Transference of the embedded water, so-called virtual water, in the trade of crops among regions within a country is often neglected, leading to no information about the impacts on the water resources of exporting regions, especially if those regions are water-stressed or, worse, water-scarce. Virtual water trade, if not considered through the lens of sustainability, could lead to adverse effects on the water resources of an exporting region. Previous related studies have quantified virtual water trade among the states in the United States providing valuable insights; however, information for specific crop trade among counties, its water footprint (WF) at the county scale, the resultant virtual water flow among counties, and the sustainability assessment of those virtual water flows are lacking. In this study, we calculate the green and blue WF of cereal and milled grain products at the county level and then, using trade data, calculate the virtual water flows among the counties. Then, we assess the sustainability of the import by introducing unsustainable import fraction (UIF), which is the ratio of virtual water imported from water-scarce counties to that of total virtual water imported in the form of cereal and milled grains. Finally, we quantify the change in UIF from the 2007–2017 period. A few of the significant insights discovered through this analysis include: (i) most of the cereal and milled grains trade is occurring among neighboring counties; ii) one-third of US counties import 75% or more virtual water from water scarce regions; (iii) in 2017, Texas and Missouri were the largest importer and exporter, respectively; and (iv) the number of counties importing cereals and milled grains from water-scarce counties increased from 2007 to 2017. Recommendations on alleviating the negative effects of the unsustainable import of cereal and milled grain are provided toward the end of the discussion.
Technology Innovation and Analysis at the FEW Nexus: A Critical Pathway Toward Sustainability
Guest Editors
Frank Chaplen, Oregon State University, USA Jennifer McConville, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden Kevin Orner, West Virginia University, USA Anu Ramaswami, Princeton University, USAScope
The Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus is seeing an explosion of new technologies, including smart technologies in agriculture and irrigation, waste minimization and valorization technologies, and interlinkages between the food-waste-water and energy systems.
These emerging FEW technologies may allow us to tackle several interlinked environmental challenges. For example, FEW technologies may have a role to play by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, thus combating climate change through carbon capture. Alternatively, FEW systems can balance water and nutrient flows, thus preventing eutrophication and loss of biodiversity.
Yet, the overall sustainability benefits of these FEW technologies are not well-understood because of complex linkages across sectors and scales. New biorefinery models, resource circularity models and analytic approaches are emerging to assess the environmental pollution and resource sustainability benefits of these new technologies. Also needed are decision-support frameworks for implementing FEW technologies that consider social, environmental, and economic aspects.
This special issue invites research articles on the broad topic of technology innovation and analysis at the Food-Energy-Water Nexus that advances sustainability and resilience. This broad topic can include (but are not limited to):
- Basic technology development research
- Applied technology development research
- Methods for sustainability or resilience analysis
- Life cycle assessment
- Cost-benefit analysis
- Technological readiness level of FEW technologies
- Decision-support frameworks
- Policy analysis
Submission process
Focus issue papers
The integrated approach to managing the fundamental resources for human life, namely, water, energy, food, and the environment as their irreplaceable foundation, presents a profound opportunity for sustainable development. However, despite their huge potential, integrated water, energy, food, and environment systems (iWEFEs) are rarely put into practice because of, among others, complexity and a lack of uniform and openly available models to describe, configure and simulate such systems. To fill this gap, we present the open modeling framework for integrated water, energy, food, and environment systems (OWEFEs) based on the open energy modeling framework. OWEFE follows an open, cross-sectoral, and modular design approach to address crucial challenges for the project development of iWEFEs. In this study, we apply OWEFE for the first time to model a wastewater biogas system and an agrivoltaics system. The results of the OWEFE-based models are in the range of a conventional approach respectively of on-site measurements indicating the framework's capability to model diverse iWEFEs. The wide application of the framework can improve the assessment, planning, and configuration of iWEFEs for sustainable and integrated infrastructure development.