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Showing 9 of 87 news items in Water & Food

Water & FoodApril 8, 2026

Healthy islands and islanders: Towards a new paradigm for integrating climate change, food security and nutrition in Small Island Developing States

Excerpt from odi.org As climate change intensifies, small island nations are facing growing threats to their food security. This policy brief from the Resilient and Sustainable Islands Initiative (RESI) looks at how climate, food, and policy are often treated separately, and why that needs to change. It highlights the unique pressures shaping island food systems and sets out a roadmap for more joined-up thinking, investment, and action.

Water & FoodApril 1, 2026

Climate resilience and inclusive water access in Jamaica

Excerpt from pressreader.com THROUGHOUT THE mid-20th century to the present, one of the foremost global issues has been that of climate change and its compounding impacts on the global populus. Due to global warming, modifications in weather patterns have resulted in increased extreme weather events, unpredictable water availability, and increased water scarcity (UNICEF, 2024). In Jamaica, an intensification of hydroclimatic variability across seasons is being observed, manifested as a shift in the island’s traditional rainfall patterns. Over recent years, precipitation events have been characterised by unpredictable, short-duration, high-intensity storms, which generate rapid surface runoff rather than infiltration and groundwater recharge. Similarly, the occurrence of drought has become increasingly periodic. Unpredictable rainfall has also meant longer dry spells, plunging Jamaica into drought-like conditions for months at a time. During an interview with Dr Arpita Mandal, senior lecturer at the University of the West Indies, Mona, she stressed that “increases in drought-like conditions affect all sectors across the island”. The perpetual impacts of climate change on Jamaica’s substandard water distribution network specifically, however, deepens islandwide water inequity. Water inequity is the unequal access to water resources and services shaped by social, economic, political, and environmental disparities, affecting vulnerable groups (Sustainability Directory, 2025). As unpredictable rainfall and droughts occur more habitually, impacts on water resources are inevitable, necessitating resilient and equitable water-management solutions for groups facing unique vulnerabilities.

Water & FoodMarch 25, 2026

Fukushima town launches rice-based carbon credit project under Japan’s J-Credit scheme

Excerpt from eco-business.com Japanese agricultural decarbonisation firm Faeger said it will partner with the town of Hirono in Fukushima Prefecture to generate carbon credits from rice cultivation and develop a premium rice brand produced using climate-friendly farming methods. The agreement aims to cut agricultural greenhouse gas emissions while boosting crop quality and farmers’ incomes, the Tokyo-based company said in a statement last week. Under the partnership, farmers will extend the mid-season drainage period of paddy fields – a technique known to reduce methane emissions – and adopt other measures such as biochar use to generate government-certified J-Credits. Revenue from the credits will be reinvested in heat-resilience measures and improvements to the cultivation environment, the company said.

Water & FoodMarch 25, 2026

No rivers, no lakes: Discover how Bermuda built a 400-year-old water system that still functions

Excerpt from timesofindia.indiatimes.com Bermuda is an island in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and it has no rivers, no lakes, and no natural springs of fresh water. For more than 400 years, the islanders have been relying on a brilliant but simple idea: Every roof is a collector of drinking water. The island’s famous white, stepped roofs are not just a picturesque postcard image; they are a rainwater–harvesting system that has quietly and successfully served the islanders through storms, droughts, and centuries of change. Modern research in the Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) still points to Bermuda as a living example of how traditional design. The system is resilient and sustainable.

Water & FoodMarch 19, 2026

Jersey will protect over one-fifth of its waters from trawling

Excerpt from oceanographicmagazine.com Jersey has approved one of the most ambitious marine protection plans in the British Isles, nearly quadrupling the area of its seas protected from damaging fishing practices and positioning the Island as a leader in ocean conservation across the region. The newly agreed Marine Protected Area (MPA) network will cover 21.7% of Jersey’s waters from 1 September this year, with a further 1.9% scheduled to come into force on 1 January 2030. The network safeguards a range of ecologically important habitats, including kelp forests, seagrass meadows, biodiverse reef systems, and fragile maerl beds – among the rarest and most sensitive marine habitats in the region.

Water & FoodMarch 11, 2026

Integrating nutrition into anticipatory action: lessons from the 2025 pilot projects in Madagascar and Mali

Excerpt from preventionweb.net Action Against Hunger (Action Contre la Faim/ACF) has published its new methodology for integrating nutrition-based activities into anticipatory action frameworks and systems. Addressing a critical gap in anticipatory action Nutrition is largely absent from anticipatory action frameworks and systems, despite the fact that obvious and rapid nutritional impacts regularly follow climate shocks. Droughts, floods and cyclones can accelerate a deterioration in people’s nutritional status, particularly in areas that are already vulnerable. Many health systems and acute-malnutrition-management programmes only intervene in response to a crisis and are often insufficiently prepared to meet increased post-shock needs. A multi-level, community-based approach to nutrition The pilot projects aimed to address this critical gap. To document the impacts on communities’ nutrition status, and the needs and capacities on which the approach could be based, ACF applied an action research methodology at three levels: community, sub-national and national. Nearly 400 community members and local and national experts were interviewed across the two countries, using a survey specially created for this initiative. Through these interviews, ACF teams were able to draft initial recommendations and actions specific to integrating nutrition into anticipatory action frameworks and systems. These were then discussed, reinforced and validated by a panel of stakeholders, authorities and community representatives during capacity-building and exchange sessions.

Water & FoodMarch 2, 2026

Landmark project improved farmers’ livelihoods and protected forests in Madagascar, new report finds

Excerpt from webwire.com Findings from the impact evaluation conducted by Conservation International, in partnership with the Green Climate Fund’s Independent Evaluation Unit, found clear evidence of higher crop yields and lower deforestation rates among farming communities participating in the USD 16 million “Sustainable Landscapes in Eastern Madagascar” project. The project supported more than 24,000 smallholder farming households in and around the Ankeniheny-Zahamena and the Ambositra-Vondrozo forest corridors with climate-smart agriculture techniques, distribution of seeds and equipment, forest patrols, agroforestry promotion and forest restoration.

Water & FoodFebruary 25, 2026

DNA discovered in 2,000-year-old lentils could help save global food crops

Photo Credit and Excerpt from earth.com Lentils grown today on a small Atlantic archipelago off the northwest coast of Africa have preserved a continuous DNA lineage reaching back nearly 2,000 years to some of the region’s earliest farming communities. That continuity shows how food crops can quietly carry human history across conquest, migration, and climate pressure, while holding traits shaped by long exposure to heat and drought.

Water & FoodMay 7, 2026

Could This Fish Be a Notebook?

Excerpt from reasonstobecheerful.world Forget AI — in Iceland, the truly exciting startups are working in fish. From medical bandages to sustainable furniture, the Icelandic fishing industry has learned to extract value from virtually every part of its catch, putting the country at the forefront of a global “blue economy.” It wasn’t always this way. A collapse in Iceland’s fisheries in the ’80s and ’90s forced the island nation to look beyond the fillet and find new uses for its top export, from scales to tails. Today, Iceland cod fishers use more than 90 percent of the fish they catch, compared to roughly 40 percent of each fish caught in North America’s Great Lakes. Now, the 100% Great Lakes Fish Initiative aims to follow Iceland’s lead, showing seafood companies from the region how using all of the fish can help keep their industry both profitable and sustainable. RTBC Founder David Byrne spoke with David Naftzger, executive director at Great Lakes St. Lawrence Governors and Premiers, which oversees the initiative, about Icelandic innovation, doing more with less, and Byrne’s method for cooking up homemade fish head broth. —RTBC Editorial Team