Water is a critical resource that is essential for human well-being and economic development. Many regions around the world face ongoing water scarcity and competition over water resources. Climate change, other drastic social changes, and population and economic growth can significantly impact the supply and consumption of water. There has been an increasing body of research focusing on the Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus. There is a mismatch between the spatial resolution of data availability and the resolution that water resources follow. Lack of quality sub-county water data also makes the research of micro-level food-water dynamics difficult if not impossible. These challenges pose obstacles to the further understanding of water scarcity in the context of the FEW nexus and leaves critical gaps in the research of the nexus. In this dissertation I asked and answered the question: how do socio-economic forces shape localized groundwater depletion and surface water scarcity within the United States at the field and basin scale? Specifically, I tested whether irrigated farm size leads to reduction in groundwater application per unit area and whether an increase in the annual depletion in the underlying aquifer storage increases the probability of an irrigated land transfer, with a Kansas field level dataset and an econometrics approach. I estimated the FEW production and the water footprint of FEW production in every US watershed and compare the water footprint of production against their water scarcity. Then the groundwater reserves and dam storage in watersheds were examined as the buffers for the watersheds' FEW production against water shortages. I mapped the transfers of FEW goods and services and both the virtual and physical water flows from watersheds to US cities. The transportation infrastructure and other infrastructure that supports the FEW transfers are analyzed in terms of their contributions to the movement of FEW goods. This dissertation improves our understanding of how broad structural changes within the agricultural industry are interconnected with the overexploitation of groundwater resources. It is the first study of water footprint accounting with the most recent input data for the whole US food-energy-water system at the watershed level and includes an analysis of cities' infrastructure reliance for food-energy-water transfers and infrastructure as buffers. The transfers of virtual water and physical water were compared. The resulting data and findings from the novel data synthesis will provide insights for consumers, food companies, and other decision-makers at various levels on their connection to water resources in non-local areas. The outcomes of this dissertation will also improve our ability to analyze drivers and solutions to local small-scale watershed water scarcity challenges and allow a quantifiable basis for policy support in the water resources management domain and beyond. / Doctor of Philosophy / Water is an important resource for humans and the economy, but many regions around the world face ongoing water shortages and competition over the limited water resources. The Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus has gained increasing attention as a framework for understanding the complex relationships between water, food, and energy systems. However, research in this area has faced challenges in data availability and data resolution. This dissertation addresses these challenges while exploring how socio-economic forces shape localized groundwater depletion and surface water scarcity within the United States at the field, basin, and city scales. The author tests hypotheses related to irrigated farm size, irrigation water use, groundwater depletion, and the irrigated land transfers. The author estimates the FEW production and water footprint of production in every US watershed. The author also tracks and analyzes the transfers of FEW goods and services and embedded water footprint. Infrastructure's role in delivering FEW goods and buffering against water shortages were also examined. Overall, this dissertation provides insights into the connections between water resources and broad structural changes within the food system, and offers a novel data synthesis that can facilitate the understanding of connections between production and consumption of FEW at various spatial scales and water resources in local and non-local areas. The findings will also help analyze the drivers and solutions to local small-scale watershed's water scarcity challenges, and provide a quantifiable basis for policy support in the water resources management domain and beyond.

