Food and water security are directly linked through the agricultural sector and food production and processing. Increasing stresses on food and water resources, influenced by factors such as population growth and climate change, threaten global food and water security. Previous studies have attempted to address this issue with the development of various modeling frameworks, often combining food security and water security models to address the inter-relationship between the two concepts. This study first introduces some of the background and foundational principles behind food and water security models, then critically reviews models that jointly analyze the two concepts. Initially, the dynamic definitions and historic development of water and food security concepts are reviewed. Current global hydrological models and food production/consumption models are then discussed to provide requisite background on available modeling platforms that separately assess water and food security. This study then focuses on an evaluation of ten models that assess food and water security from an interdisciplinary perspective, providing in-depth analysis regarding input parameters, model processes, advantages and limitations. Results suggest that there is a need to further develop input datasets as well as spatial and temporal resolution in existing food and water security models. This will provide the foundation for the development of effective policies and strategies to mitigate future food and water security issues, while considering the protection of the natural environment.

Earthquakes often cause destructive and unpredictable changes that can affect local hydrology (e.g. groundwater elevation or reduction) and thus disrupt land uses and human activities. Prolific agricultural regions overlie seismically active areas, emphasizing the importance to improve our understanding and monitoring of hydrologic and agricultural systems following a seismic event. A thorough data collection is necessary for adequate post-earthquake crop management response; however, the large spatial extent of earthquake's impact makes challenging the collection of robust data sets for identifying locations and magnitude of these impacts. Observing hydrologic responses to earthquakes is not a novel concept, yet there is a lack of methods and tools for assessing earthquake's impacts upon the regional hydrology and agricultural systems. The objective of this paper is to describe how remote sensing imagery, methods and tools allow detecting crop responses and damage incurred after earthquakes because a change in the regional hydrology. Many remote sensing datasets are long archived with extensive coverage and with well-documented methods to assess plant-water relations. We thus connect remote sensing of plant water relations to its utility in agriculture using a post-earthquake agrohydrologic remote sensing (PEARS) framework; specifically in agro-hydrologic relationships associated with recent earthquake events that will lead to improved water management.

In recent years, the presence of microplastics (MP) and nanoplastics (NP) has been assessed in several environmental matrices, including the marine environment and agricultural soil, suggesting those pollutants are likely to enter the food web. However, there is still a severe lack of information about the occurrence of plastic particles in our food, partially due to the multidimensionality of the data necessary to fully describe MP contamination and the consequent difficulty in validating analytical methods. In this review, consisting of two parts, preliminary results about the presence of MP in food, water, and beverages are summarized (Part I) and several approaches for the characterization of micro- and nano-sized plastic particles are reported and discussed (Part II). The information gathered in this manuscript highlights the need for a more comprehensive knowledge of MP/NP occurrence along the food chain in order to assess the food safety risk related to those contaminants and implement strategies for their monitoring in products intended for human consumption. Therefore, an outlook of the field towards a coherent, consistent, and policy-relevant data collection and standardization is included in this review.

Microplastics are extremely complex, and as the food chain comes full circle, it is dreaded that these could have a deleterious influence on humans. Although the risk of plastics to humans is not yet established, their occurrence in food and water destined for human consumption has been reported. The prevalence of micro-sized plastics in the ecosystem and living organisms, their trophic transfer along the food web, and the discernment of food species as competent indicators have become research priorities. The scale of the issue is massive, but what are the main culprits and causes, and could there be a solution in sight for this global problem? Despite the massive amount of research in the field, a collation of available data and pertinent hazard evaluation remains difficult. In order to identify the knowledge gaps and exposure pathways, several traits related to food chain assessment are presented with the goal of properly evaluating and managing this emerging risk. We apprehend three possible noxious consequences of small plastic particles, firstly, due to the plastic particles themselves; secondly, due to the extrication of tenacious organic pollutants adsorbed onto the plastics; and thirdly, due to the leaching of components such as monomers and additives from the plastics. The exigency for the standardization of protocols to bring about consistency in data collection and analysis, involving solutions, stakeholder costs, and benefits, are discussed. Harmonized methods will enable meticulous assessment of the impacts and threats that microplastics pose to the biota and increase the comparability between studies. We emphasize the contribution of the “honest broker” in science, providing an overarching analysis to devise the most viable solutions to microplastic pollution for private and public leadership to utilize.

