Identifying the interfaces between perceived multi-hazards and socio-ecological risks to strengthen local adaptations

Food and water security: Analysis of integrated modeling platforms

Water Accounting Plus for Water Resources Reporting and River Basin Planning

Causes and implications of groundwater depletion in India: A review

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A review of food and water security in the context of sustainable development is the purpose of this study. Food and water security are complicated sustainable development challenges that are linked to both health and sustainable economic development through malnutrition. These are contained in the sustainable development SDGs such as 2 and 6 (Zero Hunger) (Sanitation and clean water). This paper is a review of food and water security that has to do with the conceptual issues, stylized facts on food and water security, food and water security nexus, factors militating against food security around the world, related empirical studies and way forward, Having pointed out some of the factors militating against food and water security such global warming/ climate change, disease outbreak and insecurity etc. strong conclusion and recommendation were made such as fight against insecurity and diseases outbreak, good sanitation and hygiene should also be promoted and sustained, good agricultural policy formation and implementation amongst other things will play out to promote food and water security, hence, to achieve sustainable economic development.

Background Women’s early marriage (<18 years) is a critical global health issue affecting 650 million women worldwide. It is associated with a range of adverse maternal physical and mental health outcomes, including early childbearing, child undernutrition and morbidity. Poverty is widely asserted to be the key risk factor driving early marriage. However, most studies do not measure wealth in the natal household, but instead, use marital household wealth as a proxy for natal wealth. Further research is required to understand the key drivers of early marriage. Methods We investigated whether natal household poverty was associated with marrying early, independently of women’s lower educational attainment and broader markers of household disadvantage. Data on natal household wealth (material asset score) for 2,432 women aged 18–39 years was used from the cluster-randomized Low Birth Weight South Asia Trial in lowland rural Nepal. Different early marriage definitions (<15, <16, <17 and <18 years) were used because most of our population marries below the conventional 18-year cut-off. Logistic mixed-effects models were fitted to estimate the probabilities, derived from adjusted Odds Ratios, of (a) marrying at different early ages for the full sample and for the uneducated women, and (b) being uneducated in the first place. Results Women married at median age 15 years (interquartile range 3), and only 18% married ≥18 years. Two-thirds of the women were entirely uneducated. We found that, rather than poverty, women’s lower education was the primary factor associated with early marriage, regardless of how ‘early’ is defined. Neither poverty nor other markers of household disadvantage were associated with early marriage at any age in the uneducated women. However, poverty was associated with women being uneducated. Conclusion When assets are measured in the natal household in this population, there is no support for the conventional hypothesis that household poverty is associated with daughters’ early marriage, but it is associated with not going to school. We propose that improving access to free education would both reduce early marriage and have broader benefits for maternal and child health and gender equality.

Facing Global Environmental Change

It is widely acknowledged that the world is currently experiencing an unprecedented water shortage, with agriculture being a crucial contributor. This paper presents a synthesis of available evidence, identify knowledge gaps, and make a state-of-the-art synthesis on green water management in Ethiopia. A systematic review methodology was implemented, encompassing the compilation and analysis of peer-reviewed and gray literature. The paper demonstrates that rainfed agriculture, which relies on “green water” (soil moisture from rainfall), accounts for 80% of cultivated land and 60-70% of global crop production. However, green water management has not received adequate attention in water policy and land rehabilitation programs in Ethiopia, where irrigation is limited. The analysis reveals a large yield gap and water productivity gap for major crops like maize, sorghum, and wheat in Ethiopia’s rainfed agriculture. Increasing crop yields through better soil, water, and crop management practices can significantly improve water productivity, offering “windows of opportunity” to enhance food and water security. Thus, a paradigm shift from the traditional narrow focus on soil erosion control towards an integrated green-blue water management approach in water and agricultural policies and programs is urgently required. Increased investments and expertise in green water management at the government level are crucial. Optimizing the use of green water resources in rainfed farming can also unlock Ethiopia’s export potential while improving domestic water and food security through strategic virtual water trade. In conclusion, the review highlights unlocking the potential of green water resources through targeted investments and policy support for rainfed agriculture can significantly contribute to Ethiopia’s water and food security objectives in a cost-effective and environmentally sustainable manner.