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<p>Water resources are currently under high pressure due to population growth, urbanization, and changes in climate patterns. Therefore, there is a need for strategies to improve water resources management  at  all  scales.  The  Food-Energy-Water  (FEW)  nexus approach has  emerged  as an alternative  for  water  resources  management  since  it provides a  comprehensive management strategy through which interactions among components of food, energy, and water systems can be evaluated. In the Latin American and Caribbean region, studies and reports evaluating the FEW nexus are  limited  in  comparison  to  other  regions  in  the  world. The  aim of  this work was to investigate  the  potential  for  applying  a  FEW  nexus  approach  to  improve  water  resources management in the Colombian Andean region. In this study, an urban FEW nexus framework was developed  for the  Otun  River  Watershed  (ORW),  a  pilot  study  site  located in the Colombian Andean  region, based  on a  characterization of  the watershed’s climate,  land  use  land  cover, streamflow,    and    water    quality.    Results    from    the    characterization    revealed    that    the Pereira/Dosquebradas urban area had the greatest impact on watershed water resources owing to its high water and energy demand. Additionally, the Otun River water quality is mostly affected by this urban area due to the lack of a wastewater treatment facility to decontaminate urban sewage water. The Pereira/Dosquebradas urban area is primarily dependent on food coming from outside of  the  ORW,  thus  food  production  does  not  have  as  large  an  impact  on  water  resources  in  the watershed. A FEW nexus analysis for 2035showed that water and energy demand could increase by 16%  and  30%,  respectively,  except where a reduction  in  food  production in  the  ORW  is considered, in which case the water demand would remained unchanged. Hydrological modeling of the watershed showed potential changes ranging between -35%and 53%in watershed runoff and  -29%and25% in overall water yield for the period 2030to2039, in response to anticipated changes in average annual precipitation ranging from -29% to 6% when comparing to a baseline scenario (2007-2012). Thus, changes in precipitation could affect the volume of water available for residential,  industrial,  and  agricultural activities  in  the  ORW. Moreover,  an  increase  in  the number   of extreme   weather events   could   cause   more   floods and   landslides. Therefore, recommendations for water resources management in the ORW include reducing water losses in the  water  distribution  systems,  adopting  water  conservation  practices,  developing  GI  and decentralized  wastewater  systems,  and  implementing  urban  and  peri-urban  farming  practices. Finally, as water quality is of high concern in the ORW, an assessment was conducted to determine suitable water quality sampling frequencies to meet different water quality monitoring objectives. This analysis used the Western Lake Erie Basin (WLEB) as a case study site as it has long-term, continuous water quality records with data available at least ona daily basis. Daily concentrations for select  constituents  (suspended  solids, total  phosphorus, soluble  reactive  phosphorus,  and nitrates+nitrites)  were  used  to  create  weekly,  bi-weekly,  monthly,  and  seasonal  subsamples following  distinctive  rules  for  day,  week,  or  month  of  sampling. Results from  this evaluation indicate that monthly and seasonal sampling would be sufficient if the objective was to assess the stream’s water quality status. However, if the monitoring objective was related to the examination of water quality trends, weekly and bi-weekly sampling would give better results. Furthermore, differential sampling could be adopted in areas with distinctive characteristics, prioritizing high-resolution sampling (daily, weekly, and bi-weekly) in subareas where the constituents of concern have a high variability (sediments and nutrients)or non-point source pollution has been identified as an issue. The remaining subareas could be sampled on a seasonal or annual basis, with sampling conducted at random to reduce bias. Overall, this study provided an urban FEW nexus framework for the Colombian Andean Region, illustrated the application of this framework in a pilot study site (ORW) under current and future conditions, and presented recommendations for water quality sampling frequency on sites with limited resources to implement a high-resolution water quality monitoring plan.</p>

