Water, Food and Energy Security in the Face of Human Disasters

A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X). This special issue belongs to the section "Water, Energy, Land and Food (WELF) Nexus".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 May 2023) | Viewed by 6331

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Guest Editor
Department of Earth and Environment, AHC-5-390, Florida International University, 11200 SW 8th Street, Miami, FL, USA
Interests: remote sensing; watershed modeling; climate change impact; sediment dynamics; river basin management
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Guest Editor
International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Addis Ababa P.O. Box 5689, Ethiopia
Interests: landscape ecology; land degradation; restoration; system analysis; geospatial analysis

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Guest Editor
Ethiopian Space Science and Technology Institute, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Interests: land use; land use dynamics; soil; vegetation; land evaluation; land use planning; remote sensing of the environment

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Water, food and energy demands are continuously increasing in the face of the changing climate and a growing population. There is an urgent need for immediate action to address these challenges and establish self-reliant food production. Unprecedented interrelated challenges have threatened our ability to meet the fundamental demands of human beings, including access to freshwater, food and energy. The changing climate, global warming and the uncertainty of rainfall regimes, and hence freshwater unavailability coupled with land and water degradation, exert an immense pressure on the efforts towards sustainable economic growth. Understanding the link between climate and land cover change dynamics, on the one hand, and water, energy and food security on the other, is a critical area of research. The roles of observation, data mining and modeling in this regard are tremendous. New sensors, satellite data and geospatial analysis provide important information needed to monitor and map areas where data is scarce. To better understand the water, food and energy security in the face of human disasters, an international conference on soil and water management, droughts and floods, irrigation, water supply, energy production and food production has been organized. Papers on the Nile River and the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will be presented. This Special Issue (SI) calls for submissions of reviews and research papers.

Prof. Dr. Assefa M. Melesse
Dr. Lulseged Tamene
Dr. Berhan Gessesse Awoke
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • droughts
  • floods
  • water
  • energy and food (WEF) security
  • water supply
  • sensors and remote sensing
  • data mining
  • machine learning
  • climate change
  • land degradation
  • soil erosion
  • sediment transport

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 3075 KiB  
Article
Deconstruction of Dryness and Wetness Patterns with Drought Condition Assessment over the Mun River Basin, Thailand
by Sisi Li and Huawei Pi
Land 2022, 11(12), 2244; https://doi.org/10.3390/land11122244 - 9 Dec 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1419
Abstract
Agriculture is one of the dominant industries in the Mun River Basin, but farmlands are frequently affected by floods and droughts due to the water resource management mode of their rainfed crop, especially in the context of climate change. Drought risk assessment plays [...] Read more.
Agriculture is one of the dominant industries in the Mun River Basin, but farmlands are frequently affected by floods and droughts due to the water resource management mode of their rainfed crop, especially in the context of climate change. Drought risk assessment plays an important role in the Mun River Basin’s agricultural sustainable development. The objective of this study was to identify the tempo-spatial variation in dryness and wetness patterns; the drought intensity, frequency, and duration; and the potential causes behind drought using the methods of the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI), ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD), correlation analysis, and the Pettitt test over the basin. Results showed that the Mun River Basin underwent a drying climate pattern, which is explained by the significant decreasing trend of SPEI_12M during the study period. In addition, the downstream area of the Mun River Basin was subjected to more intense, extreme dryness and wetness events as the decreased amplitude of SPEI_12M and SPEI_3M was higher than that over the upper and middle reaches. Drought intensity presented a remarkable decadal variation over the past 36 years, and an average 7% increase per decade in the drought intensity was detected. Besides, there have been more mild and moderate droughts frequently appearing over the Mun River Basin in recent decades. For the underlying causes behind the drought condition, on the one hand, the shortened precipitation day over the rainy season accounted more for the intense drought events than the precipitation amount. On the other hand, El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO)-brought sea surface temperature anomalies aggravated the potential evapotranspiration (ETr), which might be closely related to the drought intensity and frequency variation. These tempo-spatial maps of dryness and wetness and drought occurrence characteristics can be conducive to local stakeholders and agricultural operators to better understand the agriculture industry risks and vulnerabilities and properly cope with pre-disaster planning and preparedness and post-disaster reconstruction over the Mun River Basin. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water, Food and Energy Security in the Face of Human Disasters)
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20 pages, 20380 KiB  
Article
Rainfall Variability and Rice Sustainability: An Evaluation Study of Two Distinct Rice-Growing Ecosystems
by Masoud K. Barati, V. S. Manivasagam, Mohammad Reza Nikoo, Pasoubady Saravanane, Alagappan Narayanan and Sudheesh Manalil
Land 2022, 11(8), 1242; https://doi.org/10.3390/land11081242 - 4 Aug 2022
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3806
Abstract
The inconsistency of the Indian monsoon has constantly threatened the country’s food production, especially key food crops such as rice. Crop planning measures based on rainfall patterns during the rice-growing season can significantly improve the sustainable water usage for water-intensive crops such as [...] Read more.
The inconsistency of the Indian monsoon has constantly threatened the country’s food production, especially key food crops such as rice. Crop planning measures based on rainfall patterns during the rice-growing season can significantly improve the sustainable water usage for water-intensive crops such as rice. This study examines the variability of Indian monsoonal rainfall in rainfed and irrigated rice-cultivating regions to improve rainfall utilization and irrigation water-saving practices. Two distinct rice-growing conditions in southern peninsular India are chosen for this study. The preliminary seasonal rainfall analysis (1951–2015) showed anomalies in the Sadivayal (rainfed rice) region compared to the Karaikal (irrigated rice). The dry-spell analysis and weekly rainfall classification suggested shifting the sowing date to earlier weeks for the Thaladi season (September–February) and Kar season (May–September) to avoid exposure to water stress in Sadivayal. Harvesting of excess rainwater during the wet weeks is proposed as a mitigation strategy for Karaikal during the vegetative stage of the Kuruvai season (June–October) and Late Thaladi season (October–February), where deficit rainfall is expected. Results showed that an adaptation strategy of early sowing is the most sustainable measure for rainfed rice cultivation. However, harvesting the excess rainwater is an ideal strategy to prevent water stress during deficient rainfall periods in irrigated rice farming. This comparative study proposes a comprehensive rainfall analysis framework to develop sustainable water-efficient rice cultivation practices for the changing rainfall patterns. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water, Food and Energy Security in the Face of Human Disasters)
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