Food, energy, and water (FEW) are interdependent and must be examined as a coupled natural–human system. This perspective essay defines FEW systems and outlines key findings about them as a blueprint for future models to satisfy six key objectives. The first three focus on linking the FEW production and consumption to impacts on Earth cycles in a spatially specific manner in order to diagnose problems and identify potential solutions. The second three focus on describing the evolution of FEW systems to identify risks, thus empowering the FEW actors to better achieve the goals of resilience and sustainability. Four key findings about the FEW systems that guide future model development are (1) that they engage ecological, carbon, water, and nutrient cycles most powerfully among all human systems; (2) that they operate primarily at a mesoscale best captured by counties, districts, and cities; (3) that cities are hubs within the FEW system; and (4) that the FEW system forms a complex network.

The dataset concerns the environmental impacts of water consumption and land use caused by 1 kg of food item supplied to two Mediterranean countries: France and Tunisia. The dataset takes into account the food items available in France and Tunisia (identified in two national dietary surveys) and their origin. Water consumption and land use surfaces were extracted from existing databases and from national data for animal feed description. Up-to-date available evaluation methods were used to assess the associated impacts. The origin of ingredients was considered to compute impacts on all countries of the world. These data were used in Perignon et al., 2019 [1].

Water, energy, and food are the most basic and essential sectors for human welfare. However, an inextricable nexus and competition exists among these sectors. Production of molasses-based bioethanol is an interesting case resulting in the production of different food and energy materials while consuming water, energy, land, and other raw materials, throughout its life cycle. This paper briefly describes the nexus among water, energy, and food for bioethanol in Pakistan and its environmental implications. A life cycle approach has been used for evaluating four footprint categories including the carbon, ecological, water scarcity, and energy footprints along with an energy analysis of bioethanol. In comparison to conventional gasoline, bioethanol would have benefits in terms of lesser greenhouse gas emissions, better use of productive land, and superior energy performance, but, this will be at the expense of higher impacts in terms of water scarcity. Therefore, considering only a single aspect could result in inadvertent trade-offs that may go unnoticed. The quantified values would help accomplish integrated resource management along with their utilization within limits so as to be available for other uses. This study could help in developing strategies for optimal management of resources to maximize the synergies and minimize the possible trade-offs.

Depletion of natural resources needs quantification and efficiency analysis of the use of resources to improve sustainability. This paper evaluates the efficiency of Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) countries in terms of Water-Energy-Land-Food (WELF-Nexus) to ensure sustainability and environmental viability for both present and future generations. An input-output index system is built at a transnational level. Composite and intrinsic indicators are introduced to incorporate the interconnections and tradeoffs between sectors of the nexus and outcomes of the nexus. The nonparametric benchmarking order-α model, resulting from Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is used to estimate WELF-Nexus efficiency of each country, and to alleviate the intricacies of using composite and intrinsic indicators. To ensure resource generativity, an output target setting model that accommodates predefined input is proposed. Results show variation in performance among OECD members, with an annual average efficiency score of 68%, 69% and 78% in 2007, 2012, and 2016. Sensitivity analysis was performed to measure the effect of drought on WELF efficiency, a decrease of about 13% on average WELF efficiency was observed. Outputs improvement was recommended for each country: Lithuania (14%), Mexico (10%) and 11% for Hungary, Latvia, and Turkey due to their high inefficiency. The study provides a robust framework for policy making and shows that a win-win strategy for the nexus must be implemented to achieve WELF-Nexus efficiency, given the trade-offs within its sectors. Furthermore, it highlights that innovative-driven policies will enhance WELF-Nexus efficiency and sustainability.

