Abstract The Water–Energy–Food (WEF) nexus is defined in modern societies through a complex interaction of trade, transportation of goods, energy generation technologies and many other parameters. However the dynamics of the WEF nexus are often ignored by technical and scientific communities. The systemic nature of the WEF nexus emphasizes the various interconnections between water, energy, and food, promoting the adoption of a holistic approach, in which the interlinkages highlight synergies and trade-offs and lead to more successful resource management. In contemporary times resources seem abundant as shortages are easily covered by trade and therefore land is often used without evaluating where it could be more productive and potential dangers to the stability of the WEF can be neglected. In this work, the dynamics of the WEF nexus are investigated, evaluating the efficiency of land in relation to the elements of the nexus. As a case study, we chose North Euboea, Greece, specifically focusing on the Municipality of Mantoudi-Limni-Agia Anna. Although the WEF nexus has been increasingly studied, few works have particularly focused on how ecosystem changes disrupt the interlinkages between the nexus components. This study addresses this gap by focusing on the effects of biodiversity alterations (specifically wild boars) on the WEF nexus in a rural Mediterranean context. We explored land use patterns, energy needs, and water requirements for inhabitants, agriculture and livestock for food production, under several assumptions. It is found that if land was used solely for energy production, the energy generated would suffice for the energy consumption of 200,000 inhabitants. The potential of land use for food production on the other hand is corresponding to the food needs of 200,000–300,000 inhabitants. Lastly, as an investigation of the sensitivity of the WEF nexus to environmental stresses, we create a model for the potential impact from the expansion of the local wild-boar population that has been identified as an emerging stress for the local agricultural sector, with potential of diminishing local agricultural production within a few years.

Land-water transition areas play an important role in the functioning of both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Enhancing habitat complexity and heterogeneity by restoring or adding land–water transition areas to degraded aquatic ecosystems can be effective management to stimulate productivity by lower trophic levels – and hence increase food availability for biota of conservation interest, including fish and birds. Here, we studied whether hydrological connectivity can be used as an environmental indicator (connected or disconnected) for the development trajectories of newly constructed land–water transition areas in shallow lakes. We capitalized on a large-scale restoration project called “Marker Wadden”, which created new land–water transition areas with and without hydrological connectivity in a degraded shallow lake in the Netherlands (Lake Markermeer). We compared how the new areas with and without hydrological connectivity developed with respect to abiotic parameters and biomasses of benthic, pelagic, and emergent macroinvertebrates. In sites disconnected from the open water, water depths became significantly lower than in hydrologically connected sites during summer, likely due to evaporation. In these shallower waters, daytime temperatures and organic matter content of the sediment were higher, while dissolved oxygen concentrations remained sufficient. Therefore, biomasses of benthic macroinvertebrates and emergent insects became higher in the disconnected sites. These lower trophic levels could provide higher food availability for benthivorous and insectivorous birds, while remaining inaccessible to fish. This puts forward that hydrological connectivity (connected or disconnected) can be used as an environmental indicator for aquatic food web development trajectories, and that it regulates relative food availability for fish and birds. Restoring land–water transition areas without hydrological connectivity provides higher biomasses of lower trophic levels, which are only accessible to birds. Restoring areas with hydrological connectivity results in relatively lower biomasses of invertebrates, but these provide food to birds feeding on invertebrates, and fish and fish-eating birds. Creating areas including both types of land–water transition zones, connected and disconnected to open water can benefit fish and birds of both feeding guilds.

The overarching goal of this chapter is to provide a comprehensive overview of the state-of-art of global cropland mapping procedures using remote sensing as characterized and envisioned by the “Global Food Security Support Analysis Data @ 30 m (GFSAD30)” project working group team. First, the chapter will provide an overview of existing cropland maps and their characteristics along with establishing the gaps in knowledge related to global cropland mapping. Second, definitions of cropland mapping along with key parameters involved in cropland mapping based on their importance in food security analysis, and cropland naming conventions for standardized cropland mapping using remote sensing will be presented. Third, existing methods and approaches for cropland mapping will be discussed. This will include the type of remote sensing data used in cropland mapping and their characteristics along with discussions on the secondary data, field-plot data, and cropland mapping algorithms. Fourth, currently existing global cropland products derived using remote sensing will be presented and discussed. Fifth, a synthesis of all existing products leading to a composite global cropland extent version 1.0 (GCE V1.0) is presented and discussed. Sixth, a way forward for advanced global cropland mapping is visualized.

