Virtual water is an important addendum to how we view a country's water resources. This study examines the virtual water embedded in Jordan's agricultural produce and its impact on future water–energy–food policies. Blue and green virtual waters are calculated from data on rainfall, crop patterns, yields, and water requirements at the district level. Results highlight the advantages of blue water usage in the Jordan Valley and of harnessing more available green water in the Highlands, with both displaying low energy impact. Results also emphasize the high groundwater usage and energy footprint in the Desert regions, signalling a need to rein in groundwater extraction and take advantage of solar power.

For the sustainable communities, there is a strong need to address the United Nations' sustainable development goals for communities, cities and countries. In this paper, we develop a unique hybrid energy system for cleaner productions of energy, fuel, food and water for an indigenous community by addressing the following goals, namely: zero hunger; clean water; affordable and clean energy; industry, innovation and infrastructure; sustainable cities and communities; and climate action. Also, the present sustainable system is investigated thermodynamically by considering energy and exergy criteria and evaluated through energy and exergy efficiencies. As a case study, the Saugeen First Nation indigenous community in the Bruce Peninsula in Ontario, Canada, is selected for meeting the demands of useful commodities where an integration of a newly developed multigenerational system with an existing nuclear reactor is achieved in order to provide food security, supply the freshwater for drinking purposes, and meet the community's electricity and heat demands. Moreover, to exploit the existing thermophysical properties of fluids in the nuclear system, a hydrogen generation unit is proposed. The novel integration is enhanced the current nuclear system and increased the variety of useful outputs. The overall system is analyzed according to the first and second laws of thermodynamics. A transient (time-dependent) analysis is carried out via hourly simulations with software packages and hourly sensitive meteorological data. The overall system performance results are obtained as 65.8% for energy efficiency and 40.1% exergy efficiency at average ambient conditions for a 126.04 mol/s hydrogen production rate.

Efficient utilization of the limited Water, Energy, and Food (WEF) resources in stressed transboundary river basins requires understanding their interlinkages in different transboundary cooperation conditions. The Blue Nile Basin, a transboundary river basin between Ethiopia and Sudan, is used to illustrate the impacts of cooperation between riparian countries on the Water-Energy-Food nexus (WEF nexus). These impacts are quantified and evaluated using a daily model that simulates hydrological processes, irrigation water requirements, and water allocation to hydro-energy generation and irrigation water supply. Satellite-based rainfall data are evaluated and applied as a boundary condition to model the hydrological processes.The model is used to determine changes in the long-term economic gain (i.e. after infrastructure development plans are implemented and in steady operation) for each of Sudan and Ethiopia independently, and for the Blue Nile Basin from WEF in 120 scenarios. Those scenarios result from combinations of three cooperation states: unilateral action, coordination, and collaboration; and infrastructure development settings including the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and planned irrigation schemes in Sudan. The results show that the economic gain of the Blue Nile Basin from WEF increases with raising the cooperation level between Ethiopia and Sudan to collaboration. However, the economic gain of each riparian country does not necessarily follow the same pattern as the economic gain of the basin.

In order to develop food crops in upland in the tropics area, the potential water resources, such as the availability of soil moisture and surface water can be used as a source of water supply especially during the deficit. Therefore, to develop a sustainable food crop, the water balance analysis is absolutely necessary. The data used were series of climate data (temperature, precipitation, evaporation) for 37-year period (1971-2007) at Japura station, Rengat, Riau, heat index data and soil data (soil moisture at field capacity and permanent wilting point) and the effective rooting depth. Exceeded rainfall probabilities and water balance were analyzed using statistical methods. The results showed that soil moisture conditions were always above the limit of water availability for crops although the water balance was deficit for normal, wet and dry conditions. This shows that food crops can be planted all for the whole year in the research area. ABSTRAK Dalam rangka pengembangan tanaman pangan di lahan tadah hujan/kering di daerah tropik basah, potensi sumberdaya air, baik berupa ketersediaan lengas tanah maupun air permukaan dapat dijadikan sebagai sumber pasokan air terutama pada saat defisit. Oleh sebab itu untuk pengembangan tanaman pangan yang berkelanjutan, maka analisis neraca air mutlak diperlukan. Data yang digunakan berupa data seri iklim (temperatur udara, curah hujan, evaporasi) periode 37 tahun (1971­2007) stasiun Japura, Rengat, Riau, data indeks panas serta data tanah (lengas tanah pada saat kapasitas lapang dan titik layu permanen) serta kedalaman perakaran efektif. Peluang curah hujan terlampaui dan neraca air dianalisis meng­ gunakan metode statistik. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa keadaan lengas tanah selalu pada batas air tersedia bagi tanaman meskipun neraca air mengalami defisit baik pada kondisi normal, kering maupun basah. Hal ini menunjukkan bahwa di wilayah penelitian dapat dilakukan penanaman tanaman pangan sepanjang tahun.