Food, energy and water are important basic resources that affect the sustainable development of a region. The influence of food–energy–water (FEW) nexus on sustainable development has quickly become a frontier topic since the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were put forward. However, the overall context and core issues of the FEW nexus contributions to SDGs are still unclear. Using co-citation analysis, this paper aims to map the knowledge domains of FEW nexus research, disentangles its evolutionary context, and analyzes the core issues in its research, especially the progress of using quantitative simulation models to study the FEW nexus. We found that (1) studies within the FEW nexus focused on these following topics: correlation mechanisms, influencing factors, resource footprints, and sustainability management policies; (2) frontier of FEW studies have evolved from silo-oriented perspective on single resource system to nexus-oriented perspective on multiple systems; (3) quantitative research on the FEW nexus was primarily based on spatiotemporal evolution analysis, input–output analysis and scenario analysis; (4) the resource relationship among different sectors was synergies and tradeoffs within a region. In general, current research still focuses on empirical data, mostly qualitative and semiquantitative analyses, and there is a lack of research that can systematically reflect the temporal and spatial contribution of the FEW nexus to multiple SDGs. We believe that future research should focus more on how FEW nexus can provide mechanistic tools for achieving sustainable development.

La seguridad del agua y la seguridad alimentaria están estrechamente vinculadas, y los actuales niveles de hambruna mundial y el crecimiento de la población requieren una mayor capacidad agrícola, impulsada en gran medida por la expansión de los cultivos de regadío. El presente documento se enmarca en el proyecto MADFORWATER, del que se extrajo gran parte del apoyo para llevar a cabo esta labor a nivel teórico y metodológico. El estudio tiene por objeto poner de relieve la importancia del agua en la configuración de la seguridad alimentaria, especialmente para los países en desarrollo de Asia y África, que representan el 70% de las tierras secas del mundo. El agua como factor clave en la agricultura y, por consiguiente, en la seguridad alimentaria, requiere un análisis específico para comprender sus interdependencias con los alimentos y, de ese modo, ampliar la comprensión para una gestión adecuada del agua. En este estudio se examinó la bibliografía existente hasta la fecha sobre los vínculos entre el agua y la seguridad alimentaria y se elaboró un índice (Índice de Seguridad Alimentaria-Agua - FWSI) para evaluar la forma en que la seguridad alimentaria se vio influida por factores relacionados con el agua en 36 países de África y Asia durante el período 2000-2015. La ponderación de los diferentes indicadores incluidos en el índice se obtuvo sobre la base de un cuestionario, distribuido a 54 expertos internacionales en tierras secas que participan en el programa Action COST "Drylands facing change". Los datos se obtuvieron de una amplia base de datos de organizaciones internacionales reconocidas como la FAO, el Banco Mundial, la Organización Mundial de la Salud, World Global Indicators y el UNICEF. Los resultados muestran que los países asiáticos con escasez de agua han realizado mejoras más regulares en los dos últimos decenios que los de África, donde los progresos son muy desiguales y el agua, entre otros factores, ha desempeñado un papel importante en la lucha contra el hambre. Al otorgar un papel fundamental al agua, el indicador ha logrado acercarse a un concepto de seguridad alimentaria más amplio que el tradicionalmente utilizado -más centrado en los criterios alimentarios- mostrando claras interrelaciones entre ambas dimensiones. Encontramos que las regiones con mayores niveles de desnutrición son también las que presentan mayores niveles de estrés hídrico. Se ha demostrado que el FWSI es un indicador sólido para complementar la explicación del hambre en el mundo.

The United Nation Sustainable Development Goals emphasized to meet the global food security challenges by mechanized farming; access of clean water challenges by renewable freshwater withdrawals; clean energy issues determined by clean fuel and cleaner technologies; and combat climate change by limiting anthropogenic emissions of carbon, fossil fuel, and Greenhouse Gas emissions in the air. This study examined the aforementioned United Nation Sustainable Development Goals in the context of Pakistan by using a time series data from 1970 to 2016. The study employed Tapio’s elasticity of decoupling state to analyze the relationship between water-energy-food resources and carbon-fossil-greenhouse gas emissions in a given country context. The results of Tapio elasticity found that carbon-fossil-greenhouse gas emissions’ contamination in water-energy-food’s resources are quite visible that exhibit weak decoupling state, expensive negative decoupling state, and strong decoupling state in the different decade’s data, which substantiate the ecological cost in water-energy-food’s resources. The results emphasized the need to adopt different sustainable instruments in a way to limit carbon-fossil-greenhouse gas emissions in water-energy-food resources through cleaner production technologies, renewable energy mix, environmental certification, anti-dumping tariff duty, strict environmental regulations, etc. These instruments would be helpful to achieve environmental sustainability agenda for mutual exclusive global gains.

