Environmental assessment of diets: overview and guidance on indicator choice.

Comprehensive but interpretable assessment of the environmental performance of diets involves choosing a set of appropriate indicators. Current knowledge and data gaps on the origin of dietary foodstuffs restrict use of indicators relying on site-specific information. This Personal View summarises commonly used indicators for assessing the environmental performance of diets, briefly outlines their benefits and drawbacks, and provides recommendations on indicator choices for actors across multiple fields involved in activities that include the environmental assessment of diets.

Envisaged methodologies for sustainable food labelling policies might worsen water scarcity.

To reduce the current billions of people facing water scarcity, which is a dedicated Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target, different actions and measures are required. This includes food labelling which accounts for water scarcity, to help consumers make informed choices when purchasing food products. The European Commission is considering the proposal of a "Sustainable food labelling framework" in the last quartal of 2023, within its ambitious Farm to Fork strategy.

EU-27 ecological footprint was primarily driven by food consumption and exceeded regional biocapacity from 2004 to 2014.

The European Union (EU) plans to decarbonize the region by 2050. As highlighted by the Green Deal and Farm to Fork Strategy, food systems are essential for this transition. Here we investigate the resource dependence and carbon emissions of the EU-27's food systems from 2004 to 2014 via an ecological footprint (EF)-extended multi-regional input-output approach, accounting for demand and supply (including trade), and considering multiple externalities.

Multi-model assessment identifies livestock grazing as a major contributor to variation in European Union land and water footprints.

Food systems are the largest users of land and water resources worldwide. Using a multi-model approach to track food through the global trade network, we calculated the land footprint (LF) and water footprint (WF) of food consumption in the European Union (EU). We estimated the EU LF as 140-222 Mha yr and WF as 569-918 km yr.

National water shortage for low to high environmental flow protection.

Global freshwater biodiversity has been decreasing rapidly, requiring the restoration and maintenance of environmental flows (EFs) in streams and rivers. EFs provide many ecosystem services that benefit humans. Reserving such EFs for aquatic ecosystems, implies less renewable water availability for direct human water use such as agriculture, industry, cities and energy.

The number of people exposed to water stress in relation to how much water is reserved for the environment: a global modelling study.

Background: Increasing human demand for water and changes in water availability due to climate change threatens water security worldwide. Additionally, exploitation of water resources induces stress on freshwater environments, leading to biodiversity loss and reduced ecosystem services. We aimed to conduct a spatially detailed assessment of global human water stress for low to high environmental flow (EF) protection.

Which diet has the lower water footprint in Mediterranean countries?

The Mediterranean region is increasingly water scarce, with the food system being the largest driver of water use. We calculate the water resources related to food consumption in nine major Mediterranean countries, by means of the water footprint (WF), for the existing situation (period 2011-2013) as well as the Mediterranean and EAT-Lancet diets. We account for different food intake requirements according to gender and six age groups.

Territorial and Sustainable Healthy Diets.

The rapid changes that societies have gone through in the last few decades have led to the increase in the prevalence of malnutrition in all its forms and to the degradation of natural resources and the environment. The change in the dietary habits and production systems are responsible for much of this change. Some territorial diets have been shown as potentially capable of reversing these trends by positively contributing to the health of people and the environment such as the Mediterranean Diet and the New Nordic Diet.

The scarcity-weighted water footprint provides unreliable water sustainability scoring.

To evaluate the environmental sustainability of blue water use or the blue water footprint (WF) of a product, organisation, geographical entity or a diet, two well-established indicators are generally applied: water efficiency and blue water stress. In recent years, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) community has developed, used and promoted the indicator scarcity-weighted WF, which aims to grasp both blue water use and blue water stress in one indicator. This indicator is now recommended in an ISO document on water footprinting and many scholars have used associated scarcity-weighted water use indicators.

Sustainable food system policies need to address environmental pressures and impacts: The example of water use and water stress.

Sustainable food systems are high on the political and research agendas. One of the three pillars of sustainability is environmental sustainability. We argue that, when defining related policies, such as policies under the European Green Deal, both environmental pressures and impacts carry important and complementary information and should be used in combination.

Treenuts and groundnuts in the EAT-Lancet reference diet: Concerns regarding sustainable water use.

The EAT-Lancet universal healthy reference diet recommends an increase in the consumption of healthy foods, among which treenuts and groundnuts. Both are, however, water-intensive products, with a large water footprint (WF) per unit of mass and protein and already today contribute to blue water stress in different parts of the world. The envisaged massive required increase in nut production to feed a global population with this reference diet, needs to occur in a water-sustainable way.

Environmental footprint family to address local to planetary sustainability and deliver on the SDGs.

The number of publications on environmental footprint indicators has been growing rapidly, but with limited efforts to integrate different footprints into a coherent framework. Such integration is important for comprehensive understanding of environmental issues, policy formulation and assessment of trade-offs between different environmental concerns. Here, we systematize published footprint studies and define a family of footprints that can be used for the assessment of environmental sustainability.

