Water Productivity and Food Security - Global Trends and Regional Patterns

2022 ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (7) ◽  
pp. 3073-3091 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Jägermeyr ◽  
D. Gerten ◽  
J. Heinke ◽  
S. Schaphoff ◽  
M. Kummu ◽  
...  

Abstract. Global agricultural production is heavily sustained by irrigation, but irrigation system efficiencies are often surprisingly low. However, our knowledge of irrigation efficiencies is mostly confined to rough indicative estimates for countries or regions that do not account for spatiotemporal heterogeneity due to climate and other biophysical dependencies. To allow for refined estimates of global agricultural water use, and of water saving and water productivity potentials constrained by biophysical processes and also non-trivial downstream effects, we incorporated a process-based representation of the three major irrigation systems (surface, sprinkler, and drip) into a bio- and agrosphere model, LPJmL. Based on this enhanced model we provide a gridded world map of irrigation efficiencies that are calculated in direct linkage to differences in system types, crop types, climatic and hydrologic conditions, and overall crop management. We find pronounced regional patterns in beneficial irrigation efficiency (a refined irrigation efficiency indicator accounting for crop-productive water consumption only), due to differences in these features, with the lowest values (< 30 %) in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa and the highest values (> 60 %) in Europe and North America. We arrive at an estimate of global irrigation water withdrawal of 2469 km3 (2004–2009 average); irrigation water consumption is calculated to be 1257 km3, of which 608 km3 are non-beneficially consumed, i.e., lost through evaporation, interception, and conveyance. Replacing surface systems by sprinkler or drip systems could, on average across the world's river basins, reduce the non-beneficial consumption at river basin level by 54 and 76 %, respectively, while maintaining the current level of crop yields. Accordingly, crop water productivity would increase by 9 and 15 %, respectively, and by much more in specific regions such as in the Indus basin. This study significantly advances the global quantification of irrigation systems while providing a framework for assessing potential future transitions in these systems. In this paper, presented opportunities associated with irrigation improvements are significant and suggest that they should be considered an important means on the way to sustainable food security.


Author(s):  
Kaisa Seppänen ◽  
Chakra Bahadur Chand

The Rural Village Water Resources Management Project Phase II (RVWRMP-II) works in some of the most remote, food insecure and water scarce areas of Nepal, where the impacts and effects of climate change are already visible. The farmers of the project region are dependent on rain-fed agriculture. Large parts of the project area (parts of Humla and Bajura Districts, for instance) depend on food aid.In Phase II, specific attention is being paid to climate change adaptation, efficient use of water for agriculture, and food security and nutrition.RVWRMP facilitates communities to design and implement Water Use Master Plans (WUMP). One of the objectives of a WUMP is to optimize the use of water for agriculture. Micro-irrigation, rain water harvesting, multi-use schemes, using drainage water from tap stands for home gardens and organic fertilizers are some of the ways to improve the food security in the communities. Water source protection, watershed conservation, soil protection and crop selection are key technical areas of interest to enable adaptation to the anticipated changes in climate.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/hn.v11i1.7205 Hydro Nepal Special Issue: Conference Proceedings 2012 pp.54-58


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (20) ◽  
pp. 5816 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dániel Fróna ◽  
János Szenderák ◽  
Mónika Harangi-Rákos

The aim of the present research is to provide a comprehensive review about the current challenges related to food security and hidden hunger. Issues are presented according to major factors, such as growing population, changing dietary habits, water efficiency, climate change and volatile food prices. These factors were compiled from reports of major international organizations and from relevant scientific articles on the subject. Collecting the results and presenting them in an accessible manner may provide new insight for interested parties. Accessibility of data is extremely important, since food security and its drivers form a closely interconnected but extremely complex network, which requires coordinated problem solving to resolve issues. According to the results, the demand for growing agricultural products has been partly met by increasing cultivated land in recent decades. At the same time, there is serious competition for existing agricultural areas, which further limits the extension of agricultural land in addition to the natural constraints of land availability. Agricultural production needs to expand faster than population growth without further damage to the environment. The driving force behind development is sustainable intensive farming, which means the more effective utilization of agricultural land and water resources. Current global trends in food consumption are unsustainable, analyzed in terms of either public health, environmental impacts or socio-economic costs. The growing population should strive for sustainable food consumption, as social, environmental and health impacts are very important in this respect as well. To this end, the benefits of consuming foods that are less harmful to the environment during production are also to be emphasized in the scope of consumption policy and education related to nutrition as opposed to other food types, the production of which causes a major demand for raw materials.


