Agricultural Land or Photovoltaic Parks? The Water–Energy–Food Nexus and Land Development Perspectives in the Thessaly Plain, Greece

Assessment of the water-energy-food nexus in the life cycle of energy products

Given the urgent need to achieve energy security and transition from conventional to renewable energy sources, the energy sector is expanding rapidly. However, this growth often involves trade-offs with food and water resources. One way to address this complex interplay is to adopt the Water-Energy-Food nexus within a Life Cycle Assessment. This approach allows the analysis of interrelationships among the three sectors, aiming to foster synergies and minimize trade-offs. While numerous indicators exist to quantify the water-energy relationship, no similar approaches for the energy-food relationship could be found. To bridge this gap, in this paper, we introduce a novel indicator that measures the amount of food that could be produced causing the same land use impact in form of biodiversity damage as 1 MJ of the energy product. Together with another existing indicator that measures the water scarcity footprint per megajoule, a new framework for the analysis of the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus of energy products is developed. Additionally, we present an optional net factor for both indicators. This factor helps to consider the energy use within the product's processes, contributing to a more comprehensive analysis. In our case study, we implement the outlined framework by examining biodiesel production in Argentina. We specifically analyze the impacts of two distinct agricultural technologies-Early and Late Soybean-on the Food and Water sectors. Our findings reveal that for every megajoule of the evaluated product, one could produce 62 or 93 kcal of food causing the same species loss. Additionally, the production process incurs a water scarcity footprint of 6.5 or 6.8 liters per megajoule, depending on the technology used. The proposed framework offers a means to mitigate the water and land use impacts associated with energy products. Consequently, it has the potential to enhance the WEF nexus.

Multifunction Land Use to Promote Energy Communities in Mediterranean Region: Cases of Egypt and Italy

Mediterranean rural settlements suffer from numerous environmental challenges, specifically the annual decrease of the farmlands, climate change threats, and growing resource consumption and demand, such as energy, the core of development. Rural areas play a significant role in achieving food security and sustainable development. Therefore, this paper promotes the energy community and agrivoltaic key concepts as pillars to show how buildings and farms’ land uses positively impact the ecosystem. The study focused on Egypt and Italy as representatives of the entire region. Two rural settlements with the same characteristics representing typical agriculture-based patterns have been selected: Lasaifar Albalad, representing 339 villages in the Delta Region, northern Egypt, and Pontinia, representing rural typologies of the 1930s in the Lazio Region, central Italy. Then, two focus groups with versatile stakeholders were conducted. The results showed the juxtaposition of the key concepts and national rural and agricultural policies and fostered a novel approach between Egypt and Italy. The study presented the first analysis of both contexts. The focus groups promoted the ideas, led to a better understanding of the implementation possibilities, raised awareness, improved social acceptance, and highlighted the significant barriers. It paved the way for a further study (micro-scale on-ground practices) to be planned and implemented soon.

Wildfires vs. Sustainable Forest Partitioning

There is a widespread perception that every year wildfires are intensifying on a global scale, something that is often used as an indicator of the adverse impacts of global warming. However, from the analysis of wildfires that have occurred in the US, Canada, and Mediterranean countries, a trend that justifies this perception could not be identified. Arguably, instead of blaming climate change, research on the mitigation of wildfires should be re-directed to forest management policy and practices. Forests are admirable and complex natural ecosystems, and fires, albeit devastating, can be attributed to both human activity and to natural processes that contribute to their rebirth, with the latter constituting an intrinsic and perpetual process of the forest ecosystem. Other than their important ecological value, forests are, in the 21st century, also a capital resource, for many people’s livelihoods depend on them. In this study, we proposed a method for taking mitigation measures against wildfires based on the partitioning of forests, considering both the protection of the ecosystem and the inhabitants and aiming to utilize their co-dependent nature for the general protection and preservation of forests. As a case study, we analyzed the current devastating fire in Euboea (occurred in August 2021), initially in terms of the spatio-temporal progression of the actual wildfire that lasted several days and then by examining how an implementation of the proposed method in the study area could contribute to both the recovery of the ecosystem and the enhancement of the quality of life of the inhabitants as well as their long-term protection.