Despite their inextricable interlinkage commonly known as Water-Energy-Food nexus, the current disconnect in policy development and management of the water, energy, and food resources threatens their security of supply. The security of these basic human needs is aggravated by the cross-cutting role of climate change which impacts their availability.  These apprehensions suggest that contemporary methods are required to improve and enhance integrated approaches and systems in the management of the food, water, and energy sectors within the discourse of climate change. This study applied Systems Thinking methodologies to foster collaboration amongst key stakeholders within Eskom, electricity generating sector in South Africa. This was done through several simulation workshops held amongst these value chain sectors. The workshops have demonstrated the ability of these systems to enable stakeholders to apply the “nexus thinking” approach in managing the sectors of water, food, energy, and climate change within the power utility. The study concluded by recommending application of this simulation within the policy development and other key sectors to enable a broader application of nexus thinking.

North China Plain suffers from the world’s most severe water scarcity and groundwater depletion due to intensive irrigation for agricultural production. It is imperative to reduce irrigation water consumption while safeguarding crop production and food security. This study conducted a quantitative analysis with deficit irrigation strategies for winter wheat using a water-driven AquaCrop model. After model calibration and validation with field experimental data, we analyzed the irrigation water demand, crop yield, and water productivity (WP) of winter wheat under various deficit irrigation scenarios. A set of optimal irrigation schedules were proposed for different climate years, which significantly mitigated irrigation water usage while sustaining high yields and WPs. The results indicated that despite the irrigation water demand of winter wheat under the future climate scenario was slightly higher than that in the historical period, their crop water sensitive periods (reviving, jointing, and flowering) remained the same. Therefore, we recommended adopting the same deficit irrigation schedules for the historical and future periods. In wet years, adopting a 50% deficit irrigation strategy only reduced crop yields by less than 5% compared with full irrigation, but it saved 1000–1100 m3 of water per hectare and contributed a WP higher than 1.88 kg/m3. While in normal and dry years, an optimal 25% deficit irrigation could sustain over 96% of the maximum yield, meanwhile it could save 650–800 m3/ha of water and achieve almost the same WP as full irrigation. These climate-smart irrigation strategies adapting to diverse climatic conditions largely mitigate agricultural water consumption while maximizing crop productivity and water use efficiency, which are essential for achieving precision irrigation and sustainable water management under a changing climate.

Agricultural production development and ecological environmental protection are the main challenges facing dryland agriculture in the Loess Plateau. Over the past four decades, this region has transitioned from a state of food shortage and ecological deterioration to a new phase with plentiful food supply and improved ecological environment. However, it remains unclear how this system navigates resource and environmental constraints, balancing economic growth and ecological preservation. Here we conducted integrated and systematic analysis by combining process-based biogeochemical model, statistical yearbook data, and rural social surveys with the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. The yield, economic benefits, carbon footprint (CF), and energy balance of maize, winter wheat, and potato within the plastic film mulching (PFM) cropping system surpassed those of conventional tillage, while the water footprint (WF) was lower. Among them, soil N2O was the primary source of direct greenhouse gas (GHG), while mineral fertilizer (40–71 % and 52−73 %) and agricultural diesel (13−18 % and 17−18 %) were the main contributors to indirect GHG and energy inputs. Moreover, the food-energy-water-carbon (FEWC) nexus of maize being harmonized during 1980–2019 (0.50–1.00), and those of winter wheat and potato being harmonized after 2000 (0.51–0.98 and 0.54–0.97, respectively). The maize also was more profitable than winter wheat and potato. The changing rates of yield, agricultural net profit (ANP), WF, and CF of major crops in the Loess Plateau exhibited consistent increase over time, albeit with regional differentiation characteristics. These results highlight that PFM system achieved high economic benefits and low environmental costs, and it contributed to establishing resource-efficient, production-effective, and eco-friendly dryland agriculture in China and the world.

Sustainable management of water, food, and energy resources and increasing efficiency is one of the key challenges in the field of sustainable management and development. Given climate change, global population growth, and growing demands, sustainable utilization of these resources is essential to ensure the possibility of human survival and sustainable growth. Achieving sustainable development goals requires a comprehensive and interactive approach, and resource management with an integrative perspective is a necessary component of sustainable development, where all stakeholders participate in the decision-making process and implementation of actions.This study aims to enhance the efficiency of water, food, and energy in the Plusgan watershed and develop a validated tool for evaluating agricultural management strategies in relation to the nexus of water, food, and energy security. The study was conducted in two stages. In the first stage, management scenarios were identified to increase efficiency, and in the second stage, the nexus-oriented management scenarios were evaluated and prioritized.In the second part of this research, among the 30 introduced sub-scenarios for improving efficiency, the sub-scenarios that involved a 20%, 10%, and 30% increase in the area of forage maize cultivation showed positive effects on water, food, and energy efficiency indicators. After prioritizing the influential sub-scenarios using the TOPSIS multi-criteria decision-making model, the sub-scenario with a 30% increase in the area of forage maize cultivation had the greatest positive impact on water, food, and energy efficiency. It was identified as the key scenario for evaluating efficiency in sustainable agricultural management.