An increasing number of people in the United States are finding it difficult to access a safe, personally acceptable, nutritious diet. Urban agriculture is seen as an important avenue for increasing their food security. For better or worse, urban agriculture is subject to the urban setting, agriculture must complete with other socially and economically viable land uses. Establishing and maintaining a robust system of urban agriculture will require a constant seeking out of urban open spaces that, at least for a time, are available for food production. This study focuses on golf courses as one such type of open space. Due to market saturation, a fairly significant number of golf courses are presently experiencing financial difficulty. Tone potential an emerging land use type catagor that is experiencing is increasing. Developing a robust and reliable system of urban agriculture is one strategy for improving food security. In the urban setting, agriculture must complete with other socially and economically viable land uses. Consequently, much of the research completed to date focuses on using abandoned lots as food growing sites. Fewer studies seek to identify the broad range of urban open spaces that might eventually contribute to a system of urban agriculture that is economically and socially viable. This thesis focuses on a newly emerging class of abandoned urban lands – golf courses. Countryside Golf Course located in Roanoke, Virginia is the case study site that is deeply investigate for its potentional of contributing to food security. / Master of Landscape Architecture

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<p>3D scene reconstruction based on single-view images is an ill-posed problem since most 3D information has been lost during the projection process from the 3D world coordinates to the 2D pixel coordinates. To estimate the portion of an object from a single-view requires either the use of priori information such as the geometric shape of the object, or training based techniques that learn from existing portion sizes distribution. In this thesis, we present a single-view based technique for food portion size estimation.</p><p><br></p> <p>Dietary assessment, the process of determining what someone eats during the course of a day, provides valuable insights for mounting intervention programs for prevention of many chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes and heart diseases. Measuring accurate dietary intake is considered to be an open research problem in the nutrition and health fields. We have developed a mobile dietary assessment system, the Technology Assisted Dietary Assessment^TM (TADA^TM) system to automatically determine the food types and energy consumed by a user using image analysis techniques.</p><p><br></p><p>In this thesis we focus on the use of a single image for food portion size estimation to reduce a user’s burden from having to take multiple images of their meal. We define portion size estimation as the process of determining how much food (or food energy/nutrient) is present in the food image. In addition to estimating food energy/nutrient, food portion estimation could also be estimating food volumes (in cm³) or weights (in grams), as they are directly related to food energy/nutrient. Food portion estimation is a challenging problem as food preparation and consumption process can pose large variations in food shapes and appearances.</p><p><br></p><p>As single-view based 3D reconstruction is in general an ill-posed problem, we investigate the use of geometric models such as the shape of a container that can help to partially recover 3D parameters of food items in the scene. We compare the performance of portion estimation technique based on 3D geometric models to techniques using depth maps. We have shown that more accurate estimation can be obtained by using geometric models for objects whose 3D shape are well defined. To further improve the food estimation accuracy we investigate the use of food portions co-occurrence patterns. The food portion co-occurrence patterns can be estimated from food image dataset we collected from dietary studies using the mobile Food Record^TM (mFR^TM) system we developed. Co-occurrence patterns is used as prior knowledge to refine portion estimation results. We have been shown that the portion estimation accuracy has been improved when incorporating the co-occurrence patterns as contextual information.</p><p><br></p><p>In addition to food portion estimation techniques that are based on geometric models, we also investigate the use deep learning approach. In the geometric model based approach, we have focused on estimation food volumes. However, food volumes are not the final results that directly show food energy/nutrient consumed. Therefore, instead of developing food portion estimation techniques that lead to an intermediate results (food volumes), we present a food portion estimation method to directly estimate food energy (kilocalories) from food images using Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). We introduce the concept of an “energy distribution” for each food image. To train the GAN, we design a food image dataset based on ground truth food labels and segmentation masks for each food image as well as energy information associated with the food image. Our goal is to learn the mapping of the food image to the food energy. We then estimate food energy based on the estimated energy distribution image. Based on the estimated energy distribution image, we use a Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) to estimate the numeric values of food energy presented in the eating scene.</p><p><br></p>

