This study examined the potential of the water-food-energy nexus in Jordan, as there are strong connections between these pillars that will help to ensure a sustainable future. The focus was on the dual relationship between the three sectors, namely the relationship between water and energy, between water and food, and between energy and food. Currently there are several processes arising from the problems associated with the three sectors that ought to be addressed to avoid negative consequences. Increased demand, shortage of supply, climate change, economic aspects, and population growth are among the numerous factors negatively affecting the water, energy, and food sectors that should be considered in order to achieve sustainability. Having studied the mutual relationship between the three sectors. This research will examine the potential solution of renewable energy technologies to address some of the trade-offs between water, energy and food, bringing substantial benefits in all three sectors. It was established that renewable energy appears to be an essential solution to enhance all the sectors combined. Jordan, for instance, receives abundant energy from the sun and wind. It was concluded that the exploitation of renewable energy is the essential solution needed to meet the challenges facing all three sectors, and thus promote the advancement of the country. It is possible to exploit the energy of the sun and wind in Jordan to produce the quantities of energy needed to desalinate sea water and irrigate the plants in order to provide the population with the food they need in order to live.

We analyse how salinity, acidity and erosion threaten the ecosystem services of food production and the regulation of water quality in the Murray–Darling Basin, Australia’s most important food producing region. We used the Drivers-Pressures-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework, to show that each of these threats undermines the functioning of the Basin’s agro-ecosystems and the two major ecosystem services (four other ecosystem services are briefly considered). These threats are driven by natural processes (e.g. rainfall) and anthropogenic activity (e.g. land clearing), and this leads to pressures exerted by hydrology, nutrient cycles and wind. Satisfactory information is available on the state of acidity and wind erosion, but information on the state of water erosion and salinity is inadequate. The impact of these threats on food production was primarily by reducing crop yield, while the impacts on water quality were to increase sediment, salt and nutrient loads. Management responses were either adaptive or mitigative; the former targets impacts while the latter focuses on drivers and pressures. Most management responses involved trade-offs between ecosystem services, although some synergies were found. Scale and spatial variability strongly influence the selection of responses. Understanding the mechanisms underpinning land degrading threats and the associated relationships allows better assessment on impacts to ecosystem services.

With growing populations and changing climate, the food, energy and water (FEW) security have become a global issue. In response, the concept of FEW nexus in which the interdependency between FEW sectors are taken into account in order to effectively manage the resources and provide FEW security has emerged. Thus, in order to understand the interdependency between FEW sectors a thorough quantitative framework is necessary. Although there are numerous studies on FEW nexus, there is limited research on developing mathematical equations to model the FEW nexus. The goal of this study was to develop an input-output (IO) model to quantify the interdependency between FEW sectors in the Pacific Northwest. The FEW sectors were divided into 21 subsectors and IO model was used to quantify the total output of each subsector. Intensity coefficients were calculated and further broken down to technology coefficients and allocation coefficients. The uncertainty analysis was used to quantify the effect of variation in technology coefficients and allocation coefficients on output of each subsector and the results showed that these two distributions are significantly different. The results of sensitivity analysis showed that agricultural crops, especially alfalfa has the highest sensitivity to water and energy consumption due to the fact that alfalfa production is energy and water intensive. The multi-objective optimization was used to minimize the cost and environmental impact of FEW system and the results showed that in order to minimize the cost and environmental impacts, more surface water and hydroelectricity and wind electricity should be utilized.