Highlights • Biodiversity underpins the climate, food, water, energy, transport and health nexus. • Negative impact studies on biodiversity outnumber positive impact studies. • Biodiversity has mostly positive impacts on the nexus, but more evidence is needed. • Nexus studies inform the development of holistic policy and management options. • Biodiversity nexus is context-dependent, and evidence needs to be contextualized. Abstract Biodiversity underpins the functioning of ecosystems and the diverse benefits that nature provides to people, yet is being lost at an unprecedented rate. To halt or reverse biodiversity loss, it is critical to understand the complex interdependencies between biodiversity and key drivers and sectors to inform the development of holistic policies and actions. We conducted a literature review on the interlinkages between biodiversity and climate change, food, water, energy, transport and health (“the biodiversity nexus”). Evidence extracted from 194 peer-reviewed articles was analysed to assess how biodiversity is being influenced by and is influencing the other nexus elements. Out of the 354 interlinkages between biodiversity and the other nexus elements, 53 % were negative, 29 % were positive and 18 % contained both positive and negative influences. The majority of studies provide evidence of the negative influence of other nexus elements on biodiversity, highlighting the substantial damage being inflicted on nature from human activities. The main types of negative impacts were land or water use/change, land or water degradation, climate change, and direct species fatalities through collisions with infrastructure. Alternatively, evidence of biodiversity having a negative influence on the other nexus elements was limited to the effects of invasive alien species and vector-borne diseases. Furthermore, a range of studies provided evidence of how biodiversity and the other nexus elements can have positive influences on each other through practices that promote co-benefits. These included biodiversity-friendly management in relevant sectors, protection and restoration of ecosystems and species that provide essential ecosystem services, green and blue infrastructure including nature-based solutions, and sustainable and healthy diets that mitigate climate change. The review highlighted the complexity and context-dependency of interlinkages within the biodiversity nexus, but clearly demonstrates the importance of biodiversity in underpinning resilient ecosystems and human well-being in ensuring a sustainable future for people and the planet.

Food emulsions are used on a daily basis by people, therefore it is of great importance to study the factors that can influence their stability. The aim of this work is to track the influence of lemon balm essential oil (Melissa officinalis L.) on the change of some physical and chemical indicators, kinetic (turbidity) and thermodynamic (Gibbs free energy, enthalpy and entropy) parameters, which are related to their stability. 24 food emulsions were developed with oleic type sunflower oil acting as an oil phase in concentrations of 20 and 30%, soybean protein emulsifier in concentrations of 1, 2, and 3% and lemon balm essential oil in concentrations of 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3%. The pH of the emulsions was determined, microscopic photographs were taken to measure the sizes of the colloidal particles, turbidity was observed for 15 days, their absorbance was determined, Gibbs energy, enthalpy and entropy were calculated. The most stable is the emulsion with 30% oil phase, 3% soybean protein emulsifier and 0.3% lemon balm essential oil.

International audience | Predators of similar size often compete over prey. In semi‐arid ecosystems where water is a limiting resource, prey availability can be affected by water distribution, which further increases resource competition and exacerbate conflict among predators. This can have implications for carnivore dietary competition. Hence, we evaluated the dynamics of food resource competition between African wild dogs and four competing predators (cheetahs, leopards, lions and spotted hyaenas) in different seasons and across areas with different waterhole densities in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. We used the frequency of occurrence of prey items found in predators' scats to analyse diet composition, overlap and prey preference. For most predators, kudu was most frequently consumed and preferred. Low and medium water‐dependent prey (medium and small‐sized) were mostly consumed by wild dogs, leopards and cheetahs. Wild dog diet overlap was high with all predators, particularly with hyaenas and lions. There were no seasonal differences in the predators diet. The diet overlap of wild dogs with lions was highest in the low waterhole density area, and wild dog diet composition did not differ significantly from the diet of lions and hyaenas. In the low waterhole density area, wild dogs and hyaenas broadened their niche breadth, and predators diet had a higher proportion of low water‐dependent prey. A low density of waterholes increased food resource competition. However, high density of waterholes, where there is more prey availability, can increase the aggregation and density of predators, and hence, increase the risks involved in interspecific competition on wild dogs. To reduce food resource competition on wild dogs, we propose to conserve larger‐bodied prey that are less dependent on water (e.g. kudu, reedbuck, eland and gemsbok). As the use of water pumping is common practice, we propose maintaining water management heterogeneity where prey which is less dependent on water can also thrive.