reduce excessive nutrients in liquid manure irrigation by filtering manure slurry stored in lagoons. It replaces solid manure with biochar in land applications to further reduce nutrient runoff and increase soil resilience against erosion. In this study, a Water-Energy-Food-Waste nexus-based analysis and resource allocation tool was developed to evaluate the economic, environmental, and social feasibility of the closed-loop dairy system. The tool utilizes several levers to simulate a user-specified dairy operation, such as number of livestock, acres farmed, quantity of effluent irrigation, distribution of manure and biochar products, and type of biomass conversions. Financial estimates from central Texas in 2018 were used to evaluate the profitability of these practices against the costs of a dairy and hay operation. The study showed that the closed-loop dairy system, while case dependent, could be profitable and, based on operational costs, a small dairy of approximately 200 cows could break even. Results also indicate that the benefits of biomass conversions to produce energy byproducts should increase with scale. This study can help many dairy farms that are considering the economic and environmental sustainability of the industry, which has been under scrutiny. Copyright © 2022 Muell, Mohtar, Kan, Assi and Pappa.

Civil conflict began in Ethiopia in November 2020 and has reportedly caused major disrup tions in access to health services, food, and related critical services, in addition to the direct impacts of the conflict on health and well-being. However, the population-level impacts of the conflict have not yet been systematically quantified. We analyze high frequency phone surveys conducted by the World Bank, which included measures of access to basic ser vices, to estimate the impact of the first phase of the war (November 2020 to May 2021) on households in Tigray. After controlling for sample selection, a difference-in-differences approach is used to estimate causal effects of the conflict on population access to health services, food, and water and sanitation. Inverse probability weighting is used to adjust for sample attrition. The conflict has increased the share of respondents who report that they were unable to access needed health services by 35 percentage points (95% CI: 14–55 pp) and medicine by 8 pp (95% CI:2–15 pp). It has also increased the share of households unable to purchase staple foods by 26 pp (95% CI:7–45 pp). The share of households unable to access water did not increase, although the percentage able to purchase soap declined by 17 pp (95% CI: 1–32 pp). We document significant heterogeneity across popula tion groups, with disproportionate effects on the poor, on rural populations, on households with undernourished children, and those living in communities without health facilities. These significant disruptions in access to basic services likely underestimate the true bur den of conflict in the affected population, given that the conflict has continued beyond the survey period, and that worse-affected households may have higher rates of non-response. Documented spatial and household-level heterogeneity in the impact of the conflict may help guide rapid post-conflict responses.

Water resources and food are the most important and basic resources for human beings and society. In recent decades, due to the growth of global population and economy, water resources and food shortages have become a global resource problem. Under this background, the significance of exploring the relationship between water-food in ecosystem services becomes more and more prominent. In view of this, this study used the SWAT model and the spatialized food production model to quantitatively evaluate the supply, demand, and supply-demand ratio of water and food production in the Jinghe River Basin in 2020, and built a system dynamics model of the watershed ecosystem services to simulate the coupling of water and food. According to the socio-economic conditions, nine different population economic development scenarios were set up to simulate the development of the water-food relationship between the ecosystem services of the river basin in 2030. The results showed that ① the spatial differences in water supply-demand ratio and food self-sufficiency rate in Jinghe River Basin in 2020 were obvious, and the supply-demand ratio in the upper reaches of the basin was significantly higher than that in the lower reaches. ② Through model simulations of three water supply-demand ratios and three food self-sufficiency rates, it was found that the water supply-demand ratios and food self-sufficiency rates showed obvious synergistic relationships both in time and in spatial distribution. ③ Under nine economic and demographic development scenarios, the optimal simulation effect was achieved under scenario E1P3 for both water-food supply and demand in the Jinghe River Basin in 2030. That was, when the economy and population develop in opposite directions, the supply-demand ratio of the two achieved the best simulation effect. The results provided a scientific basis for the sustainable development of water-food relationship in Jinghe River Basin in the future.

