• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.60 no.4
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• pp.93-103
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• 2018

The aim of this study is to apply the Water-Energy-Food-Land Nexus approach which can analyze the trade-offs among resources, and assess the holistic impacts of food security. First, we applied rice as a study crop and analyzed the trend of consumption of rice and the area of paddy fields. Second, the portfolios of water, energy, and land for rice production were constructed using data of footprints and productivity. Finally, the self-sufficiency ratio (SSR) of rice in target year was set as food security scenario and assessed the impacts of food security on water, energy, and land availability. In 2030, the SSR of rice decreased to 87 %, and water use for producing rice decreased from 4,728 to $3,350million\;m^3$, and the water availability index increased from 0.33 to 0.53. However, food security is essential issue and we set the 50 % and 100 % SSR of rice as high and low food security scenarios. For 100% SSR in 2030, about $3,508million\;m^3$ water was required and water availability index reached to 0.5. In other words, there is the trade-off between food security and water-energy-lands availability. Therefore, it is difficult to make a decision whether a high level of SSR is better or worse. However, this study showed the both positive and negative impacts by change of food security and it can be useful for setting the policy decision considering both food security and sustainable resource management at the same time.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2015.05a
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• pp.220-220
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• 2015

Water, energy, and food security already became a risk that threatens people around the world. Increasing of resources demand, rapid urbanization, decreasing of natural resources and climate change are four major problems inducing resources' scarcity. Indeed, water, energy, and food are interconnected each other thus cannot be analyzed separately. That is, for simple example, energy needs water as source for hydropower plant, water needs energy for distribution, and food needs water and energy for production, which is defined as W-E-F nexus. Due to their complicated linkage, it needs a computer model to simulate and analyze the nexus. Development of a computer simulation model using system dynamics approach makes this linkage possible to be visualized and quantified. System dynamics can be defined as an approach to learn the feedback connections of all elements in a complex system, which mean, every element's interaction is simulated simultaneously. Present W-E-F nexus models do not calculate and simulate the element's interaction simultaneously. Existing models only calculate the amount of water and energy resources that needed to provide food, water, or energy without any interaction from the product to resources. The new proposed model tries to cope these lacks by adding the interactions, climate change effect, and government policy to optimize the best options to maintain the resources sustainability. On this first phase of development, the model is developed only to learn and analyze the interaction between elements based on scenario of fulfilling the increasing of resources demand, due to population growth. The model is developed using the Vensim, well-known system dynamics model software. The results are amount of total water, energy, and food demand and production for a certain time period and it is evaluated to determine the sustainability of resources.

• Journal of Digital Policy
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.9-15
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• 2022

The World Economic Forum has included Water-Energy-Food among the three major risk groups in the world, and Water-Energy-Food is related to the development strategies of countries and the lives of their citizens. This study calculates the combined Water-Energy-Food use efficiency in China for 2011-2020 based on the SBM-Malmquist index. The results show that the overall combined Water-Energy-Food efficiency in China is low, but shows an upward trend. There is a clear variability in the combined Water-Energy-Food utilization efficiency in China, with an overall geographic distribution pattern of East > Middle > West. Only Beijing and Shanghai have reached the real above effective nationwide, and all other provinces have inefficiency between input and output. The Malmquist index of integrated Water-Energy-Food utilization efficiency is 1.136, with an up ward trend, and technical efficiency and technological progress lead the improvement of integrated Water-Energy-Food utilization efficiency in China at the sametime. The Water-Energy-Food issue should be raised to a strategic level as soon as possible, and policy support should be provided for its development. Each region should establish a cross-regional coordinating body to formulate targeted measures according to the province's food production and water distribution, so as to promote economic transformation from sloppy development to green development as soon as possible.

• Advances in Energy Research
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.1-15
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• 2019

The objective of the study is to examine the relationship between water resources, energy demand, food production, and environmental pollutants in selected SAARC nations, namely, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, during the period of 1990-2016. The results show that water, energy, and food (WEF) resources substantially affected air quality in the form of high mass carbon emissions, fossil fuel energy demand, methane discharges, nitrous oxide emissions, and greenhouse gas emissions in these countries. Food production and food deficit largely increase $CO_2$ emissions due to unsustainable production and malnutrition, while land use under cereal production increases $CH_4$ and $N_2O$ emissions. Electricity production escalates $CO_2$ emissions and fossil emissions across countries. The results support the carbon EKC hypothesis, while monotonic increasing function exists in case of fossil fuel energy. The study emphasizes the need to ensure environmental sustainability agenda by adopting cleaner production technologies in WEF resources.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.60 no.2
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• pp.45-53
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• 2018

Demand for essential resources including water, energy and food is rapidly increasing due to climate change, population growth and urbanization. To solve this problem, the concept of water-energy-food nexus has been introduced, and many countries have been trying to acquire the Nexus technology that can maximize the efficiency by analyzing the interconnection between resources. In this regard, this study attempted to estimate the probable maximum water thermal energy in the dam based on the water-energy nexus concept. The estimation of the probable maximum water thermal energy was implemented to monthly water storage of the largest dams in the four major river systems. As a result of analyzing the estimated monthly water thermal energy from 2000 to 2016, Soyang River dam has the largest probable maximum water thermal energy, and Sumjin River dam has the smallest. However, the probable maximum water thermal energy was small in common between March and April, between September and October due to the small temperature difference between the ambient air and the dam water. Also, according to the characteristics of the dam, Daecheong dam and Soyang River dam were beneficial for supplying water thermal energy for heating, and Sumjin River dam and Andong dam were advantageous for supplying water thermal energy for cooling. Our findings can be useful to realize the water-energy-food nexus by increasing the utilization and value of water resources as well as expanding the roles and functions of dams as a starting point to use dam water thermal energy.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.50-57
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• 2011