En el marco del Día Mundial de la Alimentación Docentes y Ayudantes Alumnos de la Cátedra de Nutrición y Alimentación en el Adulto de la Escuela de Nutrición, Facultad de Ciencias Médicas – Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, llevó a cabo una actividad extensionista de promoción y concientización acerca de la importancia y beneficios que representa para la salud humana el realizar una hidratación inteligente y, por tanto, saludable. La misma estuvo dirigida a los transeúntes de Ciudad Universitaria, estudiantes, personal administrativo no docente, y docentes de las distintas carreras de la mencionada casa de altos estudios. El objetivo que persiguió la presente actividad fue resignificar y conmemorar esta fecha emblemática poniendo a disposición información segura y confiable acerca de la importancia que comporta la hidratación saludable, en términos de cantidad y calidad, para el sostenimiento de la vida, contribuyendo en la lucha por erradicar las problemáticas de salud vinculadas al consumo exacerbado de bebidas azucaradas y productos alimenticios ultra procesados mediante la difusión de recetas que configuran opciones de hidratación saludable, la divulgación de saberes científicos que promuevan conciencia social en torno a la temática y el libre acceso a material didáctico e informativo diseñado en la finalidad de promover la salud y prevenir enfermedades vinculadas a ciertos perfiles alimentarios y hábitos obesogénicos. El acervo científico generado en torno a la hidratación inteligente permite aseverar que el agua segura o potable es un recurso vital y central en la Alimentación Saludable (1), por ello configura la base de la Gráfica de la Alimentación Saludable propuesta por las Guías Alimentarias para la Población Argentina (GAPA) y su cuidado y conservación, de relevancia social, económica y medio ambiental, forma parte de la agenda política, comunitaria y académica tanto a nivel nacional como internacional. Palabras Clave: Alimentación; Agua Segura; Salud; Inocuidad Alimentaria

Nowadays, resources management in the watersheds is a vital task for the managers and planners due to the necessity of handling challenging issues existed between supply and demand sector. Water, energy and food are necessary for human comfort, poverty reduction, sustainable development and are inseparable part of human life. Iran is located in arid and semi-arid climate and the average rainfall is very low. So, it is very important to apply the proper management of water resource with considering the conditions of water shortage and crisis, to provide people’s food in the future. In this study, which was conducted two regions in the west of Iran (Miandarband & Oshtorinan plain), with purpose to evaluate and compare the difference farmer’s performances in the same crops with similar weather, it was investigated for the sustainable agriculture by Water, Food and Energy Nexus Index (WEFNI). WEFNI includes six indicators of water consumption, energy consumption, water efficiency, energy efficiency, water economic efficiency and energy economic efficiency. The final results obtained by the weighting and averaging of these indicators. The data has been collected by interviews with 43 farmers, field observations, related organizations and NETWAT software. Three crops tomato, potato, and cucumber were evaluated, which are prevailing cultivation in two regions. WEFNI of tomato, cucumber and potato was 0.87, 0.49 & 0.24 in Miandarband plain and 0.96, 0.48 & 0.33 in Oshtorinan plain Respectively. In both regions, based on WEFNI, tomato has the best conditions. So recommended to use WEFNI as a management tool to improve cropping pattern, which consider aspects of water and energy consumption and food security.

The global focus on incorporating natural ingredients into the diet for health improvement encompasses &omega:-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) derived from plant sources, such as flaxseed oil. &omega:-3 PUFAs are susceptible to oxidation, but oil-in-water (O/W) emulsions can serve to protect PUFAs from this phenomenon. This study aimed to create O/W emulsions using flaxseed oil and either soy lecithin or Quillaja saponins, thickened with modified starch, while assessing their physical properties (oil droplet size, &zeta:-potential, and rheology) and physical stability. Emulsions with different oil concentrations (25% and 30% w/w) and oil-to-surfactant ratio (5:1 and 10:1) were fabricated using high-pressure homogenization (800 bar, five cycles). Moreover, emulsions were thickened with modified starch and their rheological properties were measured. The physical stability of all emulsions was assessed over a 7-day storage period using the TSI (Turbiscan Stability Index). Saponin-stabilized emulsions exhibited smaller droplet diameters (0.11&ndash:0.19 &micro:m) compared to lecithin (0.40&ndash:1.30 &micro:m), and an increase in surfactant concentration led to a reduction in droplet diameter. Both surfactants generated droplets with a high negative charge (&minus:63 to &minus:72 mV), but lecithin-stabilized emulsions showed greater negative charge, resulting in more intense electrostatic repulsion. Saponin-stabilized emulsions showed higher apparent viscosity (3.9&ndash:11.6 mPa&middot:s) when compared to lecithin-stabilized ones (1.19&ndash:4.36 mPa&middot:s). The addition of starch significantly increased the apparent viscosity of saponin-stabilized emulsions, rising from 11.6 mPa s to 2117 mPa s. Emulsions stabilized by saponin exhibited higher stability than those stabilized by lecithin. This study confirms that plant-based ingredients, particularly saponins and lecithin, effectively produce stable O/W emulsions with flaxseed oil, offering opportunities for creating natural ingredient-based food emulsions.

Sustainable management of water, energy, and food (WEF) under climate change will be a significant challenge for arid agricultural systems. This study developed a fractional non-linear multi-objective programming (FNLMOP) model to optimize resource allocation and improve agricultural sustainability in these systems under climate change. The model was designed in the framework of the WEF nexus to simultaneously improved energy productivity (profit/energy), and water productivity (profit/water), while mitigating environmental damage (damage to groundwater resources/output) and ensuring food security in an arid watershed in Iran. The long Ashton research station weather generator (LARS-WG) and the coupled model intercomparison project 6 (CMIP6) were employed to project climate parameters for both future dry and wet conditions. The sustainability of the optimal solutions was then assessed using a hybrid criteria importance through intercriteria correlation (CRITIC)-VIKOR approach. The optimal solutions revealed a reduction in the land under cultivation and produced less water-intensive crops. The optimization model can ensure WEF security, enhancing agricultural system sustainability by optimizing crop cultivation patterns and resource allocation. Current crop choices were highly inefficient with the bigger changes being from the current crops to optimal crops. Climate change showed a substantial but lesser influence on optimal crop choice.