The escalating human demand for food, water, energy, fibres and minerals have resulted in increasing commercial pressures on land and water resources, which are partly reflected by the recent increase in transnational land investments. Studies have shown that many of the land-water issues associated with land acquisitions are directly related to the areas of energy and food production. This paper explores the land-water-energy-food nexus in relation to large-scale farmland investments pursued by investors from European countries. The analysis is based on a “resource assessment approach” which evaluates the linkages between land acquisitions for agricultural (including both energy and food production) and forestry purposes, and the availability of land and water in the target countries. To that end, the water appropriated by agricultural and forestry productions is quantitatively assessed and its impact on water resource availability is analysed. The analysis is meant to provide useful information to investors from EU countries and policy makers on aspects of resource acquisition, scarcity, and access to promote responsible land investments in the target countries.

We use an innovative methodology to model the socioeconomic linkages between water, energy, and food in the East Nile Basin. Based upon a theoretical nexus framework, the methodology is expanded into a quantifiable modeling suite that under-lies the analysis of each of three country case studies. The advantages are that, despite resource shortages being a challenge, the modeling suite aids in devising policies and strategies that formulate these sectoral interdependencies and provide the evidence-based research results necessary for their design in a way that exploits synergies existing across sectors, countries, and regions (Al-Zubari n.d.). This paper lays out the methodology and gives an example of an application and scenarios by focusing on three countries in the East Nile Basin. This methodology paper will be followed by three individual country case studies that highlight the water, energy, and food nexus for each.

Journal of Sustainable Development, 2017; 10 ( 2) | Knowledge on users’ and regulators’ views regarding obstacles on the use of low quality water forms the basis for the improvement of water reuse in food crops irrigation. A qualitative study was conducted to assess the obstacles to the use of low quality water for irrigation of food crops in urban and peri-urban areas in Tanzania. The study considered Morogoro urban and peri-urban areas as a case study due to the existence of paddy and vegetable production using the effluent from the waste stabilisation ponds. Both primary and secondary data were used. Primary data were collected through in-depth interviews with 22 key informants, and 4 focus group discussions with farmers. Content analysis was used in this study. Findings show that domestic wastewater was poorly disposed, waste stabilisation ponds as treatment facilities had limited management, and quality monitoring of effluent from the waste stabilisation ponds was limited to permit safe use of the effluent in food crops irrigation. The government officials were of the view that the effluent from the waste stabilisation ponds should not be used for leafy vegetables irrigation while farmers viewed vegetables farming as a quick source of income and livelihood strategy for many years. The study therefore suggests that the relevant agencies should improve the treatment of wastewater and quality monitoring of the effluent for safe use of low quality water for food crops irrigation in urban and peri-urban areas.

We investigate the impacts of access to piped water on drinking water quality, sanitation, hygiene and health outcomes in marginalized rural households of north-western Bangladesh, using a quasi-experimental setup. A government organization – the Barindra Multipurpose Development Authority (BMDA) – established a piped water network to connect rural households with the deep ground water resources and improve their access to potable water. Using propensity score matching, the study compares a treatment and a control group of households to identify gains in water-sanitation, hygiene and health outcomes. In terms of water safety, we find no improvement in the quality of drinking water, measured by E. coli count per 100 ml of water at the point of use (i.e. the pots and jars used to store it). Food utensils tested positive for E. coli in both the control and treatment group, thus showing no improvement through the BMDA intervention. Hygiene behavior such as handwashing with soap after defecation or before feeding children also does not improve. Finally, we do not find evidence of health benefits, such as decreased diarrhea incidence of under-five children or improved nutritional outcomes such as stunting, underweight and wasting. Although access to BMDA piped water in the premises is subject to a fee, it seems this incentive mechanism is not strong enough to improve water behavior or its outcomes: treated households are as poor as the non-treated in terms of maintaining hygiene and water quality, possibly because of lack of information.