<p>The Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus conceptualizes the interactions and tension between production and consumption of food, energy, and water. With increasing uncertainties due to climate change, there is a need to address these tensions within the nexus and better comprehend the existing interdependencies and tradeoffs. Water integrity – considering both water availability and quality – is of critical concern within the FEW nexus. Thus, it is important to develop robust decision-making strategies using a FEW nexus lens. This study focuses on addressing water integrity concerns through FEW nexus assessment using an agricultural watershed in northeastern Indiana, with predominantly corn-soybean rotations, as a pilot site. Historical and futuristic climate and hydrological data were used for hydrological modeling using SWAT to quantify water quantity, quality, and crop production. Scientific literature values for farm machinery fuel requirements and their carbon emissions were implemented to obtain values based on the implemented agronomic practices. Results of this study provide methodologies and information that can be implemented to evaluate water resources management, as well as inform policymaking for more sustainable agricultural management practices.</p>

Made available in DSpace on 2014-07-29T15:13:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 tese HELOISA GODOY.pdf: 513288 bytes, checksum: e43546fed835a37a29e33e5d9272955e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-12-22 / To determine the nutritional value of corn, millet and sorghum in different sizes for broiler chickens, Label Rouge, animal performance and development of the digestive organs, experiments were performed in the areas of Poultry, Federal University of Goiás (UFG) and the Federal University of Tocantins (UFT). We evaluated the values of apparent metabolizable energy (AME) and apparent metabolizable energy corrected for nitrogen balance (AME) in the dry and natural, the coefficients metabolism of nutrients, animal performance up to 28 days and the biometrics of the digestive organs of broiler type rustic Red Label line with diets based on corn, millet and sorghum in different sizes For the determination of AME and AME of grains, we used the method of excreta collection of chickens 14 days old were distributed in a completely randomized in two experimental trials, using 60% reference diet and 40% of food test. The AME values of dry matter of coarsely ground corn, finely ground corn, millet grain, finely ground millet, sorghum grain, sorghum grain sorghum thick and finely ground, were 3530, 3445, 3617, 3586, 3295, 3156 and 3024 kcal / kg, respectively and the values of the AME 3273, 3200, 3352, 3372, 3137, 3147 and 2.967kcal/kg natural matter, respectively. The coefficient of metabolism of nutrients improved with increased particle size, except for sorghum integer that showed the worst. The metabolizable energy was higher for sorghum grain and did not change for maize and millet for broilers Label Rouge. For the performance parameters, we used 300 animals during the early stage of development (1 to 28 days) in a completely randomized design and for morphometric measurements so sacrificed at 28 days, one animal per repetition, totaling 30 animals. Except for finely ground corn that showed the worst performance results, all other treatments were satisfactory, with millet grain made the best economic feasibility of its use. The rations provided in different sizes, showed that particle size influenced the consumption, the balance of dry matter and nitrogen and the coefficient of metabolism of nutrients and energy from seven to ten days of maize and sorghum and improved the AME values of millet. 17 to 24 days old animals fed grain sorghum had greater retention of dry matter and nitrogen. It is recommended that the pearl millet grain for chickens like hillbilly Label Rouge until 28 days old, as the treatments used showed little effect of particle size on performance and organ development and grain millet showed the best economic indicators proved to be a grain that can be delivered worldwide from day-old chicks for Label Rouge / Para determinar os valores nutricionais do milho, milheto e sorgo em diferentes granulometrias para frangos da linhagem Label Rouge, o desempenho dos animais e o desenvolvimento dos órgãos digestivos, foram realizados experimentos nos setores de Avicultura da Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG) e na Universidade Federal do Tocantins (UFT). Avaliou-se os valores de energia metabolizável aparente (EMA) e energia metabolizável aparente corrigida para balanço de nitrogênio (EMAn) na matéria seca e natural, os coeficientes de metabolização dos nutrientes, o desempenho dos animais até os 28 dias e a biometria dos órgãos digestivos de frango de corte tipo caipira da linhagem Label Rouge com dietas a base de milho, milheto e sorgo em diferentes granulometrias Para a determinação da EMA e EMAn dos grãos, foi utilizado o método de coleta total de excretas em frangos de 14 dias de idade distribuídos em um delineamento inteiramente casualizado, em dois ensaios experimentais, usando 60% de ração-referencia e 40% do alimento-teste. Os valores de EMAn na