Threats in Water–Energy–Food–Land Nexus by the 2022 Military and Economic Conflict

Sargentis, G.-Fivos; Lagaros, Nikos D.; Cascella, Giuseppe Leonardo; Koutsoyiannis, Demetris

doi:10.3390/land11091569

Cited by 10 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 93 publications

(96 reference statements)

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“…Thanks to the establishment of efficient symbiotic relationships, the legume crops productivity is increased, as well as the N content of soils, without synthetic N-fertilizers application ( Weese et al., 2015 ; Abebe & Deressa, 2017 ; Torabian et al., 2019 ; Goyal et al., 2021 ), avoiding their economic and environmental costs, such as degradation of the quality of limited and scarce resources (water and soil) and increase in agricultural GHG emissions, among others ( FAO, 1990 ; Szparaga et al., 2019 ; Hossain & Bakhsh, 2020 ). In fact, agricultural techniques that provide the necessary fertilizers from natural sources, as occurs with the establishment of legume efficient symbiotic relationships, are particularly relevant today, as a result of the large price increases experienced in recent years due to the energy crisis ( Horoias et al., 2022 ; Sargentis et al., 2022 ; Statista, 2022 ). Common bean is considered a poor nitrogen fixer crop since it tends to establish inefficient symbiotic relationships with rhizobia species ( Michiels et al., 1998 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Selected indigenous drought tolerant rhizobium strains as promising biostimulants for common bean in Northern Spain

et al. 2023

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Drought is the most detrimental abiotic stress in agriculture, limiting crop growth and yield and, currently, its risk is increasing due to climate change. Thereby, ensuring food security will be one of the greatest challenges of the agriculture in the nearest future, accordingly it is essential to look for sustainable strategies to cope the negative impact of drought on crops. Inoculation of pulses with biostimulants such as rhizobium strains with high nitrogen fixation efficiency and drought-tolerance, has emerged as a promising and sustainable production strategy. However, some commercial inoculums are not effective under field conditions due to its lower effectiveness against indigenous rhizobium strains in the establishment of the symbiosis. Thus, in the present study, we evaluated the ability to improve drought tolerance in common bean plants of different indigenous rhizobia strains isolated from nearby crop fields in the Basque Country either affected by drought or salinity. The plants in this trial were grown in a climatic chamber under controlled conditions and exposed to values of 30% relative soil water content at the time of harvest, which is considered a severe drought. From the nine bacteria strains evaluated, three were found to be highly efficient under drought (namely 353, A12 and A13). These strains sustained high infectiveness (nodulation capacity) and effectiveness (shoot biomass production) under drought, even surpassing the plants inoculated with the CIAT899 reference strain, as well as the chemically N-fertilized plants. The tolerance mechanisms developed by plants inoculated with 353, A12 and A13 strains were a better adjustment of the cell wall elasticity that prevents mechanical damages in the plasma membrane, a higher WUE and an avoidance of the phenological delay caused by drought, developing a greater number of flowers. These results provide the basis for the development of efficient common bean inoculants able to increase the yield of this crop under drought conditions in the Northern Spain and, thus, to be used as biostimulants. In addition, the use of these efficient nitrogen fixation bacteria strains is a sustainable alternative to chemical fertilization, reducing cost and minimizing its negative impact on environment.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Selected indigenous drought tolerant rhizobium strains as promising biostimulants for common bean in Northern Spain

et al. 2023

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“…Given the extraordinary recent geopolitical events [9] and their macroeconomic effects, in particular the abrupt rise of Irs in 2022 [110] as well as inflation rates [111], it is obvious that the recent 70-year trend of generally low and stable IR, which could be considered as a second "Bell Epoch", is over. As a matter of fact, it seems that financial institutions have learned to operate in a stable financial environment, which in turn has made marginal large-scale projects viable.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The formulation of society was dependent upon the development of infrastructures, which made the environment friendly to humans [1][2][3][4][5] and allowed them to live in groups (clusters), a condition that was proven necessary for growth and progress [6,7]. In order to support the fundamentals of prosperity (water-energy-food nexus [8,9]), humans constructed large infrastructure projects in order to minimize the cost of the unit. In theory, scale-economies were formulated by Adam Smith [10,11] in the late 18th century, while the division of labour [12,13] and dynamics of scale-economies was a crucial issue for infrastructure creation [14,15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stochastic Evaluation of the Investment Risk by the Scale of Water Infrastructures—Case Study: The Municipality of West Mani (Greece)

Markantonis

Sargentis

Dimitriadis

et al. 2023

World

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Social structure is based on the availability of the Water-Energy-Food Nexus. To cover these needs of society, several solutions of different scales of infrastructures coexist. The construction of infrastructure is capital-intensive; therefore, investment risk is always a consideration. In this paper, we try to evaluate the investment risk by interest rates (IR). We show that IR is a key indicator, which includes multiple parameters of prosperity expressing the political and economic status quo of the society. The selection of a particular scale influences the required capital and is thus one of the most critical decisions. Water supply infrastructure is one of the foundations of society, and the selection of the optimal scale of such infrastructure is often a great challenge in civil engineering. As a case study, we analyse three different scales of water supply infrastructures for the area of West Mani (Greece), i.e., dam, water ponds, and seawater desalination. We evaluate each case by the capital intensity by performing stochastic simulations of interest rates and identify the optimal solution as the one with the smallest median unit cost, in this case, the water ponds. In order to assess the impact of the development level of a country on the resulting unit cost stochastic properties we apply the optimal solution to various countries with different development levels and IR. We show that IR in the least developed countries, being generally higher and more variable, increases the unit cost, including its variability, which ultimately indicates higher investment risk.

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“…Cities are significant consumers of water, energy, and food, lacking the capability to produce these vital resources independently (Figure 5) [31]. As money and trading would be in question, food and energy will be also in question.…”

Section: The Big Picturementioning

confidence: 99%

Vulnerabilities of water-energy and food nexus in cities of digital era

Sargentis,

Kougkia

2024

ICE

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The edifice of civilization stands on water-energy-food nexus, speech, trading management and complexity. This paper, presents a mini review of these issues which are the foundations of civilization, and discusses their role in social prosperity. Recent year public discussion emerges that an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) could strike cities due to natural or artificial reasons therefore, we attempt to describe the impact of an EMP from the viewpoint of civil engineering. To do so, we analyze the fundamental parts of civilization in present, their roles, and their functions. Analysis estimates that an EMP will not regress cities of developed world to the 1970s or even in the Middle Ages, but rather before the agrarian era. It is noted that while the developed world will be more vulnerable, the least developed countries, could exhibit more resilience. Additionally, this paper considers the way societies and cities could demonstrate more resilience, framing the need for further research such as: technological adaptation; study and simulations of related scenarios; design of water-energy-food nexus for survival clusters; resilience measures for money, economy, communications, and trading. As we have a very small timeframe of data (less than 200 years) of the appearance and the effects of EMP, we have to study it, even if the wish is that we will never confront it. It seems unreasonable for our narcissistic and wonderful civilization to behave like ostrich hiding its’ head in the sand in order to be hidden by this threat.

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Threats in Water–Energy–Food–Land Nexus by the 2022 Military and Economic Conflict

Cited by 10 publications

References 93 publications

Selected indigenous drought tolerant rhizobium strains as promising biostimulants for common bean in Northern Spain

Selected indigenous drought tolerant rhizobium strains as promising biostimulants for common bean in Northern Spain

Stochastic Evaluation of the Investment Risk by the Scale of Water Infrastructures—Case Study: The Municipality of West Mani (Greece)

Vulnerabilities of water-energy and food nexus in cities of digital era

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