Sustainable strategy for food, water stressed

Researchers from Qatar, Europe and the United States have agreed to prepare a preliminary draft to formulate a sustainable strategy for food, water and energy resources in selected cities and urban areas. The selected cities are Doha, Berlin and Bristol in the UK and Vienna.

This was the outcome of the first meeting of the joint Qatari-European-American research team for food, water and energy, held in Vienna in accordance with the programme adopted by the international Belmont Forum for scientific research and the International European Union for Urban Cities, and in realisation of the Sustainable Urbanisation Global Initiative (SUGI). The meeting was held under the supervision of Qatar National Research Fund of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development and an international donor community.The joint Qatari-European-American research team decided to hold its second meeting in Berlin, the second city selected as an international model for the adoption of the food, water and energy strategy.The meeting was attended by Dr Mohamed bin Saif al- Kuwari, Director of Municipal and Environmental Studies Centre at the Ministry of Municipality and Environment, and Dr Abdulkarim Ahmed from the Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute at Hamad Bin Khalifa University, along with representatives of the Austrian Institute of Technology, Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research in Germany, the University of West England in Bristol, and the Rock Connect Foundation in the United States.The Qatar delegation presented two working papers explaining the importance of providing arable water with modern technical methods and innovations to reduce waste of water with the lowest proportion of energy in order to produce food that meets the needs of the population in Qatar.At their first meeting, the researchers and scientists discussed the Paris Climate Convention 2015 and the goals of the UN sustainable development as well as issues related to food, water and energy.They also reviewed the experiences of some European countries proposed as global models in the food, water and energy system, and the importance of developing an integrated programme in this regard, with the participation of stakeholders in this field from government agencies and related institutions, academic universities and specialised research centres.