matéria seca do milho moído grosso, milho moído fino, milheto grão, milheto moído fino, sorgo em grão, sorgo moído grosso e sorgo moído fino, foram 3.530, 3.445, 3.617, 3.586, 3.295, 3.156 e 3.024 kcal/kg, respectivamente e os valores de EMAn de 3.273, 3.200, 3.352, 3.372, 3.137, 3.147 e 2.967kcal/kg na matéria natural, respectivamente. O coeficiente de metabolização dos nutrientes melhorou com o aumento da granulometria, exceto para o sorgo inteiro que apresentou os piores valores. Os valores de energia metabolizável foram maiores para o sorgo em grão e não variaram para o milho e para o milheto para frangos de corte Label Rouge. Para os parâmetros de desempenho, foram utilizados 300 animais durante a fase inicial de desenvolvimento (1 aos 28 dias de vida), em delineamento inteiramente casualizado e para as medidas morfométricas forma sacrificados aos 28 dias, um animal por repetição, totalizando 30 animais. Exceto o milho finamente moído que apresentou os piores resultados de desempenho, todos os demais tratamentos mostraram-se satisfatórios, tendo o milheto em grão apresentado a melhor viabilidade econômica com seu uso. As rações fornecidas nas diferentes granulometrias,demonstraram que a granulometria influenciou o consumo, o balanço da matéria seca e do nitrogênio e o coeficiente de metabolização desses nutrientes e da energia dos sete aos dez dias do milho e do sorgo e melhorou os valores de EMAn do milheto moído. Dos 17 aos 24 dias de idade os animais alimentados com sorgo em grão tiveram maior retenção de matéria seca e nitrogênio. Recomenda-se a utilização do milheto em grão para frangos do tipo caipira Label Rouge até os 28 dias de idade, já os tratamentos utilizados mostraram pouco efeito do tamanho da partícula no desempenho e desenvolvimento dos órgãos e o milheto em grão mostrou os melhores índices econômicos demonstrando ser um grão que pode ser fornecido inteiro desde o primeiro dia de idade para pintos Label Rouge

Orientador: José Antônio Perrella Balestieri / Resumo: A abordagem do nexo água-alimento-energia (AAE) leva em consideração a interdependência do uso desses recursos, essenciais para o bem-estar humano, e possibilita analisar os indicadores dos Objetivos de Desenvolvimento Sustentável (ODS). Nesta inter-relação é necessária uma abordagem sistêmica para compreender como a interação de cada componente funciona e se estrutura. Na presente tese foi analisado o nexo AAE e a rede de influências entre as cidades, no atendimento aos Objetivos do Desenvolvimento Sustentável, tendo o município de Cunha, no Estado de São Paulo, em posição central entre os demais municípios estudados. A vertente analisada encontra-se na transição entre o extenso Vale do Paraíba, situado entre duas metrópoles (São Paulo e Rio de Janeiro) e a baixada litorânea (Paraty e Ubatuba), tendo o município de Cunha em posição intermediária. A região estudada é drenada pelos rios Paraibuna, Paraitinga e seus afluentes que constituem fonte significativa de abastecimento de grandes cidades do sudeste brasileiro e oferece suas águas para irrigação, abastecimento, indústria e produção de energia hidroelétrica. Para análise do nexo AAE, os parâmetros da produção de alimento e o consumo de água e energia foram avaliados estatisticamente, com uso do coeficiente de correlação de Pearson (cP). A análise considerou a produção agrícola e a relação com o consumo de água e energia, assim como a produção pesqueira frente aos referidos parâmetros, em escala de municípios. Dentre as an... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The water-food-energy (WFE) approach takes into account the interdependence of the use of these resources, which are essential for human well-being, and makes it possible to analyze the indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). In this interrelation, a systemic approach is required to understand how the interaction of each component works and is structured. In this thesis, the AAE nexus and the network of influences between cities were analyzed, in compliance with the Sustainable Development Goals, with the municipality of Cunha, in the State of São Paulo, in a central position among the other municipalities studied. The analyzed slope is found in the transition between the extensive Vale do Paraíba, located between two metropolises (São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro) and the coastal lowland (Paraty and Ubatuba), with the municipality of Cunha in an intermediate position. The studied region is drained by the Paraibuna, Paraitinga Rivers and their tributaries, which constitute a significant source of supply for large cities in southeastern Brazil and offers their waters for irrigation, supply, industry, and hydroelectric power. For analysis of the WFE nexus, the parameters of food production and the consumption of water and energy were evaluated, statistically with use of Pearson's correlation coefficient (cP). The analysis considered agricultural production and the relationship with water and energy consumption, as well as fishery production against these parameters, ... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Doutor

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