Oily, low water activity (OL aw) products including tahini (sesame seed paste), halva (tahini halva), peanut butter, and chocolate, have been recently linked to numerous foodborne illness outbreaks and recalls. This review discusses the ingredients used and processing of OL aw products with a view to provide greater understanding of the routes of their contamination with foodborne pathogens and factors influencing pathogen persistence in these foods. Adequate heat treatment during processing may eliminate bacterial pathogens from OL aw foods; however, post-processing contamination commonly occurs. Once these products are contaminated, their high fat and sugar content can enhance pathogen survival for long periods. The physiological basis and survival mechanisms used by pathogens in these products are comprehensively discussed here. Foodborne outbreaks and recalls linked to OL aw foods are summarized and it was observed that serotypes of Salmonella enterica were the predominant pathogens causing illnesses. Further, intervention strategies available to control foodborne pathogens such as thermal inactivation, use of natural antimicrobials, irradiation and hydrostatic pressure are assessed for their usefulness to achieve pathogen control and enhance the safety of OL aw foods. Sanitation, hygienic design of manufacturing facilities, good hygienic practices, and environmental monitoring of OL aw food industries were also discussed.

Water-Food-Energy (WFE) resources exert mutual influences upon each other and thus cannot be managed separately. Information on household WFE expenditures addresses knowledge that distinguishes between geospatial districts' social welfare. Social welfare and investment in districts' WFE resources are interconnected. District (node) product of WFE normalized expenditures (Volume) is considered as a representative WFE Nexus holistic quantity. This Volume is assumed to be a function of residents' knowledge of welfare level across districts. We prove that the Volume rate conforms to Boltzmann entropy, and this is the premise of our hypothesis for directed information from high to low welfare between network nodes. Welfare mass (WM) represents the district's Volume combined with its income and population density. This WM is used as input into a model balancing between all domain nodes that allows policymakers to simulate the effects of potential quantifiable policy decisions targeted to individual districts at a domain level while also considering influences between districts. Based on existing historic data, the established tool exemplifies its potential by providing outcomes for Israel districts showing the influence of imposing different temporal allocation/deallocation actions as managerial regulations to prescribed districts. It is found that districts with a high WM do not suffer when a defund is applied, but districts that have a low WM gain from subsidies.

Water, energy, and biodiversity are essential components for building a sustainable food system in a developing country like Nepal. Green Revolution technologies and the package of practices largely ignored the role of ecosystem services, leaving a large population of small farmers’ food- and nutrition-insecure. Biodiversity, especially, agrobiodiversity is in decline and this vital cross-cutting element is less discussed and interlinked in nexus literature. The interlinking food system with water–energy–biodiversity nexus, therefore, is essential to achieve a resilient food system. It ensures the vital structures and functions of the ecosystem on which it is dependent are well protected in the face of increasing socio-economic and climatic stress. This paper reviews the food system of Nepal through the lens of the food–water–energy–biodiversity (FWEB) nexus to develop a more robust food system framework. From this approach, food system foresight can benefit from different nature-based solutions such as agro-ecosystem-based adaptation and mitigation and climate-resilient agro-ecological production system. We found that the FWEB nexus-based approach is more relevant in the context of Nepal where food and nutrition insecurity prevails among almost half of the population. Improvement in the food system requires the building of synergy and complementary among the components of FWEB nexus. Hence, we proposed a modified framework of food system foresight for developing resilience in a food system, which can be achieved with an integrated and resilient nexus that gives more emphasis to agro-ecological system-based solutions to make the food system more climate resilient. This framework can be useful in addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) numbers 1, 2, 3, 6, 13, and 15 and can also be used as a tool for food system planning based on a broader nexus.

The article delinks food security challenges from the challenge of supplying water to meet the needs of the industrial, livestock, domestic and environmental sectors to analyze the food security and water management challenges of individual nations. For this, three indices are developed: the water adequacy index, water-land index and water-land-pasture index. Their values are computed for 172 countries. The analysis suggests that the criteria for assessing the magnitude of food insecurity and water scarcity problems should include agricultural land, particularly cultivated land and pastureland, along with renewable water.

This paper examines the making of urban sustainable food provisioning through the case of Barcelona. Barcelona is seeking to develop a more sustainable food system. It aims to green its municipal food markets by reducing the distances from which the food is sourced from. This has been labelled by the city of Barcelona as “proximity food”. We shed light on how, and to what extent, proximity food contributes to making the city more sustainable. To frame our analysis, we employ concepts from networks and flows as developed in sociology by Manuel Castells. We examine the provisioning processes that proximity food goes through before they enter retail markets. This includes an analysis of connections with urban energy and water flows. This so-called water, energy and food Urban Nexus, which we argue to be a key factor in the greening of urban food systems. This means that sustainability of food is not just determined by physical distances between its provisioning processes per se but by the specific ways in which food flows relate to connections (both physical and social) with energy and water.