Author(s):  
Lesya Sheludko

Actuality of the research topic. A number of global trends affects food supply and consumption, as well as food security in the world. The main one is the growth of the world population primarily in emerging countries and urbanization of the population. Accordingly, the topic of food security in the context of urbanization becomes highly relevant. Problem statement. It should be noted, that urbanization changes the quantity and structure of food products, increases the demand for quality products, impacts on food security and economic security of the country in general. Review of recent research and publications. Urbanization is a very complex subject; so many well-known foreign and domestic scientists from different fields of science have studied various aspects of urbanization. At the same time, the vast majority of publications are mostly theoretical and cover the demographic and geographical aspects of urban processes, while the issues of economic analysis and the impact of urbanization on food security remain inadequately studied. Task statement, research methods. The article aims to study the process of urbanization in the world and in Ukraine, as well as to identify the impact of urban processes on the economic development of countries and food security in order to develop recommendations on prospects and opportunities for Ukraine. Presentation of the main material (results of work). The paper describes the main processes of urbanization, which take place in different countries and in the world as a whole, as well as in Ukraine. The influence of urbanization processes on the economic development of the countries is determined, namely, that the countries with high level of urbanization have high economic development and accordingly the high Gross National Product per capita. It has been discovered, that urbanization also affects the food security of countries, as the number of urban population increases, the structure of consumer products changes, and the demand for food increases as well. Summary. Urbanization represents both a challenge and an opportunity for the development of agriculture, as well as food security. Urbanization provides opportunities for Ukraine in the face of growing demand for food, to improve its export potential.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 389-398
Author(s):  
A. Z. Midov ◽  
G. N. Gavrilina ◽  
A. Yu. Prosekov

The authors apply to Dr. Vladimir L. Kvint’s theory of strategy and methodology and study the problem of food security which is the most important issue in creating strategic documents. The relevance of the study lies in the significance of food security for maintaining high quality of people’s life and health. Moreover, establishing global food security and stability of food systems is a growing challenge at the international level, this issue is studied worldwide and is one of the objectives of the UN stable development. The authors define strategic global trends affecting food security. These include growing population, increasing prices for food and shocks of agricultural production, overexploitation of natural resources and climate changes. Analysing strategic tendencies and revealing trends and consistent patterns it is possible to discover a number of opportunities, existing and potential threats of the object of strategizing. So the authors have defined and analyzed strategic threats of Kuzbass food market, such as the region’s location in the risky farming area and unfavorable condition of the soil, degradation of the production capacity of the Kuzbass agricultural complex connected with disposal due to depreciation of fixed assets in the agricultural sector, high import dependence of Kuzbass agricultural complex that leads to growing transportation expenditures, increasing prices for imported goods and use of food additives for maintaining the appearance of food. After analyzing global tendencies and strategic threats the authors suggested practical recommendations to counter the threats for food security of Kuzbass.


Author(s):  
David G Delaney ◽  
Lida T Teneva ◽  
Kostantinos A Stamoulis ◽  
Jonatha L Giddens ◽  
Haruko Koike ◽  
...  

