Webinar // Water-Energy-Food-Health Solutions & Innovations for Low-Carbon, Climate-Resilient Drylands

About the event

Frontiers in Environmental Science is glad to announce a webinar following the success of the successful Research Topic "Water-Energy-Food-Health Solutions & Innovations for Low-Carbon, Climate-Resilient Drylands" published in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems and Frontiers in Environmental Science.

In the Webinar the following topics will be discussed:

• Perspectives on the NEXUS in drylands
• Health as a resource and its contribution to the NEXUS
• Renewable energy and climate controls for sustainable agro-food systems
• Antibiotics and their fates in the environment and technologies for their removal
  
• Healthy, sustainable, and safe diets

Speakers

- Rabi Mohtar

Professor @Texas A&M University College Station, United States

- Mirella Aoun

Professor @Bishop’s University Sherbrooke, Canada

- Virender K. Scharma

Professor @Texas A&M University Central Texas Killeen, United States

- Hyunook Kim

Professor @Universtiy of Seoul Seoul, Republic of Korea

- Chrysi S. Laspidou

Professor @Department of Civil Engineering, Polytechnic School, University of Thessaly Volos, Greece

- Bassel Daher

Professor @Texas A&M Energy Institute College Station, United States

About the research topic

Primary resources gaps facing dryland, including access to water, food, energy, nutrition, and health care, are expected to increase with demographic, political, and climatic changes. These highly interlinked primary resources carry high risk and vulnerability. Disentangling these to better understand the complex system of systems they represent is crucial and requires multi-disciplinary work that includes the technologies, science, policies, health, communication, and economics, at both local process and system-level scales.

In 2018, the American University of Beirut (AUB) launched WEFRAH, one of the biggest research communities in the MENA region: the Water-Energy-Food Health (WEFH) Nexus Renewable Resources Initiative. This university-wide initiative led by the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences at AUB includes a critical mass of faculty from across the university and the disciplines. WEFRAH’s focus is collaboration to achieve primary resource security. Its core conviction is that achieving water, energy, and food security, as well as improving health, harmonizing human activity with nature, and implementing integrated solutions all require holistic and systems-level thinking. The initiative responds to the vision of engagement and impact to strengthen collaborations between Faculties and Schools, particularly to promote interdisciplinary collaboration by nurturing a bottom-up, participatory approach within the academic institution and between the institution and its external stakeholders.

WEFRAH, therefore, opens venues for collaborations and its outcome- and action-oriented approach links naturally and organically to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030 by presenting a contextualized, relevant approach to their achievement in the MENA region. During and after the COVID-19 pandemic, WEFRAH is positioned to become more valuable as it demands to include all resources for the development of solutions to secure access to resources in this region. Submissions include those from participants of the American Chemical Society Fall 2021 meeting symposium dedicated to honoring the contributions of Prof Rabi Mohtar to Water-Energy-Food WEF Nexus research.

More information and registration

Please find more information about the research topic at the Frontiers in Environmental Science website. Kindly register for the webinar here.