The Murray–Darling Basin (MDB) covers 1.1 million km², involves six legislative jurisdictions, a myriad of different agencies and illustrates the many complexities of managing fishes, people and water. Its rivers provide water for agriculture, are highly regulated and generally in poor health. Water allocation reform is underway to improve ecological condition but provision of water for environmental outcomes competes with agricultural requirements. Murray–Darling Basin rivers and fishes are important culturally and contribute substantially to tourism and recreational fishing. The MDB has a low number of fish species, now estimated to be at 10% of their pre‐European abundance, and all subject to a range of threats, many related to water use and associated infrastructure. The MDB Native Fish Strategy takes a coordinated, long‐term, whole‐of‐fish‐community approach to address priority threats and rehabilitate populations. This strategy provides a holistic approach with many actions that complement the potential benefits of water reform.

The Pacific lamprey is an iconic native fish of great importance to the ecosystem and indigenous cultures in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Pacific lamprey populations have declined in abundance from historic levels, and conservation aquaculture has been proposed as a technique to restore these populations. The present research focused on expanding the culture methods for larval lamprey. The larvae filter feed and cohabitate with juvenile salmonids in the wild, therefore the effluent water from rearing salmonids may be a viable source of water and food for culturing lamprey. This approach could be a sustainable method for raising lamprey at existing salmonid hatcheries. A nine week trial investigated the effects of rearing in effluent water from salmonid culture on the growth, survival, proximate composition, and fatty acid profile of larval lamprey. This trial also explored the potential of this rearing strategy to improve the water quality by removing nutrients from the effluent. The trial included three treatments testing the use of the effluent from steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), a conventional lamprey diet (control diet), or both combined as a means for rearing lamprey. A fourth treatment where lamprey were excluded served as a water quality control to test the effect of lamprey presence on effluent quality. Lamprey survival was not affected by treatment. Lamprey reared solely on the effluent waste matched the survival and growth of fish fed the conventional diet. Lamprey fed the combination treatment grew faster than the conventional diet fed fish. Whole body lipid levels were elevated in lamprey from the combination treatment relative to the conventional diet fed lamprey. Crude protein in the whole bodies of effluent fed lamprey was low compared to fish from either of the treatments where the conventional diet was fed. Lamprey offered the effluent nutrients were high in saturated fats relative to the control fed fish, which reflected the lipid profile of this diet. However, lamprey from the combination treatment were lower in long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids relative to the control or the effluent treatment lamprey. There was no measureable improvement in water quality due to the presence of lamprey, though lamprey were able to sequester approximately 1.3% of the effluent dry matter as lamprey biomass. Overall, it appears the larval stage of lamprey can be effectively reared on salmonid effluent, and this method provides superior growth when used in combination with a conventional lamprey diet.

Food security and water sustainability in arid and semiarid regions are threatened by rapid population growth, declining natural resources, and global climate change. Countries in the arid regions compensate meat import by raising domestic livestock with cultivated green fodder, which diminishes lands for other crops and depletes precious water resources. This study presents for the first time an in-depth integrated food water ecosystem (FWEco) nexus modeling on the feasibility of restoring 10% of Kuwait's desert as grazing rangeland to alleviate water consumption from fodder production. Our results showed that revegetating 10% of the country's land with native species could support up to 23% of domestic livestock through natural grazing at optimal coverage (70%) and high productivity, and decrease water consumption by up to 90%. However, depending solely on natural rainfall is unlikely to achieve the optimal coverage. Strategic supplemental irrigation in the fall season (e.g., October and November) is required to maximize vegetation coverage and enhance food security and water sustainability. Significantly, strategic irrigation results in much lower net water consumption because irrigating native species requires much less water than green fodder cultivation. Therefore, revegetating desert lands with native species to restore their natural grazing service can be a sustainable approach to simultaneously improve food security and water sustainability in arid landscapes.

This paper focuses on the role of invasive, omnivorous/carnivorous amphipods in the food web of lakes and evaluates their significance as food items for fishes in two major lakes and reservoirs of the northwestern region of Russia: Lake Ladoga and Rybinsk Reservoir. Fish samples from both water bodies were collected, there age determined and their stomach content analysed to assess the role of the introduced amphipod in the diet. Fish species mainly analysed were: perch Perca fluviatilis, ruffe Gymnocephalus cernuus, burbot Lota lota, roach Rutilus rutilus, vendace Coregonus albula and kilka Clupeonella cultriventris. Analysis of original and literature data showed that the energy flow from zoobenthos to fish was modified by the Baikalian amphipod Gmelinoides fasciatus, introduced in the 1960s-80s into many lakes and reservoirs of Russia. The invader established successfully in different aquatic systems, rapidly reaching high abundances. Examples from Lake Ladoga and the Rybinsk Reservoir confirmed that the species is an important food item for littoral benthivorous fishes (ruffe, perch, gobies, burbot), especially at early ontogenetic stages and also for several pelagic fish (vendace, kilka). Although these fish species are considered low food quality, they enrich the food supply for large predatory fish species. In Lake Ladoga, G. fasciatus influenced negatively the abundance and biomass of native benthic invertebrates (including Gammarus lacustris and Asellus aquaticus) which were previously important prey items for littoral fishes: in the beginning of introduction up to 24100 m⁻² and 33.5 g m⁻²; after introduction 6200-7800 m⁻² and 16.5 g m⁻², respectively. At the same time, the invader uses food sources (chironomids and oligochaetes) that would otherwise not be available to fishes. Therefore, the introduction of G. fasciatus into lakes and reservoirs of European part of Russia led to a greater share of the benthic productivity available to fishes, thereby allowing the intensive use of new ecosystem components and increasing the overall production in these systems.