Cities as hotspots of indirect water consumption: The case study of Hong Kong.

During the last years, the city of Hong Kong has made large investments to make its urban water supply system more water efficient and sustainable. As such, its municipal water abstraction - often defined as direct water use - has decreased from 355 litre per capita per day (l/cap/d) in 2005 to 326 l/cap/d in 2013. Due to its political history, Hong Kong is unique in the world in data availability on urban food consumption.

Physical water scarcity metrics for monitoring progress towards SDG target 6.4: An evaluation of indicator 6.4.2 "Level of water stress".

Target 6.4 of the recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) deals with the reduction of water scarcity. To monitor progress towards this target, two indicators are used: Indicator 6.

Drug-drug interactions in the intensive care unit: Do they really matter?

Purpose: To describe prevalence and patterns of potential drug-drug interactions (pDDIs) in the intensive care unit (ICU), occurrence of adverse drug events (ADEs), and agreement between different compendia and intensivists' perceptions.

Methods: A cross-sectional study. Drug profiles of all adult patients from 2 academic ICUs were screened on day 3 upon admission.

Water consumption related to different diets in Mediterranean cities.

Providing the sustainable development goals (SDGs) water, food and energy security to cities relies strongly on resource use outside city borders. Many modern cities have recently invested in a sustainable urban water system, and score high in international city rankings regarding water management and direct urban water use. However, these rankings generally neglect external resource use for cities.

Urban food consumption and associated water resources: The example of Dutch cities.

Full self-sufficiency in cities is a major concern. Cities import resources for food, water and energy security. They are however key to global sustainability, as they concentrate a rapidly increasing and urbanising population (or number of consumers).

The water footprint of Milan.

This study quantifies the water footprint of consumption (WFcons) and production (WFprod) of Milan. The current WFcons amounts to 6,139 l/cap/d (a volume of 2.93 km(3) annually), of which 52 l/cap/d (1%) is attributed to domestic water, 448 l/cap/d (7%) to the consumption of industrial products and 5,639 l/cap/d (92%) to the consumption of agricultural products.

Potential water saving through changes in European diets.

This study quantifies the water footprint of consumption (WFcons) regarding agricultural products for three diets - the current diet (REF), a healthy diet (HEALTHY) and a vegetarian diet (VEG) - for the four EU zones WEST, NORTH, SOUTH and EAST. The WFcons related to the consumption of agricultural products (4265l per capita per day or lcd) accounts for 89% of the EU's total WFcons (4815lcd). The effect of diet has therefore an essential impact on the total WFcons.

The water footprint of Austria for different diets.

This paper analyses the Austrian water footprint of consumption (WF(cons)) for different diets: the current diet, a healthy diet (based upon the dietary recommendations issued by the German nutrition society, or DGE), a vegetarian diet and a combined diet between both latter diets. As in many western countries, the current Austrian diet consists of too many products from the groups sugar, crop oils, meat, animal fats, milk, milk products and eggs and not enough products from the groups cereals, rice, potatoes, vegetables and fruit. Especially the consumption of animal products accounts for high WF amounts.

A holistic water balance of Austria - how does the quantitative proportion of urban water requirements relate to other users?

Traditional water use statistics only include the blue water withdrawal/consumption of municipalities, industry and irrigated agriculture. When, however, green water use of the agricultural sector is included as well as the virtual water use/water footprint (WF), water use quantity statistics become very different. In common water use statistics, Austria withdraws in total about 2.

The Cauvery river basin in southern India: major challenges and possible solutions in the 21st century.

India is facing major challenges in its water resources management (WRM) sector. Water shortages are attributed to issues such as an explosion in population, rapid urbanization and industrialization, environmental degradation and inefficient water use, all aggravated by changing climate and its impacts on demand, supply and water quality. This paper focuses on the contemporary and future situation in the Cauvery river basin in Southern India, shared by different states, predominantly Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

[Evaluation of the quality of counseling provided by community pharmacists to pregnant women].

Objectives: To evaluate the quality of counseling provided by community pharmacists to pregnant women.

Methods: Observational study. Three clinical scenarii were selected on the basis of frequent complaints during pregnancy and likely use of medications: (1) headache (2) nausea and vomiting (3) no complaint, but request of a pregnancy test and a decongestive medicine.

Impact of snowmaking on alpine water resources management under present and climate change conditions.

Owing to less natural snow reliability as a result of climate change on the one hand, and the demand of higher standards by winter tourists on the other hand, the production of artificial snow in ski resorts has increased substantially during the last 20 years and is likely to increase further in future. Little research has been conducted on the impact of snowmaking as a water demand stakeholder on a regional water balance. In this paper, a regional water balance (water demand-water resources) is analysed for the greater Kitzbueheler Region in the Austrian Alps, for the current situation and a future climate change scenario (2 degrees C warming).