This paper presents the first groundwater‒energy‒food (GEF) nexus study of Iran’s agronomic crops based on national and provincial datasets and firsthand estimates of agricultural groundwater withdrawal. We use agronomic crop production, water withdrawal, and energy consumption data to estimate groundwater withdrawal from electric-powered irrigation wells and examine agronomic productivity in Iran’s 31 provinces through the lens of GEF nexus. The ex-post GEF analysis sheds light on some of the root causes of the nation’s worsening water shortage problems. Access to highly subsidized water (surface water and groundwater) and energy has been the backbone of agricultural expansion policies in Iran, supporting employment in agrarian communities. Consequently, water use for agronomic crop production has greatly overshot the renewable water supply capacity of the country, making water bankruptcy a serious national security threat. Significant groundwater table decline across the country and increasing energy consumption underscore dysfunctional feedback relations between agricultural water and energy price and groundwater withdrawal in an inefficient agronomic sector. Thus, it is essential to implement holistic policy reforms aimed at reducing agricultural water consumption to alleviate the looming water bankruptcy threats, which can lead to the loss of numerous agricultural jobs in the years to come.

Local-scale opportunities to address challenges of the water–food nexus in the developing world need to be embraced. Borehole-garden permaculture is advocated as one such opportunity that involves the sustainable use of groundwater spilt at hand-pump operated borehole supplies that is otherwise wasted. Spilt water may also pose health risks when accumulating as a stagnant pond. Rural village community use of this grey-water in permaculture projects to irrigate borehole gardens is proposed to primarily provide economic benefit whereby garden-produce revenue helps fund borehole water-point maintenance. Water-supply sustainability, increased food/nutrition security, health protection from malaria, and business opportunity benefits may also arise. Our goal has been to develop an, experience-based, framework for delivery of sustainable borehole-garden permaculture and associated benefits. This is based upon data collection and permaculture implementation across the rural Chikwawa District of Malawi during 2009–17. We use, stakeholder interviews to identify issues influencing uptake, gathering of stagnant pond occurrence data to estimate amelioration opportunity, quantification of permaculture profitability to validate economic potential, and critical assessment of recent permaculture uptake to identify continuing problems. Permaculture was implemented at 123 sites representing 6% of District water points, rising to 26% local area coverage. Most implementations were at, or near, newly drilled community-supply boreholes; hence, amelioration of prevalent stagnant ponds elsewhere remains a concern. The envisaged benefits of permaculture were manifest and early data affirm projected garden profitability and spin-off benefits of water-point banking and community micro-loan access. However, a diversity of technical, economic, social and governance issues were found to influence uptake and performance. Example issues include greater need for improved bespoke garden design input, on-going project performance assessment, and coordinated involvement of multi-sector governmental-development bodies to underpin the integrated natural-resource management required. The developed framework aims to manage the identified issues and requires the concerted action of all stakeholders. Based on the probable ubiquity of underlying issues, the framework is expected to be generalizable to the wider developing world. However, this particular application of permaculture represents a fraction of its greater potential opportunity for rural communities that should be explored.

Water use and agricultural practices in the Mediterranean area are unsustainable. The situation is worsened by the increased frequency of droughts and floods, as well as desertification and soil depletion, associated with climate change. The aim of Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area (PRIMA) is to foster an integrated programme of sustainable food production and water provision in the framework of the water-energy-food nexus. A monitoring tool developed under PRIMA is based on the Sustainable Development Goals, two of which are specifically dedicated to food security (SDG 2) and sustainable management of water (SDG 6).The 12 indicators that have been chosen to be monitored in the Mediterranean area are: Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI); population overweight (%); land use (%); GHG emissions (total and AFOLU)(tCO₂ₑ); cereal yield (kg/ha); agriculture value added (US$/worker); fertilizer consumption (kg/haₐᵣₐbₗₑ ₗₐₙd); crop water productivity (kg/m³); annual freshwater withdrawal for agriculture (%); population served using with safely managed water service (rural, %); population served using with safely managed sanitation (rural, %); amount of agricultural residues used for energy purposes (t). Datasets for these indicators are collected by international bodies such as the World Bank, WHO, FAO and UNFCCC; recent series are available for almost all Mediterranean countries and are constantly updated. The aim of the proposed monitoring tool is to keep track of the impact generated in by PRIMA research and innovation projects Mediterranean countries.

