Water, energy, and food security are of critical concern as rising population growth and rapid urbanization place greater pressure on our natural resources. The trade of ‘virtual water’ through agricultural products and its appropriation through foreign direct investment (FDI) in food production have emerged as potential strategies for water-scarce countries seeking food security. In Saudi Arabia, where domestic agricultural enterprise remains a state priority despite extreme water scarcity, a shift to overseas food production to meet domestic demand could have significant implications for water and energy use as well as local labor markets. This study evaluates the growing internationalization of food production in water-scarce countries using the case of Saudi Arabia as a microcosm to illustrate the tradeoffs in resource consumption associated with crop selection and farming practices. This analysis indicates that the implications of different types of large-scale agribusiness must be more explicitly accounted for in government policy given the non-renewable nature of groundwater and energy. This work also quantifies the increase in the import of virtual water through conventional trade, which has significant potential to minimize groundwater pumping for food production in arid environments. A brief, complementary assessment of the growing role of FDI shows that further analysis is needed to ascertain the long-term resource impacts of direct investment in overseas enterprise and to minimize potentially negative impacts on water access and rural livelihoods in target nations. Active engagement of local communities and/or more holistic investment in infrastructure or improving agricultural productivity could also help avoid the potential for conflict and contribute towards long-term sustainability.

This paper combines Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Food Balance data with Water Footprint data to reveal how virtual water flows interact with food import tonnages to enhance or retard national decoupling based on food trade. Decoupling theorises breaking the links between economic and population growth and water demands for domestic food production. The detailed analysis applies a resource decoupling model in relation to the role and potential of food and virtual water trade in alleviating national and regional water limits in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The contrast between Egypt’s political denial of dependence, and Israel’s strategic adoption of food imports provides an example.

This paper combines Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Food Balance data with Water Footprint data to reveal how virtual water flows interact with food import tonnages to enhance or retard national decoupling based on food trade. Decoupling theorises breaking the links between economic and population growth and water demands for domestic food production. The detailed analysis applies a resource decoupling model in relation to the role and potential of food and virtual water trade in alleviating national and regional water limits in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The contrast between Egypt’s political denial of dependence, and Israel’s strategic adoption of food imports provides an example.

This study explores the potential effects of electricity pricing on crop cultivation in Saudi Arabia. The country recently started implementing a domestic energy price reform strategy to make energy consumption more sustainable and increase government revenues as highlighted in the Fiscal Balance Program one of the key realization programs of Vision 2030. Two modeling schemes were developed to complete this analysis. First, a model that applies physical equations to estimate water and energy requirements for 21 crops across 13 provinces. Second, an optimization model that runs iteratively to determine short-run electricity costs, import costs and export revenues. The main finding from the model simulations is that increasing electricity prices will shrink the domestic cultivation and exports of the crops while increasing their imports. For example, as an extreme case, if the agriculture electricity price is raised from $0.048 per kWh to the US industrial electricity price level of $0.692 per kWh, the model optimizes that this will reduce electricity consumption from 33.65 gWh to 7.84 gWh, domestic crop cultivation from 15.1 million tons to 6.3 million tons, and crops' export from 0.062 million tons to 0.057 million tons while will increase crops’ import from 9.5 million tons to 18.3 million tons.

Food security is a critical issue for the Arabian Peninsula countries due fast population growth, reduced domestic food production and the tighter global food markets because of trading partners‘ strained export surpluses. Water scarcity is a major concern for the AP. The renewable water resources per capita is considered the lowest in the world and has decreased from 1250 m3 in 1950 to 76.2 m3 in 2014. Furthermore, the projected water demand in AP for the year 2025 will exceed the double of the current groundwater availability, estimated at 8030M m3. In response to the alarming water situation, ICARDA in collaboration with the National Agricultural and Extension Systems (NARES) has established a program in AP, which has developed, evaluated, and introduced technology packages that empower growers to produce high-quality crops with less water. These technologies include: 1) the integrated forage production system based on indigenous plant species; 2) the introduction of spineless cactus as animal feed; and 3) protected agriculture with associated developed technologies such as soilless culture (hydroponics). Similarly, ICARDA and NARS works on date palm has resulted in improving water and land productivity for date production. Such water saving technology packages are being transferred to farmers in AP region through ICARDA and National scientists and extension agents. Conclusively, a noticeable impact on the on-farm water management through the increased productivity per unit of water and land created. The demand for more applied research in the region is inevitable to ensure an adequate level of food security based on Climate-smart agriculture practice.