&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Disentangling the effects of climate and land use changes on regional hydrological conditions is critical for local water and food security. The water variability over climate transition regions at the midlatitudes is sensitive to changes in regional climate and land use. Gansu, located in northwest China, is a midlatitude climate transition region with sharp climate and vegetation gradients. In this study, the effects of climate and land&amp;amp;#8209;use changes on water balances are investigated over Gansu between 1981 and 2015 using a Budyko framework. Results show that there is reduced runoff generation potential over Gansu during 1981 and 2015, especially in the southern part of the region. Based on statistical scaling relationships, local runoff generation potential over Gansu are related to the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Intensified El Nino conditions weaken the Asian monsoons, leading to precipitation deficits over Gansu. Moreover, the regional evapotranspiration (ET) is increasing due to the warming temperature. The decreasing precipitation and increasing ET cause the decline of runoff generation potential over Gansu. Using the dynamical downscaling model outputs, the Budyko analysis indicates that increasing coverage of forests and croplands may lead to higher ET and may reduce runoff generation potential over Gansu. Moreover, the contributions of climate variability and land&amp;amp;#8209;use changes vary spatially. In the southwest part of Gansu, the impacts of climate variability on water variations are larger (around 80%) than that of land&amp;amp;#8209;use changes (around 20%), while land use changes are the dominant drivers of water variability in the southeast part of the region. The decline of runoff generation potential reveals a potential risk for local water and food security over Gansu. The water&amp;amp;#8209;resource assessment approach developed in this study is applicable for collaborative planning at other climate transition regions at the midlatitudes with complex climate and land types for the Belt and Road Initiative.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;

Land use/land cover change (LUCC) research has been given close attention during the past decade, because of the pivotal role of LUCC in many aspects like global climatic change, food security, soil degradation and biodiversity. The researches of land use change deal with different spatio-temporal scales, they are increasingly turning from global dimension towards regional dimension research. Taking the case of Fubei Farm of Xinjiang, this study analysed the driving forces of land use changes in small-scale through logistic regression analysis. The results show that: salinity crops area reduction is the driving force of output per unit area of land, soil organic matter content and groundwater salinity, the main reasons of the food crops area to reduce is net output per unit area, the driving factors of the economic crops area to increase are the net output per unit area and the total agricultural output value.

Economic Reforms and Food Security

In this paper, the spatial and temporal variability of groundwater depth and groundwater salinity associated with agricultural activities and land cover and land use (LCLU) in the Keriya Oasis, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China, was investigated. A decision tree classification was developed for LCLU mapping by using Landsat 8 imagery. Radial basis function, Pearson’s correlation coefficient, Moran’s I statistics and geographically weighted regression were employed to identify the spatial and temporal relationship between topsoil salinity and LCLU types. The results showed that groundwater depth in about 75 % of the study area was less than 3.0 m. Groundwater salinity showed an increasing trend with decreasing groundwater depth. A relatively higher positive correlation (r = 0.87) was found between groundwater salinity and topsoil salinity. Topsoil salinity was exacerbated by agricultural activities at the upstream of seasonal rivers, causing severe soil salinization and soil degradation in the downstream. Both groundwater depth and soil salinity showed seasonal fluctuations with the shallowest groundwater level occurring in spring, while during summer and autumn, groundwater depth increased due to the extensive of agricultural water consumption and the regional evapotranspiration, which was followed by a winter recharge; non-saline groundwater region was 21 % of the research area in spring, which dropped to 1.1, 1.0 and 1.2 %, respectively, during the summer, autumn and winter. The results also demonstrated that shallow groundwater depth of 2.5 m is the critical depth value for soil salinization in the Keriya Oasis.