Sustainable fisheries management is key to restoring and maintaining ecological function and benefits to people, but it requires accurate information about patterns in resource use, particularly fishing pressure. In most coral reef fisheries and other data-poor contexts, obtaining such information is challenging and remains an impediment to effective management. We developed the most comprehensive regional view of shore-based fishing effort and catch for the Hawaiian Islands to show detailed fishing patterns from across the main Hawaiian Islands (MHI). We reveal these regional patterns through fisher “creel” surveys conducted through collaborative efforts by local communities, state agencies, academics, and environmental organizations, at 18 sites and comprising >10,000 hr of monitoring across a range of habitats and human influences throughout the MHI. Here, we document spatial patterns in nearshore fisheries catch, effort, catch rates (i.e., catch-per-unit-effort [CPUE]), and catch disposition (i.e., use of fish after catch is landed). Line fishing was consistently the most commonly employed gear type (94%), followed by net fishing. The most efficient gear types (i.e., higher CPUE) were spear (0.64 kg hr-1), followed closely by net (0.61 kg hr-1), with CPUE for line (0.16 kg hr-1) 3.9 times lower than spear and 3.7 times lower than net. Creel surveys also reveal rampant illegal fishing activity across the studied locations. Surprisingly, overall, most of the catch was not sold, but rather retained for home consumption or given away to extended family, which indicates that cultural and food security may be stronger drivers of fishing effort than commercial exploitation for nearshore coral reef fisheries in Hawai‘i. Increased monitoring of spatial patterns in nearshore fisheries can inform targeted management, in order to maintain these fisheries for local communities’ food security, cultural, and ecological value.


2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 3593-3644 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Jägermeyr ◽  
D. Gerten ◽  
J. Heinke ◽  
S. Schaphoff ◽  
M. Kummu ◽  
...  

Abstract. Global agricultural production is heavily sustained by irrigation, but irrigation system efficiencies are often surprisingly low. However, our knowledge of irrigation efficiencies is mostly confined to rough indicative estimates for countries or regions that do not account for spatio-temporal heterogeneity due to climate and other biophysical dependencies. To allow for refined estimates of global agricultural water use, and of water saving and water productivity potentials constrained by biophysical processes and also non-trivial downstream effects, we incorporated a dynamic representation of the three major irrigation systems (surface, sprinkler, and drip) into a process-based bio- and agrosphere model, LPJmL. Based on this enhanced model we provide a gridded worldmap of dynamically retrieved irrigation efficiencies reflecting differences in system types, crop types, climatic and hydrologic conditions, and overall crop management. We find pronounced regional patterns in beneficial irrigation efficiency (a refined irrigation efficiency indicator accounting for crop-productive water consumption only), due to differences in these features, with lowest values (< 30%) in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa and highest values (> 60%) in Europe and North America. We arrive at an estimate of global irrigation water withdrawal of 2396 km3 (2004–2009 average); irrigation water consumption is calculated to be 1212 km3, of which 511 km3 are non-beneficially consumed, i.e. lost through evaporation, interception, and conveyance. Replacing surface systems by sprinkler or drip systems could, on average across the world's river basins, reduce the non-beneficial consumption at river basin level by 54 and 76%, respectively, while maintaining the current level of crop yields. Accordingly, crop water productivity would increase by 9 and 15%, respectively, and by much more in specific regions such as in the Indus basin. This study significantly advances the global quantification of irrigation systems while providing a framework for assessing potential future transitions in these systems. Here presented opportunities associated with irrigation improvements are significant and suggest that they should be considered an important means on the way to sustainable food security.


2021 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 00095
Author(s):  
Tatyana Yashkova ◽  
Sergey Kiselev ◽  
Alexey Opokin ◽  
Mikhail Rodionov

The article is devoted to the problem of ensuring the food security of the Russian Federation and the issue of import substitution in the context of increasing geopolitical confrontation, the adoption of sanctions and retaliatory measures, and the deterioration of the economic situation due to the pandemic. The article examines the dynamics of the processes of ensuring the country's food security in the last three decades. The expediency of using the import substitution policy as a tool for ensuring food security is justified. Recommendations are formulated to optimize the processes of import substitution and increase the level of food security. The authors propose comprehensive measures based on current global trends in macroeconomic development and the state of food security in the Russian Federation. Special attention is paid to the expediency of carrying out large-scale work on scientific justification, strategic goal setting and planning, the development of multi-variant scenarios for the development of the situation in the field of food security under the influence of changing factors, with the involvement of a large number of experts and the use of advanced approaches and modern methods.


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