Cambodia has abundant water resources in general, but it has a little water in the dry season. The increased dry season rice farming in many provinces, following the increased rice export policy in Cambodia and the spill-over effects of rice trade in Vietnam has led to high demands for water for dry season rice farming. These have led to water shortage and conflicts over water among farmers in the farming provinces, and between sectors, for instance, fishery and rice farming. Irrigation system development and improvement have improved water management and support to agricultural development. Rice farming areas have been expanded to around 2 million ha and rice farming has been increased from one rice crop to three rice crops a year. These have increased the high demand of waters for rice farming

Faced with growing pressure upon freshwater resources, increased water productivity in agriculture is essential. Efforts to do so however need to consider the wider role of water in sustaining food production. This paper considers the importance of water management in sustaining fish production in tropical river basins, and the potential for enhancing food production and income to farmers by integrating fish production into some farming systems. Specific examples from selected river systems and irrigated farming systems in Africa and Asia are provided. These highlight the benefits of integrating the water requirements for fish into water allocation decisions. In some cases, these benefits can be realised without any reduction in the water available for other purposes, while in others, a trade-off needs to be considered. The nature of these trade-offs needs to be better understood for better decision making in water management.

River, lake, floodplains and farmland produce foods to sustain livelihoods of communities for many generations. Given the increased population and development needs, these food production land-waterscapes have been so-called developed and transformed into specialized and controlled landscapes, claiming at increasing the management and improved productivities. These have induced the disconnection between rivers, floodplains, lakes and farmlands. Policy and institutional frameworks have been attached to these land-waterscapes. Irrigation systems have been built, cutting across the rivers, floodplains and landscapes and claiming to provide water to irrigate and improve rice farming across countries. Fishery domain has been managed into CFis and CFRs, claiming to protect and conserve fish for foods for rural population who live dependent on these resources for generations. However, fishery resources have affected by the irrigation development and rice farming, leading to decline in fish production.

Freshwater use for food production is projected to increase substantially in the coming decades with population growth, changing demographics, and shifting diets. Ensuring joint food-water security has prompted efforts to quantify freshwater use for different food products and production methods. However, few analyses quantify freshwater use for seafood production, and those that do use inconsistent water accounting. This inhibits water use comparisons among seafood products or between seafood and agricultural/livestock products. This 'seafood gap' in the food-water nexus literature will become increasingly problematic as seafood consumption is growing globally and aquaculture is one of the fastest growing animal food sectors in the world. Therefore, the present study 1) reviews freshwater use concepts as they relate to seafood production; 2) provides three case studies to highlight the particular water use concerns for aquaculture, and; 3) outlines future directions to integrate seafood into the broader food-water nexus discussion. By revisiting water use concepts through a focus on seafood production systems, we highlight the key water use processes that should be considered for seafood production and offer a fresh perspective on the analysis of freshwater use in food systems more broadly.

The paper proposes a probabilistic approach to the assessment of the impacts of multipurpose dams. It is framed around the notion of Nature's Contributions to People (NCP) in the setting of the Water-Energy-Food nexus. The socio-ecological context of the Tana River Basin in Kenya and the construction of two multipurpose dams are used to highlight co-produced positive and negative NCP under alternative river regimes. These regimes produce both damaging floods that ought to be controlled and beneficial floods that ought to be allowed. But the river regime that results from hydropower generation and flood risk reduction may not be the one that is most conducive to food and feed-based NCP. The approach relates the economic value of river-based NCP co-production to the probability of flooding to derive the expected annual value of NCP and a NCP value-probability curve. The relation between NCP flows and flood characteristics is tested and estimated based on regression analyses with historical data. Results indicate that the net economic value of key NCP associated with multipurpose dams for local people and associated social equity effects largely depend on the frequency of flood events and on the way impacts are distributed across communities, economic sectors and time.

The Southwestern coastal zone of Bangladesh is agro-based and one of the world's most populous, poverty-stricken and food-insecure regions, with high vulnerability to climate change. Shrimp aquaculture rapidly expanded in this tidal floodplain but shrimp is highly susceptible to disease, has less contribution in local consumption, and its profitability depends on international market prices, leading the demand for improving the farming system. There is an opportunity to diversify and increase system productivity by integrating rice with aquaculture during the monsoon season through adoption of some water management practices at an individual and community level. This also minimizes the effluent load of aquaculture intensification.

Our research contributes to understanding actionable knowledge for sustainability using a before-after intervention with fishing and farming community representatives in a situation of conflicting water, energy, food, and livelihoods priorities in rural Cambodia. We explain why reducing uncertainty and building consensus on action through participatory research could potentially catalyze new behavior that promotes sustainability and test how this happens in our intervention. The result is a new and much needed evaluation framework and method for behavioral change outcomes in sustainability interventions.

Forty per cent of the world population is settled in coastal zones, where much of industrial needs and world's food are produced. The influence of the sea on the environment and human livelihood is not restricted to the coastline- and mangrove belt. Indeed, its influence can be found up to 50 km further inland. Brackish water creates an environment in which continuous and dynamic flux impinges upon the stability of agricultural production systems and concomitant livelihood strategies. Most common management interventions fail to recognize the diversity of rural livelihoods in the coastal zones, and the environmental consequences for water quality and aquatic biodiversity. To address the diverse stakeholder interests and complex multi-scale upstream-downstream interactions, the Challenge Program on Water and Food Number 10 (CPWF #10) project started in 2004 with the aim of developing appropriate rice-aquaculture production systems to increase land and water productivity for improved food security and livelihoods suited to the different environments across the land water interface of two deltaic plains; the Mekong River Delta (Vietnam) and Indus-Gangetic Delta (Bangladesh).