The scarcity of grazing and water for an animal has a negative effect on household welfare and food security either by affecting livestock production directly, affecting crop or off-farm income due to labor reallocation or through its direct impact on time leisure consumption.The economic impacts of resource (grazing and water) scarcity on welfare are undermined. Thus, a better understanding that is derived from the factual evidence is required. The first objective of this paper is to explore the link between natural resource scarcity and per capita food consumption expenditure (PCFE) as proxy for welfare and food security followed by the second objective of analyzing whether this effect is uniform across all quantile groups and there is gender differential effect using distance and shadow price as resource scarcity indicators. The paper used a relatively unique data set from a randomly drawn 518 sample farmers in Northern Ethiopia. To address our first objective, we employ the IV two-stage least square estimation for welfare and probit model for food security drawing on non-separable farm household model.Our estimates show that about 48% of the households were food secure while 52% were food insecure. Our results confirmed the theoretical prediction that resource scarcity affects household PCFE and food security adversely as predicted by the downward spiral hypothesis. The results indicate that animal feed and water scarcity have an important impact on welfare and food security. As expected, in aggregate, reducing time spent searching for water per day leads to an increase in PCFE and food security. Similarly, a decrease in time wastage for searching grazing increase PCFE and food security respectively, and an increment of PCFE and food security is achieved by a reduction in crop residue transporting time per day.The gender differential analysis signals that increasing resource scarcity results in low PCFE and food security, with the male are considerably likely to have less food consumption expenditure and being food insecure more as compared to female households. The total impact of time spent searching for water, grazing, and transporting straw on per PCFE is − 0.142%, − 0.102%, and − 0.092%, respectively, and decreasing reaching time to a water, grazing, and straw source by 0.6 min will increase PCFE by 354 ETB, 254 ETB, and 229 ETB for the median household. Depending on results from the quantile regression, the effect of water and feed scarcity is not uniform across the food consumption distribution.

The spatiotemporal change of cultivated land can exert significant effects on food production and the associated water consumption. The quantification of these effects is meaningful for guiding relevant policies. However, few studies have explored systematic methods assessing changes of food production and water consumption and the relations between them, caused by cultivated land change. This study developed new spatially explicit datasets for constant food crop yield and constant food crop water consumption, combining agricultural statistical data, the China-AEZ model, and the GIS spatial analysis method, and estimated the impact of cultivated land change on food crop production, food crop water consumption and food-water relations characterized by two major indicators, i.e., crop water productivity (CWP) and green water proportion (GWP), in China during 1990–2015. The results showed that the increase of approximately 0.80% in cultivated land area in China resulted in a decrease of approximately 0.37% in average food crop yield per unit area, an increase of approximately 1.97% in blue water consumption per unit area (ETbₗᵤₑ), and continuous decreases in both total water consumption per unit area (ETₐ) and green water consumption per unit area (ETgᵣₑₑₙ), with overall rates of 2.41% and 3.11%, respectively, at the national scale from 1990 to 2015. Concurrently, the average CWP continuously increased with an overall rate of 2.06%, while the average GWP continuously decreased with an overall rate of 0.86% at the national scale. A low-level coupling trend of food-water relations was concluded, together with a negative environmental effect. The food-water relations were getting even worse in major cultivated land expansion areas and during the later period of 2000–2015. The findings of this study can be useful for providing a deep understanding of food-water relations corresponding to cultivated land change and giving suggestions for the sustainable development of cultivated land and the integrated management of water resources.