Castro-Muñoz, R., Fíla, V., Rodríguez-Romero, V. M., & Yáñez-Fernández, J. (November-December, 2017). Water production from food processing wastewaters using integrated membrane systems: A sustainable approach. Water Technology and Sciences (in English), 8(6), 129-136, DOI: 10.24850/j-tyca-2017-06-09. This scientific note reviews current approaches for using membrane technology to treat wastewater from food processing, for example, as a means to produce water by recovering components with high added value. In addition, with regard to the availability of wastewater, processes that contain membranes have been shown to be advantageous in terms of treating waste, recovering solutes, and producing water. With regard to the latter, processes that contain membranes can be considered to be a sustainable methodology given the valorization of waste. Lastly, this note provides a brief general view emphasizing a real need to apply membrane technology in the food industry, and indicates that its application is undoubtedly to come.

Heterogeneous and hygroscopic characteristics of plant-based food material make it complex in structure, and therefore water distribution in its different cellular environments is very complex. There are three different cellular environments, namely the intercellular environment, the intracellular environment, and the cell wall environment inside the food structure. According to the bonding strength, intracellular water is defined as loosely bound water, cell wall water is categorized as strongly bound water, and intercellular water is known as free water (FW). During food drying, optimization of the heat and mass transfer process is crucial for the energy efficiency of the process and the quality of the product. For optimizing heat and mass transfer during food processing, understanding these three types of waters (strongly bound, loosely bound, and free water) in plant-based food material is essential. However, there are few studies that investigate cellular level water distribution and transport. As there is no direct method for determining the cellular level water distributions, various indirect methods have been applied to investigate the cellular level water distribution, and there is, as yet, no consensus on the appropriate method for measuring cellular level water in plant-based food material. Therefore, the main aim of this paper is to present a comprehensive review on the available methods to investigate the cellular level water, the characteristics of water at different cellular levels and its transport mechanism during drying. The effect of bound water transport on quality of food product is also discussed. This review article presents a comparative study of different methods that can be applied to investigate cellular water such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), bioelectric impedance analysis (BIA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and dilatometry. The article closes with a discussion of current challenges to investigating cellular water.

Human activities are increasingly leading to overuse of surface water and nonrenewable groundwater, challenging the capacity of water resources to ensure food security and continuous growth of the economy. Adaptation policies targeting specifically water security can easily overlook its interaction with other sustainability metrics and unanticipated local responses to the larger-scale policy interventions. Using a recently developed global partial equilibrium, grid-resolving model, nick-named SIMPLE-on-a-Grid and coupling it with the global Water Balance Model, we simulate the impacts of reducing unsustainable irrigation water withdrawals on land use change and food supply, under a variety of future (2050) scenarios with and without adaptations. Comparisons are made among three policy interventions: inter-basin water transfers, investments in agricultural productivity-enhancing technologies, and the promotion of virtual water trade. Although each of these scenarios affects regional food supply in a similar fashion, their implications for land cover change, carbon emissions and global food security are quite different. By allowing for a systematic comparison of these alternative adaptations to future scarcity, the global gridded modeling approach offers unique insights into the multiscale nature of the water scarcity challenge.

Abstract: This scientific note reviews current approaches for using membrane technology to treat wastewater from food processing, for example, as a means to produce water by recovering components with high added value. In addition, with regard to the availability of wastewater, processes that contain membranes have been shown to be advantageous in terms of treating waste, recovering solutes, and producing water. With regard to the latter, processes that contain membranes can be considered to be a sustainable methodology given the valorization of waste. Lastly, this note provides a brief general view emphasizing a real need to apply membrane technology in the food industry, and indicates that its application is undoubtedly to come. | Resumen: Esta nota científica revisa los enfoques actuales de la tecnología de membranas para el tratamiento de residuos del procesamiento de alimentos; por ejemplo, como vía para la producción de agua a través de la recuperación de componentes de alto valor agregado. Además, se ha demostrado que los procesos integrados de membrana pueden ofrecer la ventaja de realizar las siguientes tareas en términos de disposición de aguas residuales: tratamiento de residuos, recuperación de solutos y producción de agua. Esto último permite considerar a los procesos integrados de membrana como una metodología sustentable a través de la valorización de residuos. Por último, esta nota provee una breve visión general, resaltando que la aplicación de la tecnología de membranas en verdad es necesaria en la industria alimentaria y que seguramente su implementación real aún está por venir.