Hesham M. Gaber’s scientific contributions

The Water-Energy-Food, WEF, Nexus approach is a holistic vision of sustainability that recognizes and tries to strike a balance between the different goals, interests and needs of people and the environment. The Nexus is not new concept, as interdependency does exist in nature. However, management of water and energy for food production with the aim to produce more food from less water and energy using a more integrated and holistic approach was not commonly practiced. Egypt is considered to be one of the most vulnerable countries to the impact of climate change. Water, food, and energy securities are becoming more important in the light of climate change and population growth. Energy scarcity and rising energy prices would increase poverty, strain the national budget and jeopardize Egypt’s competitiveness for the future. The global warming would result in reduced freshwater resources availability, increased irrigation water requirement as well as water and energy consumption. The Egypt’s Nile Delta is particularly susceptible to seawater rise due to climate change with its low-altitude. Guaranteeing food security given the limited water and agricultural land coupled with population growth is creating a mounting pressure on Egypt’s ability to provide food for its people in the future. The Egypt’s WEF nexus index value was 53.1, and ranks 125th among nations in the year 2021. On the other hand, the index values in years 2019 and 2020 were 52.9 and 55.3, with ranking of 121st and 111st, respectively. Egypt needs more efforts to reach sustainable agriculture production and improve WEF nexus index value.

This book provides an overview of the current status of water, energy, food, and the ecosystem within the framework of core sustainable development goals in the MENA Region and the MED-Basin, focusing on the current practices in the regions. The first part of the book introduces the interactions between the elements. The second part addresses the current state-of-the-art and security of water, energy, and food resources in the selected regions. It discusses their role in the development of sustainable rural livelihoods by evaluating renewable energy interventions in the nexus through mathematical relations, where a renewable energy assessment model is developed as a decision-making model to consider renewable energy options for the rural environment. The book also addresses the challenges facing the MENA Region's water, energy, and food, considering technology costs and environmental tradeoffs. The third part addresses the integration of the nexus in rural developments. It presents a set of appraising and comparative performance indices that can be applied for analysis and evaluating the sustainability of the nexus; application of significant indices in the region; territorial climate planning approaches conducted in the Souss Massa region; developed tools for inclusive territorial governance; convergence and compatibility of territorial sectoral policies with sustainability principles; and a retrospective analysis of public policies and an analytical evaluation of the current and future food system scheme in Algeria. Part four focuses on solutions and technologies within the nexus. It includes a proposed model of adaptation following a global and transversal analysis of the "water" vector in food security in Algeria; a model for the efficient utilization of water, nutrient, and energy resources for food production in the MED-Basin; a new proposed standardized index to analyze hydraulic incidents; the role of haloculture to reduce climate change consequences for societies; performance development of small desalination units to facilitate fresh water supply to remote regions; integrated management of the nexus in Egypt; key enabling and accelerating factors to implement the WEF nexus model in the Mediterranean area to promote the economic development; and ICT tool that helps facilitate collaborative governance of water resources. The fifth part discusses the impact of climate change on sediment management and climate change scenarios. The book is useful to researchers, professionals, practitioners, post-graduate and undergraduates interested in sustainable development and the water, energy and food interaction. Keywords: Rural Areas, Sediment Management, Global Warming and Climate Change, Challenges of Water, Scarcity, Energy Challenges, Challenges of Food Security, MENA Region Countries, Mediterranean Basin Countries, Water, Energy, and Food Nexus Finally, the book: 1. discusses the current status of water, energy, food, Climate Change, and the ecosystem 2. Focuses on the integration of core sustainable development goals in the MENA Region and the Mediterranean Basin countries 3. explores best practices for integrating water, energy, food, climate change, and the ecosystem. 4. discusses planning approaches that promote the integration of the core SDGs. 5. presents case studies for integrating the core SDGs in different countries.