We live in a world of complex and tightly interconnected grand challenges that threaten the sustainability of our societies. Examples of such challenges are summed up in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs), which include specific goals to address water, energy, and food insecurities. Our ability to address these challenges depends on our readiness to collaborate across disciplines and sectors to reimagine thriving, healthy, resilient societies that respect the boundaries and health of our planet. As nations work toward implementing the UN- SDGs, we need to support decision makers, create synergies, and avoid unintended competition between societal goals. Thus, the urgent need for innovative simulation and assessment tools and governance models to represent these complex systems in an accessible manner.Drylands face important resource gaps including access to water, food, energy, nutrition, and healthcare. These gaps are expected to increase with demographic conflicts and climate change. The highly interlinked primary resources carry high risks and vulnerabilities. Understanding these interlinkages and associated risks and vulnerabilities to better comprehend the complex system of systems they represent is crucial and requires multi-disciplinary work that encompasses technologies, science, policies, health, communication, and socioeconomics at both local process and system-level scales.In 2018, the American University of Beirut (AUB) launched WEFRAH: the Water-Energy-Food- Health Nexus of Renewable Resources initiative. WEFRAH comprises one of the largest research communities in the Middle Eastern North Africa (MENA) region. It is a university-wide initiative led by the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences. WEFRAH includes a critical mass of faculty from disciplines across the University whose focus is collaboration to achieve security of primary resources. Its core conviction is achieving water, energy, and food security, improving health, harmonizing humans with nature, and implementing integrated solutions that require holistic, system-level thinking.This Research Topic presents some of the collaborative research outcomes from the WEFRAH community. It also honors Professor Rabi H. Mohtar, Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Texas A&M University. Mohtar’s leadership of multiple initiatives during his interdisciplinary career has resulted in seminal contributions to the development of Water-Energy- Food nexus research, education, and engagement globally.The 2021 annual symposium of the American Chemical Society (ACS), Toward Creating a Water- Energy-Food Nexus Community of Practice - A Symposium in Honor of Professor Rabi H. Mohtar, included invited and contributed oral and poster sessions, with multi-stakeholders from academia, private, civil society, and public sectors. The symposium focused on the various thematic areas related to operationalizing WEF nexus research and development, and highlighted lessons learned from cross-disciplinary collaborations using national and global case studies in this research space. The symposium focused on the opportunities that lie in creating a cross-cutting and inclusive WEF nexus Community of Practice and the role of existing disciplinary societies in that Community.Research Topic of the WEFRAH Initiative and of the ACS symposium included.• Water-Energy-Food-Health nexus and the Sustainable Development Goals• Sustainable food production systems• Renewable energy and sustainable agri-food systems• Building systems thinking and leadership capacity• Behavioral changes towards sustainability in the Water–Energy–Food Nexus• Governance of the Water–Energy–Food Nexus• Introductory perspective to the Nexus in drylands• Approaches to integrate the WEFH nexus in drylands• Health as a resource and its contribution to the Nexus• Circular and Sustainable food production systems• Antibiotics and other contaminants fate in the environment (soils, water, and plants) and technologies for their removal• Food or water waste management• Building climate resilience in drylands• Climate smart agriculture in drylands
We live in a world of complex and tightly interconnected grand challenges that threaten the sustainability of our societies. Examples of such challenges are summed up in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs), which include specific goals to address water, energy, and food insecurities. Our ability to address these challenges depends on our readiness to collaborate across disciplines and sectors to reimagine thriving, healthy, resilient societies that respect the boundaries and health of our planet. As nations work toward implementing the UN- SDGs, we need to support decision makers, create synergies, and avoid unintended competition between societal goals. Thus, the urgent need for innovative simulation and assessment tools and governance models to represent these complex systems in an accessible manner.
Drylands face important resource gaps including access to water, food, energy, nutrition, and healthcare. These gaps are expected to increase with demographic conflicts and climate change. The highly interlinked primary resources carry high risks and vulnerabilities. Understanding these interlinkages and associated risks and vulnerabilities to better comprehend the complex system of systems they represent is crucial and requires multi-disciplinary work that encompasses technologies, science, policies, health, communication, and socioeconomics at both local process and system-level scales.
In 2018, the American University of Beirut (AUB) launched WEFRAH: the Water-Energy-Food- Health Nexus of Renewable Resources initiative. WEFRAH comprises one of the largest research communities in the Middle Eastern North Africa (MENA) region. It is a university-wide initiative led by the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences. WEFRAH includes a critical mass of faculty from disciplines across the University whose focus is collaboration to achieve security of primary resources. Its core conviction is achieving water, energy, and food security, improving health, harmonizing humans with nature, and implementing integrated solutions that require holistic, system-level thinking.
This Research Topic presents some of the collaborative research outcomes from the WEFRAH community. It also honors Professor Rabi H. Mohtar, Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Texas A&M University. Mohtar’s leadership of multiple initiatives during his interdisciplinary career has resulted in seminal contributions to the development of Water-Energy- Food nexus research, education, and engagement globally.
The 2021 annual symposium of the American Chemical Society (ACS), Toward Creating a Water- Energy-Food Nexus Community of Practice - A Symposium in Honor of Professor Rabi H. Mohtar, included invited and contributed oral and poster sessions, with multi-stakeholders from academia, private, civil society, and public sectors. The symposium focused on the various thematic areas related to operationalizing WEF nexus research and development, and highlighted lessons learned from cross-disciplinary collaborations using national and global case studies in this research space. The symposium focused on the opportunities that lie in creating a cross-cutting and inclusive WEF nexus Community of Practice and the role of existing disciplinary societies in that Community.
Research Topic of the WEFRAH Initiative and of the ACS symposium included.
• Water-Energy-Food-Health nexus and the Sustainable Development Goals
• Sustainable food production systems
• Renewable energy and sustainable agri-food systems
• Building systems thinking and leadership capacity
• Behavioral changes towards sustainability in the Water–Energy–Food Nexus
• Governance of the Water–Energy–Food Nexus
• Introductory perspective to the Nexus in drylands
• Approaches to integrate the WEFH nexus in drylands
• Health as a resource and its contribution to the Nexus
• Circular and Sustainable food production systems
• Antibiotics and other contaminants fate in the environment (soils, water, and plants) and technologies for their removal
• Food or water waste management
• Building climate resilience in drylands
• Climate smart agriculture in drylands