Cold-water corals (CWCs) are important ecosystem engineers in the deep sea that provide habitat for numerous species and can form large coral mounds. These mounds influence surrounding currents and induce distinct hydrodynamic features, such as internal waves and episodic downwelling events that accelerate transport of organic matter towards the mounds, supplying the corals with food. To date, research on organic matter distribution at coral mounds has focussed either on seasonal timescales or has provided single point snapshots. Data on food distribution at the timescale of a diurnal tidal cycle is currently limited. Here, we integrate physical, biogeochemical, and biological data throughout the water column and along a transect on the south-eastern slope of Rockall Bank, Northeast Atlantic Ocean. This transect consisted of 24-h sampling stations at four locations: Bank, Upper slope, Lower slope, and the Oreo coral mound. We investigated how the organic matter distribution in the water column along the transect is affected by tidal activity. Repeated CTD casts indicated that the water column above Oreo mound was more dynamic than above other stations in multiple ways. First, the bottom water showed high variability in physical parameters and nutrient concentrations, possibly due to the interaction of the tide with the mound topography. Second, in the surface water a diurnal tidal wave replenished nutrients in the photic zone, supporting new primary production. Third, above the coral mound an internal wave (200 m amplitude) was recorded at 400 m depth after the turning of the barotropic tide. After this wave passed, high quality organic matter was recorded in bottom waters on the mound coinciding with shallow water physical characteristics such as high oxygen concentration and high temperature. Trophic markers in the benthic community suggest feeding on a variety of food sources, including phytodetritus and zooplankton. We suggest that there are three transport mechanisms that supply food to the CWC ecosystem. First, small phytodetritus particles are transported downwards to the seafloor by advection from internal waves, supplying high quality organic matter to the CWC reef community. Second, the shoaling of deeper nutrient-rich water into the surface water layer above the coral mound could stimulate diatom growth, which form fast-sinking aggregates. Third, evidence from lipid analysis indicates that zooplankton faecal pellets also enhance supply of organic matter to the reef communities. This study is the first to report organic matter quality and composition over a tidal cycle at a coral mound and provides evidence that fresh high-quality organic matter is transported towards a coral reef during a tidal cycle.

Mentha spicata L. disappears in winter. The lack of fresh mint during the cold season can be a limiting factor for the preparation of mint tea. A fresh taste source that can be kept during winter is mint essential oil. As the oil is not soluble in water, a food-approved, water-soluble essential oil microemulsion was studied, investigating different surfactants, in particular Tween® 60. The challenge was to dissolve an extremely hydrophobic essential oil in a homogeneous, stable, transparent, and spontaneously forming solution of exclusively edible additives without adulterating the original fresh taste of the mint. Making use of the microemulsions’ water and oil pseudo-phases, hydrophilic sweeteners and hydrophobic dyes could be incorporated to imitate mint leaf infusions aromatically and visually. The resulting formulation was a concentrate, consisting of ∼ 90% green components, which could be diluted with water or tea to obtain a beverage with a pleasant minty taste.

The Multi-Sectoral Water Circularity Assessment (MSWCA) is a methodological framework developed for circularity assessment of the Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystems nexus. It involves five methodological steps and includes an indicators list for the selection of case-specific indicators. This study expands the MSWCA to provide a systematic approach for selecting indicators, considering system's circular actions and multi-functionality, the capture of implemented changes, the three CE principles and the sustainable development goals. Furthermore, this study differentiates between benchmark and dynamic circularity assessment and applies the expanded MSWCA in a water system of the HYDROUSA H2020 project. The benchmark assessment indicates that the HYDROUSA system achieves a 75% increase of water circularity, 76–80% increase of nutrients circularity and 14% reduction of operational `carbon footprint compared to the baseline scenario. The dynamic assessment highlights that additional measures can improve the system's circularity performance (e.g. water circularity can reach 94%) and mitigate risks occurring from uncontrollable changes.