Tafadzwanashe Mabhaudhi et al., 'The Water?Energy?Food Nexus as a Tool to Transform Rural Livelihoods and Well-Being in Southern Africa', International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, vol. 16(16), p.2970, MDPI AG, 2019 | About 60% of southern Africa�??s population lives in rural areas with limited access to basic services and amenities such as clean and safe water, affordable and clean energy, and balanced and nutritious diets. Resource scarcity has direct and indirect impacts on nutrition, human health, and well-being of mostly poor rural communities. Climate change impacts in the region are manifesting through low crop yields, upsurge of vector borne diseases (malaria and dengue fever), and water and food-borne diseases (cholera and diarrhoea). This study applied a water�??energy�??food (WEF) nexus analytical livelihoods model with complex systems understanding to assess rural livelihoods, health, and well-being in southern Africa, recommending tailor-made adaptation strategies for the region aimed at building resilient rural communities. The WEF nexus is a decision support tool that improves rural livelihoods through integrated resource distribution, planning, and management, and ensures inclusive socio-economic transformation and development, and addresses related sustainable development goals, particularly goals 2, 3, 6 and 7. The integrated WEF nexus index for the region was calculated at 0.145, which is marginally sustainable, and indicating the region�??s exposure to vulnerabilities, and reveals a major reason why the region fails to meet its developmental targets. The integrated relationship among WEF resources in southern Africa shows an imbalance and uneven resource allocation, utilisation and distribution, which normally results from a �??siloed�?? approach in resource management. The WEF nexus provides better adaptation options, as it guides decision making processes by identifying priority areas needing intervention, enhancing synergies, and minimising trade-offs necessary for resilient rural communities. Our results identified (i) the trade-offs and unintended negative consequences for poor rural households�?? livelihoods of current silo approaches, (ii) mechanisms for sustainably enhancing household water, energy and food security, whilst (iii) providing direction for achieving SDGs 2, 3, 6 and 7

With worldwide mounting pressure in the three highly interrelated resources of water, energy, and food (WEF) the 'nexus' concept has emerged as the best approach to address the complex and dynamic problem facing the three sectors. Though the challenge of balancing needs across competing uses and users is global, it is more intense in developing regions like the Eastern Nile basin as most of the riparian countries are faced with high poverty and a serious ongoing security problem with the three resources. In the basin, empirical evidence on the WEF nexus is needed to improve resource use efficiency and avoid adverse impacts of single-sector and unilateral development strategies and actions. Accordingly, this study applies the WEF nexus concept in the Eastern Nile basin to assess and quantify tradeoffs and synergies in the basin across sectors and between riparian countries. To address these objectives, combinations of qualitative (e-surveys and interviews) and quantitative (an integrated hydro-economic model) approaches are used. <br /> Results suggested that cooperation across sectors and riparian countries is crucial for the basin because sectoral and transboundary interlinkages are tight, complex and dynamic. Findings from the qualitative assessments advocated that collaboration across WEF sectors is essential at a national and regional level to improve the efficiency of resource use and management in the basin. The same need for cooperation is suggested by the results of the hydro-economic model where the cooperative (system optimization) scenarios yield the highest economic benefits compared to the non-cooperative (tradeoff) scenarios under various levels of hydropower and irrigation developments in the basin. Results from the non-cooperative scenarios indicated the potential for large sectoral and transboundary tradeoffs in the basin if one sector or country is prioritized over the other. Assuming full cooperation, upstream hydropower developments are found to be beneficial to all riparian countries and could have a synergetic impact by ensuring more regulated year-round river flows, increasing irrigation benefits in downstream countries, reducing evaporation losses, and providing access to a large amount of clean and affordable energy in the region. However, new upstream irrigation developments could compete with existing water uses and potentially inflict costs on downstream riparians, unless measures are taken to improve irrigation efficiency in existing and proposed irrigation schemes. <br /> Climate change will add further challenge and complexity to WEF nexus in the basin. It is highly uncertain how climate change is going to affect the supply of and demand for WEF resources in the basin. Predicted changes of river flow in the basin greatly vary across the ten climate change scenarios considered in this study where some (majority) scenarios forecasted increased flow, while others project a reduction in 2050. Also, most climate change scenarios forecasted higher irrigation water demand in the basin either due to reduced crop yield or increased evapotranspiration rate (both). The increase in irrigation water demand resulted in reduced total basin-wide economic benefits (from hydropower and irrigation) despite the predicted increase in total basin-wide inflow by the majority of the climate change scenarios. As climate change (coupled with population and economic growth) poses high uncertainty to the basin's future, dynamic collaborative efforts are needed among sectors and basin countries. There are various areas where riparian countries can cooperate on to enhance the benefit of future WEF developments in the basin. These include undertaking joint transboundary developments and promoting 'beyond the river' links in the region by strengthening existing technical, economic and institutional ties, and creating new ones.

