Lebanon faces a mix of underlying political and economic challenges, shocks, and triggering events that threaten the sustainability and resilience of its interconnected resource systems. The complex nature of these pressures begs for a systems approach to better understand the existing interconnections and to support the co-creation of cross-sectoral solutions to address them. This article specifically aims to: 1) conduct a scoping review of the existing literature and current events to identify interconnections between water-, energy-, and food-related challenges as they relate to the underlying conditions and triggering events at play in the context of Lebanon; 2) highlight ways in which the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus is a useful lens through which to understand and act upon issues at different scales; and 3) identify emergent themes including decentralization and systems thinking and their roles as catalysts toward more resilient resource systems. The examination concludes with two main recommendations: first, to create platforms and opportunities for interactive resource planning and decision making to facilitate systems-thinking for top-down WEF management; and second, to empower decentralized initiatives at the local level to build resilient, bottom-up solutions to WEF challenges.

Ensuring resilient food systems and sustainable healthy diets for all requires much higher water use, however, water resources are finite, geographically dispersed, volatile under climate change, and required for other vital functions including ecosystems and the services they provide. Good governance for resilient water resources is a necessary precursor to deciding on solutions, sourcing finance, and delivering infrastructure. Six attributes that together provide a foundation for good governance to reduce future water risks to food systems are proposed. These attributes dovetail in their dual focus on incorporating adaptive learning and new knowledge, and adopting the types of governance systems required for water resilient food systems. The attributes are also founded in the need to greater recognise the role natural, healthy ecosystems play in food systems. The attributes are listed below and are grounded in scientific evidence and the diverse collective experience and expertise of stakeholders working across the science-policy interface: Adopting interconnected systems thinking that embraces the complexity of how we produce, distribute, and add value to food including harnessing the experience and expertise of stakeholders s; adopting multi-level inclusive governance and supporting inclusive participation; enabling continual innovation, new knowledge and learning, and information dissemination; incorporating diversity and redundancy for resilience to shocks; ensuring system preparedness to shocks; and planning for the long term. This will require food and water systems to pro-actively work together toward a socially and environmentally just space that considers the water and food needs of people, the ecosystems that underpin our food systems, and broader energy and equity concerns.

Electrolyzed water is a novel disinfectant and cleaner that has been widely utilized in the food sector for several years to ensure that surfaces are sterilized, and that food is safe. It is produced by the electrolysis of a dilute salt solution, and the reaction products include sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and hypochlorous acid. In comparison to conventional cleaning agents, electrolyzed water is economical and eco-friendly, easy to use, and strongly effective. Electrolyzed water is also used in its acidic form, but it is non-corrosive to the human epithelium and other organic matter. The electrolyzed water can be utilized in a diverse range of foods; thus, it is an appropriate choice for synergistic microbial control in the food industry to ensure food safety and quality without damaging the organoleptic parameters of the food. The present review article highlights the latest information on the factors responsible for food spoilage and the antimicrobial potential of electrolyzed water in fresh or processed plant and animal products.

Water, Energy and Food (WEF) are inextricably linked, and the Water-Energy-Food nexus (WEF nexus) provides a comprehensive framework for addressing the complex and intricate interconnections in the development of these invaluable resources. Quantifying the interconnections among energy, water, and food sectors is a preliminary step to integrated WEF systems modelling, which will further contribute to robust WEF security management. However, the use of the WEF nexus concepts and approaches to systematically evaluate WEF interlinkages and support the development of socially and politically relevant resource policies in Ghana has been limited. This study sets the pace in the development of WEF nexus research in Ghana to facilitate policy and decision-making in the WEF sectors in the country. The study aimed at quantifying the existing water trade-offs in the WEF nexus and also modelling the trade-offs, considering basic development scenarios. The water intensities of food production and energy generation in Ghana were found to be 990 m3/tonne and 2.05 m3/kWh, respectively. Scenario analysis was done to project future annual water requirements for food production, energy generation as well as socio-domestic WEF demands based on two possible development scenarios. The analysis predicts that with business as usual, the annual water requirements for food production and energy generation as well as domestic sustenance in Ghana would increase by 34% in 2030. However, technological advancements and innovation in the energy and food sectors could reduce annual water requirements by over 26% even when 100% access to electricity is achieved nationwide.

In this work, an experimental study was done in an autoclave reactor to evaluate the gasification characteristics of food waste in supercritical water. The effects of reaction temperature (550–700 °C), residence time (0–30 min), feedstock concentration (5 wt%-9 wt.%), catalyst type (K₂CO₃, Na₂CO₃, and Raney-Ni), and catalyst loading (Catalyst/dry feedstock 0.5–2) on gas production and liquid products were investigated. The results indicated that higher reaction temperature and longer residence time positively promoted food waste gasification. The organic compound species in liquid products decreased quickly to form gas products with the increased temperature, and the aromatic compounds were the key organic matter for the complete gasification of food waste. The addition of catalysts could significantly convert more liquid intermediates into gaseous products, and improve the gasification performance of food waste. The catalytic performance of catalysts can be ranked as K₂CO₃> Raney-Ni > Na₂CO₃. H₂ yield and carbon gasification efficiency increased with the increase of K₂CO₃ loading, reaching the highest values of 38.29 mol kg⁻¹ and 95.84% with the addition of 14 wt% K₂CO₃, respectively. This work indicated that food waste could be well treated and utilized as an energy resource to produce H₂ by SCWG technology.

In recent years, the presence of microplastics (MP) and nanoplastics (NP) has been assessed in several environmental matrices, including the marine environment and agricultural soil, suggesting those pollutants are likely to enter the food web. However, there is still a severe lack of information about the occurrence of plastic particles in our food, partially due to the multidimensionality of the data necessary to fully describe MP contamination and the consequent difficulty in validating analytical methods. In this review, consisting of two parts, preliminary results about the presence of MP in food, water, and beverages are summarized (Part I) and several approaches for the characterization of micro- and nano-sized plastic particles are reported and discussed (Part II). The information gathered in this manuscript highlights the need for a more comprehensive knowledge of MP/NP occurrence along the food chain in order to assess the food safety risk related to those contaminants and implement strategies for their monitoring in products intended for human consumption. Therefore, an outlook of the field towards a coherent, consistent, and policy-relevant data collection and standardization is included in this review.

This perspective highlights a place for Health (H) in the Water, Energy, and Water (WEF) nexus. It reviews the reference to health in the WEF nexus literature and makes the case for its inclusion into the WEF Nexus. We argue that although the nexus concept of water, energy, and food is relatively recent, it has been adopted by several UN agencies and international organizations and it will continue to draw emphasis in research, politics and communications of the scientific community. Now is the time to integrate health. Copyright © 2022 Nuwayhid and Mohtar.