Examines land availability and use in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) as well as the trade-offs among competing uses, by introducing the land cover databases mobilized for this study before describing land use patterns, their determinants, and their evolution over time. The severe scarcity of land in the MENA region remains the critical issue emerging from the analysis. The demographic and climatic trends indicate increasing land demand, and yet land remains under growing stress from climate change. Increasing land scarcity leads to strategic trade-offs about the best use of land to meet competing economic, social, sustainability, and sovereignty objectives. Degradation and desertification, stemming from both climatic and anthropological factors—especially in Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Morocco, and Syria—have high economic costs. If climatic and population trends continue as predicted, agricultural land will become significantly scarcer in the MENA region, falling to a level that could lead to a major crisis if not addressed.

Efficient and sustainable utilization of resources, particularly land and water resources for agriculture have occupied the centre stage in the economic agenda of a nation. The regional resource availability and the biotic, abiotic and socio-economic constraints are largely varied in the any crop production system of that region. The integration of sustainable resource use with the production programs and income as objectives of farming thus, leads to a multiple objective-planning framework. Attaining sustainable increase in agriculture production by considering the biophysical variability of the region without affecting the natural resources base is therefore very important to achieve food security for the growing population in a developing country situation. The current study is to develop appropriate land use pattern in crop agriculture for sustainable land and water use to the agricultural development in the Bavani Basin of western zone of Tamil Nadu state in southern India, using a multiple goal linear programming approach. Bhavani basin in the western zone of Tamil Nadu - one of the most diversified in bio physical features, was evaluated in this study. The land use model employed in the study following the bio-economic model by Shiferaw and Holden, (2003) who incorporated the important variations in the biophysical system (land and soils) and market characteristics. This study traced the alternative cropping pattern which would maximizes the farm net income at a relatively lower water requirement, lower land requirement (hectare days to ensure relatively more fallow period to lower land exhaustion rate) and that would lower the environment damage in-terms of lower Environmental Impact Quotient (EIQ) with the given land and ground water availability of each identified ten homogeneous land units beside the length of growing period determined on the basis of quantum and distribution of rainfall and temperature. The major biophysical factors considered beside the land availability, ground and surface water availability were; crop suitability for the particular soil type, crop sequence and climatic variations and these factors were specified as constraints in the land use model. The input data for the model were collected from the sample respondents in the delineated homogeneous land units. The actual water availability for each standard week (t) was estimated after adjusting the effective rainfall received during the period of crop stand from the total water requirement of each crop activity. The land use model estimates revealed the possibility of increasing the crop income from the current level of INR 6.14 billion to INR 8.25 billion annually. This alternative crop plan also helped to reduce the area under high water consuming crops in water deficit areas.

The study assessed agricultural land use change and food security linkage in Nigeria from 1981 to 2023. The study adopted a historical survey design using time series data spanning the period of 43 years from 1981 to 2023.Data on the variables were collected from the archives of World Bank and Food and Agriculture Organization database and analyzed using descriptive statistics such as mean, maximum and minimum with trend graphs, Autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) after testing for unit root, granger causality test and Autoregressive Moving Average (ARIMA) model. The Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test for unit roots indicated that agricultural land use change is integrated of order one, I(1), while food security is integrated of order two, I(2). This suggests that both variables follow a random walk, meaning their future values do not revert to their past values. The results from the Bound test for a long-run relationship between agricultural land use change and food security showed that the F-statistic value of 4.676068 exceeds the upper critical bound of 4.35 at the 5% significance level, confirming a long-run relationship between the two variables. Additionally, the pairwise Granger causality test revealed a significant causal link between agricultural land use change and food security. The trend forecast indicated that over the next decade, agricultural land use change is expected to follow a downward trend, while food security is projected to increase, assuming other factors remain constant. Based on these findings, the study suggests that the government should implement comprehensive food security monitoring systems to track changes in land use and food security indicators. Early warning systems could prove valuable in predicting and addressing potential food security challenges, particularly in light of declining agricultural productivity.