Using water-energy-food-environment (WEFE) nexus as the prism, this review explores evolution of groundwater governance in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, China, Bangladesh and India – which together account for two-thirds of the global groundwater-irrigated area. Global discourse has blamed widespread water scarcity squarely on supply-side policymaking and advocated a broader template of water governance instruments. Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) presented just such a template – with pricing, participation, rights and entitlements, laws, regulations, and river basin organizations – as additional water governance tools. However, the IWRM template faced disillusionment and pushback in many emerging economies. WEFE nexus, the new paradigm, prioritizes system-level optima over sectoral maxima by harnessing synergies and optimizing trade-offs between food, water, energy, soil, and eco-system sustainability within planetary boundaries. Realizing this vision presents a complex challenge in groundwater governance. Global groundwater economy comprises three sub-economies: (a) diesel-powered unregulated, as in Nepal terai, eastern India, Bangladesh, Pakistan Punjab and Sind, and much of Sub-Saharan Africa, where use-specific energy subsidies are impractical; (b) electricity-powered regulated, as in North America and Europe, where tubewells are authorized, metered and subject to consumption-linked energy charges; and (c) electricity-powered unregulated, as in geographies covered by our review – barring China, Bengal and Bangladesh – where unmeasured electricity subsidies have created a bloated groundwater economy. This last sub-economy represents the heartland of global groundwater malgovernance, least equipped to meet the sustainability challenge. It has an estimated 300 million horsepower of grid-connected electric pumps that are either unauthorized and/or unmetered and/or use free or heavily subsidized or pilfered power for irrigating 50–52 million hectares, nearly half of global groundwater-irrigated area. In (a) and (b), groundwater scarcity inspires water-energy saving behavior via increased energy cost of pumping. In sub-economy (c), users are immune to energy costs and impervious to groundwater depletion. Here, the WEFE nexus has remained blind to the irrigation realpolitik that catalyzes or constrains policy action. We explore why the political costs of rationalizing subsidies are prohibitive and exemplify how a smart transition from fossil to solar energy for pumping may offer an opportunity to turn the perverse WEFE nexus into a virtuous one.

An indoor aquaponic system (i.e., the integration of fish culture with hydroponic plant production in a recirculating setup) was operated for maximizing water reuse and year-round intensive food production (Nile tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus, and leaf lettuce) at different fish feed to plants ratios. The system consisted of a fish culture component, solid removal component, and hydroponic component comprising six long channels with floating styrofoam rafts for holding plants. Fish culture effluents flowed by gravity from the fish culture component to the solid removal component and then to the hydroponic component. Effluents were collected in a sump from which a 1-horsepower in-line pump recirculated the water back to the fish culture tanks at a rate of about 250 L/min. The hydroponic component performed as biofilter and effectively managed the water quality. Fish production was staggered to harvest one of the four fish tanks at regular intervals when fish attained a minimum weight of 250 g. Out of the total eight harvests in 13 mo, net fish production per harvest averaged 33.5 kg/m³ of water with an overall water consumption of 320 L/kg of fish produced along with the production of leaf lettuce at 42 heads/m² of hydroponic surface area. Only 1.4% of the total system water was added daily to compensate the evaporation and transpiration losses. A ratio of 56 g fish feed/m² of hydroponic surface effectively controlled nutrient buildup in the effluents. However, plant density could be decreased from 42 to 25-30 plants/m² to produce a better quality lettuce.