This study examined the effect of gamma irradiation (3-20 kGy) on the immune activity and physicochemical properties of Myagropsis myagroides (MM) water extracts. MM powder and water extracts were subjected to gamma irradiation at 3, 7, and 20 kGy. The effects of gamma-irradiated MM water extracts on splenocyte proliferation and cytokine IFN-${\gamma}$ and IL-2 secretion were evaluated. The gamma-irradiated MM water extracts resulted in decreased splenocyte proliferation without cytotoxicity. The IFN-${\gamma}$ and IL-2 secretion increased by gamma-irradiated MM water extracts with increasing irradiation dose. For MM powder, the yield and total phenolic compounds (TPC) of water extracts were increased slightly after gamma irradiation. In MM water extracts, the TPC was higher at a dose of 20 kGy, while gamma irradiation decreased the viscosity, pH, and color of the MM extracts. In conclusion, gamma irradiation improved the immunomodulatory activity of MM water extracts, overcoming its potential weakness when applied in the food industry.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2019.05a
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• pp.163-163
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• 2019

The rapidly growing global population increases the awareness of water, energy, and food security worldwide. The concept of Water, Energy, and Food nexus (hereafter, WEF nexus) has been widely introduced as a new resources management concept that integrate the water, energy, and food in a single management framework. Recently, WEF nexus analyzes not only the interconnections among the resources, but also considers the external factors (such as environment, climate change, policy, finance, etc) to enhance the resources sustainability by proper understanding of their relations. A nation-level resources management is quite complex task since multiple regions (e.g., watersheds, cities, and counties) with different characteristics are spatially interconnected and transfer the resources each other. This study proposes a multiple region WEF nexus simulation and transfer model. The model is equipped with three simulation modules, such as local nexus simulation module, regional resources transfer module, and optimal investment planning module. The model intends to determine an optimal capital investment plan (CIP), such as build-up of power plants, water/waste water treatment plants, farmland development and to determine W-E-F import/export decisions among areas. The objective is to maximize overall resources sustainability while minimize financial cost. For demonstration, the proposed model is applied to a semi-hypothetical study area with three different characterized cities. It is expected the model can be used as a decision support tool for a long-term resources management planning process.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2016.05a
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• pp.190-190
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• 2016

The Water, Energy, and Food (WEF) nexus is an emerging concept for sustainable resources planning and management. The three valuable resources are inevitably interconnected, that is, it takes water to produce energy; it takes energy to extract, treat, and distribute water; and both water and energy are required to produce food. Although it is challenging to fully understand the complicated interdependency, a few studies have been devoted to interpret the concept and develop the assessment tools. The tools were mainly developed for nation-wide simulations without considering inter-basin or inter-state resources trade. This study tries to present an idea to develop and implement the WEF nexus simulation model in regional scale by advancing the existing nation-wide model with additional capability to simulate the inter-basin trade. This simulation could help local planners and engineers to determine optimal policies and infrastructure solutions to reach and ensure local demand satisfaction. The simulation model is implemented in hypothetical areas with different conditions of WEF demands and supplies. Although the inter-basin trade scenarios are simulated manually, it shows that the inter-basin resources trade could enhance the resources security for a longer time period. In future, an optimization model might be developed to provide the automatic calculation to reach optimum amount of WEF for the trade, which can be a helpful tool in decision making process.

• Food Science and Biotechnology
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.234-237
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• 2007

Water resistance of three biopolyester films, such as poly-L-lactate (PLA), poly-hydroxybutyrate-co-valerate (PHBV), and Ecoflex, and low density polyethylene (LDPE) film was investigated by measuring contact angle of various probe liquids on the films. The properties measured were initial contact angle of water, dynamic change of the water contact angle with time, and the critical surface energy of the films. Water contact angle of the biopolyester films ($57.62-68.76^{\circ}$) was lower than that of LDPE film ($85.19^{\circ}$) indicating biopolyester films are less hydrophobic. The result of dynamic change of water contact angle also showed that the biopolyester films are less water resistant than LDPE film, but much more water resistant than cellulose-based packaging materials. Apparent critical surface energy for the biopolyester films (35.15-38.55 mN/m) was higher than that of LDPE film (28.59 mN/m) indicating LDPE film is more hydrophobic.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.35-45
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• 2019

Korean agriculture experienced rapid changes in its production structure to respond fluctuations on external conditions, and these changes have increased the dependence between agricultural resources and negative environmental externalities from agricultural production. As a tool for managing agricultural resources and reducing negative environmental effects from agricultural production, this study employs water-energy-food nexus for integrated resource management. To show the necessity of an integrated approach, this study evaluated three policy scenarios including changes in capital interest, water capacity, and energy cost. The results show that three scenarios have unintended consequences for farmers' incomes and their use of resources. Also the unintended consequences of government policies also affected farms' vulnerability to environmental changes. In particular, the expansion of financing for the establishment of non-circulating water curtain facilities did not have a significant effect on the crop switching of farms. In addition, increasing the amount of available water through the aquifer recharge project leads to the installation of non-circulating water curtain facilities in zucchini farm. It raises dependence on groundwater in agricultural production, thereby increasing farmers' vulnerability to groundwater shortages. These results imply that the agricultural sector needs to consider the interrelationship between agricultural resources when designing or evaluating policies.