[Departement_IRSTEA]Ecotechnologies [TR1_IRSTEA]INSPIRE [ADD1_IRSTEA]Équiper l'agriculture | The dataset concerns the environmental impacts of water consumption and land use caused by 1 kg of food item supplied to two Mediterranean countries: France and Tunisia. The dataset takes into account the food items available in France and Tunisia (identified in two national dietary surveys) and their origin. Water consumption and land use surfaces were extracted from existing databases and from national data for animal feed description. Up-to-date available evaluation methods were used to assess the associated impacts. The origin of ingredients was considered to compute impacts on all countries of the world. These data were used in Perignon et al., 2019.[1][1] M. Perignon, C. Sinfort, J. El Ati, P. Traissac, S. Drogue, N. Darmon, M.-J. Amiot (2019), the Medina Study Group How to meet nutritional recommendations and reduce diet environmental impact in the Mediterranean region? An optimization study to identify more sustainable diets in TunisiaGlobal Food Security, 23, pp. 227-235, 10.1016/j.gfs.2019.07.006

In this study, a spatiotemporal disaggregated simulation model was developed based on water-food-energy (WFE) nexus approach to assess water and food supply security considering ecosystem provisioning services in Gavkhuni Basin in central Iran. The main components of the developed model in this study (SD-WFE model), which is the first of its kind in Iran, are population, water, agriculture, and energy modules. The model, which was developed using System Dynamics (SD) approach, was utilized to simulate effectiveness of sectoral municipal, industrial, and agricultural water and energy consumption management and environmental protection policies in improving ecosystem provisioning services during a 10-year period. The results indicated that the combined policies proposed by the agriculture and environment sectors were the most effective in changing the status of WFE system and meeting the Gavkhuni wetland environmental demand. Implementing a combination of ACP (changing crop pattern and enhancing crop productivity) and EGP (controlling groundwater withdrawal) policies not only increased surface water security (4%) and groundwater security (5%) but also diminished water for food production (18%) and energy for water (26%). The policies proposed by the energy sector were not influential in improving the ecosystem provisioning services. Overall, the results showed that the security of water supply and status of energy subsystem in the basin were highly dependent on the food sector. The results also reflected proper performance of SD-WFE model in representing the impacts of policies proposed by water, agriculture and energy sectors, and therefore it proved to be a useful tool for cross-sectoral coordination and planning.

We designed Air-in-Oil-in-Water (A/O/W) emulsions. First, Air-in-Oil foams were fabricated by whipping anhydrous milk fat. The maximum overrun was obtained at 20 °C. The foams contained 30–35 vol% air and were stabilized solely by fat crystals. To refine the bubble size, foams were further sheared in a Couette’s cell. The average bubble size reached a value as small as 6.5 μm at a shear rate of 5250 s−1. The nonaqueous foams were then dispersed in a viscous aqueous phase containing sodium caseinate to obtain A/O/W emulsions. The shear rate was varied from 1000 to 7500 s−1, allowing to obtain Air-in-Oil globules whose average diameter ranged from 15 to 60 μm. To avoid globule creaming, the aqueous phase was gelled by incorporating hydroxyethyl cellulose. Homogeneous emulsions were obtained with fat globules containing around 22 vol% of residual air. The systems were kinetically stable for at least 3 weeks at 4 °C.

Most disenfranchised populations live and work in rural areas under poverty and with limited access to basic resources as energy, water and food supply. Individuals and families in rural areas face difficult odds that often result in inequality and disenfranchisement. They are more likely than their urban counterparts to suffer from the consequences of poverty, facing huge problems associated with undernourishment that mostly end in human casualties. The Human Development Index (HDI) helps to identify healthy life criteria and a decent standard of living that is closely related to quality of life. Several strategies have been reported to improve the living conditions in disenfranchised communities around the world. However, there is not an integrated approach to reducing poverty and ensuring sustainable use of the environment and natural resources in these communities, accounting for the water–energy–food nexus to improve the HDI. Therefore, this paper presents a new optimization approach accounting for the water–energy–food nexus in order to increase the HDI in disenfranchised communities by simultaneously considering economic, environmental and social sustainability criteria. A case study taking into account fourteen of the municipalities of the State of Michoacán from Mexico with the lowest HDI was considered to apply the proposed approach. The results show that by the implementation of this integrated approach, it is possible to increase the HDI in such communities by 4.3%, which is higher that results show by Mexico’s HDI values in last 17 years of 0.93%, making the model attractive for decisions makers.