p. 213-255 | Food security and water security in the Mediterranean are intrinsically linked and are facing similar challenges. Food security is threatened mainly by the high dependency of Mediterranean countries on food imports, making them vulnerable to external pressures such as volatile food prices. From a nutritional standpoint, the number of overweight and obese people has increased as a result of the traditional Mediterranean diet being abandoned. Water security has degenerated due to the deterioration of internal freshwater resources, both in terms of water quantity and quality, with a high dependency on external water resources, higher regional water footprints than the global average, increasing scarcity of renewable water resources, an increased number and capacity of dams exerting pressure on freshwater ecosystems, and a growing risk of conflicts between water users and countries. Access to water and sanitation remains a major challenge in the region. Territorial divisions separating coastal urban and remote rural areas are growing stronger, making isolated populations such as smallholder farmers particularly at risk of food and water insecurity. With climate change, precipitation is expected to decrease and temperatures to rise in the region, which will affect water supply (and thereby energy and food supply). It will also directly affect soil moisture and crop growth, thereby further increasing irrigation water needs. There are clear but difficult to measure interactions between the water, energy and agricultural sectors, as they are all interdependent, which calls for integrated policies and management. Agriculture being the largest water user in the region, further efforts need to be made to promote the use of non-conventional water resources. The conservation and restoration of Mediterranean agroecosystems is key to ensuring sustainable development. This requires better management of continuing arable land loss, land use intensification, and soil erosion and salinization. Integrated Water Resources Management and Water Demand Management (WDM) provide guidelines for achieving better water efficiency and reducing conflicts between users.

absent

International audience | Chapters: 1) Public goods and farming. 2) Pesticides and sustainable agriculture. 3) Nitrogen use efficiency by annual and perennial crops. 4) Microalgae for bioremediation of distillery effluent. 5) No-till direct seeding for energy-saving rice production in China. 6) Agricultural water poverty index for a sustainable world. 7) Participatory rural appraisal to solve irrigation issues. 8) Bioavailability of soil P for plant nutrition. 9) Animal manure for smallholder agriculture in South Africa. 10) Vermicompost and soil quality.

International audience | Abstract Water Footprint (WF, henceforth) is an indicator of water consumption and has taken ground to assess the impact of agricultural production processes over freshwater. The focus of this study was contrasting non-conventional, certified products with identical products obtained through conventional production schemes (REF, henceforth) using WF as a measure of their pressure on water resources. The aim was to the show whether products that are certified as Food Quality Schemes (FQS, henceforth) could also incorporate the lower impact on water among their quality features. To perform this comparison, we analysed 23 products selected among Organic, PDO and PGI as FQS, and their conventional counterparts. By restricting the domain of analysis to the on-farm phase of the production chain, we obtained that that no significant differences emerged between the FQS and REF products. However, if the impact is measured per unit area rather than per unit product, FQS showed a significant reduction in water demand.

Chapters: 1) Public goods and farming. 2) Pesticides and sustainable agriculture. 3) Nitrogen use efficiency by annual and perennial crops. 4) Microalgae for bioremediation of distillery effluent. 5) No-till direct seeding for energy-saving rice production in China. 6) Agricultural water poverty index for a sustainable world. 7) Participatory rural appraisal to solve irrigation issues. 8) Bioavailability of soil P for plant nutrition. 9) Animal manure for smallholder agriculture in South Africa. 10) Vermicompost and soil quality.

International audience | Many studies examine the correlation between the use of resources such as water, energy and land, and the production of food. These nexus studies focus predominantly on large scale systems, often considering the social dimensions only in terms of access to resources and participation in the decision-making process, rather than individual attitudes and behaviours with respect to resource use. Such a concept of the nexus is relevant to urban agriculture (UA), but it requires customisation to the particular characteristics of growing food in cities, which is practiced mainly at a small scale and produces not only food but also considerable social, economic, and environmental co-benefits. To this end, this paper proposes a new conceptual basis for a UA Nexus, together with an assessment methodology that explicitly includes social dimensions in addition to food, energy and water. The conceptual basis introduces People, together with Food, Energy and Water, as a fundamental factor of the UA Nexus. On this basis, a methodology is developed measuring not only resource efficiency and food production but also motivations and health benefits. It comprises a combination of methods such as diaries of everyday UA practices, a database of UA activities, life cycle assessment (LCA), and material flow analysis to connect investigations developed at a garden scale to the city scale. A case study shows an application of the methodology.

Latent heat of evaporation represents a large outgoing component of the energy balance established at a crop-stand surface. This explains why agriculture uses approximately 70% of all the freshwater withdrawn in the world. Increasing demand for water due to population growth, competition with industrial, domestic and environmental requirements, and the decreasing quality of water, limit the agricultural capacity for food production. The Water Resources, Development and Management Service (AGLW) of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is carrying out activities aimed at helping country members in supporting sustainable water management to securing food for a growing population. These activities cut across the various levels of the water domain, going from the (inter)national policy level down to local-level field applications. In this article, FAO's experiences in agricultural water management are used to provide lessons from the past and indicate directions for future challenges. (Résumé d'auteur)

Cet article est la synthese thematique d'une enquete menee recemment aupres de professionnels (industriels, fabricants et chercheurs) des industries alimentaires sur le theme de la reduction de la consommation d'eau et de la production d'effluents polluants, liee a ces operations. Sont presentees dans un premier temps, secteur par secteur, des donnees de consommations d'eau et de volumes d'effluents produits. Il apparait que de nombreuses procedures de travail et procedes de fabrication peuvent etre ameliores. La tendance doit aller vers une gestion de l'eau comme matiere premiere ou solvant recyclable faisant partie integrante de la rationalisation des procedes (economie d'eau, d'energie, de matiere). Cette gestion passe par la minimisation des rejets apres epuration, en particulier dans le cas de traitement des effluents, et le recyclage des flux aqueux et de matieres, soit directement dans le processus classique de fabrication, soit de facon degradee dans les processus connexes. De nombreux points d'amelioration sont precises et des axes de recherche sont proposes