Sustainable land and water management are two of today’s greatest challenges. Climate change and a growing global demand for resources respectively increase the uncertainty and the pressure on water resources and agricultural production. The increasing water scarcity and food demand call for more efficient and resilient agricultural systems i.a. producing ‘more crop per drop’. In this session, we take a look at the importance of water use efficiency (SDG 6.4) for resilient food systems (SDG 2.4). We would like to reflect on how to increase water use efficiency (WUE) for agricultural production and on how resilient food systems (will) look like when aiming at water security under climate change.
We welcome session contributions such as
- Concrete case studies, demonstrating (in) how (far) increased WUE leads to greater resilience and sustainable agriculture (food security, incomes, health)
- Concrete case studies where it does or did not and a discussion of why not
- Literature reviews, identifying focal points and blind spots in related research
- Modelling studies, including scenario and impact assessments
- Reflections on innovative methods, such as serious games for assessing or teaching about WUE and/or resilient food systems
