Urbanisation and emerging economies: issues and potential solutions for water and food security

Urbanisation will be one of the 21st century's most transformative trends. By 2050, it will increase from 55% to 68%, more than doubling the urban population in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Urbanisation has multifarious (positive as well as negative) impacts on the wellbeing of humans and the environment. The 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) form the blueprint to achieve a sustainable future for all. Clean Water and Sanitation is a specific goal (SDG 6) within the suite of 17 interconnected goals. Here we provide an overview of some of the challenges that urbanisation poses in relation to SDG 6, especially in developing economies. Worldwide, several cities are on the verge of water crisis. Water distribution to informal settlements or slums in megacities (e.g. N50% population in the megacities of India) is essentially non-existent and limits access to adequate safe water supply. Besides due to poor sewer connectivity in the emerging economies, there is a heavy reliance on septic tanks, and other on-site sanitation (OSS) system and by 2030, 4.9 billion people are expected to rely on OSS. About 62–93% of the urban population in Vietnam, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Indonesia rely on septic tanks, where septage treatment is rare. Globally, over 80% of wastewater is released to the environment without adequate treatment. About 11% of all irrigated croplands is irrigated with such untreated or poorly treated wastewater. In addition to acute and chronic health effects, this also results in significant pollution of often-limited surface and groundwater resources in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Direct and indirect water reuse plays a key role in global water and food security. Here we offer several suggestions to mitigate water and food insecurity in emerging economies

Composto orgânico na produção e qualidade de sementes de brócolis Organic compost in broccoli seed yield and quality

Em razão da escassez de informações relacionadas ao efeito da adubação na produção e qualidade de sementes de hortaliças, principalmente nas espécies que possuem aumento no ciclo com o estádio reprodutivo, nota-se a necessidade de determinar a dose dos nutrientes para auxiliar na recomendação que proporcione uma produção de sementes com elevado potencial fisiológico. Embora existam estudos sobre nutrição e recomendações de adubação para o cultivo comercial de brócolis (Brassica oleracea L. var. italica Plenk), raramente se encontram trabalhos que abordem os efeitos dos nutrientes na produção e qualidade de sementes. Em vista disso, neste trabalho, objetivou-se avaliar a influência do composto orgânico na produção e qualidade de sementes de brócolis. O experimento foi conduzido na Fazenda São Manuel e as avaliações foram feitas no Setor de Horticultura da Faculdade de Ciências Agronômicas (FCA/UNESP) emBotucatu-SP. Os tratamentos foram quatro doses de composto orgânico (30, 60, 90 e 120 t ha-1), além da testemunha sem composto orgânico. O delineamento experimental utilizado foi de blocos ao acaso, com quatro repetições. Foram avaliadas as características de produção em massa (g) e número de sementes por planta; além das características relacionadas com a qualidade das sementes: massa de mil sementes, teste de germinação, primeira contagem de germinação, índice de velocidade de germinação (IVG) e condutividade elétrica. A análise de regressão apresentou uma resposta linear em função das doses de composto, onde maiores doses resultaram em maior produção, sem, no entanto, afetar a qualidade das sementes.<br>Due to the lack of information about the fertilization effect in vegetable seed yield and quality, mainly in the species that have an increase in cycle due to reproductive stage, it is necessary to evaluate the nutrient level to aid in recommending fertilization that provides best productivity from high physiological potential seeds. Although there are studies about nutrition and recommendation of fertilization to broccoli (Brassica oleracea L. var. italica Plenk), rarely it finds out works that approach the nutrients effects in seed yield and quality. The objective of this work was to evaluate the organic compost influence in broccoli seed quality and yield. The experiment was lead at São Manuel Experimental Farm and the evaluations at Horticulture Sector in Agronomic Science School (FCA/UNESP) in Botucatu. The treatments were four organic compost levels (30, 60, 90 and 120 t ha-1), and control without organic compost. The experimental design was randomized blocks with four replications. The characteristics evaluated were seed yield and number of seed per plant further the characteristics related with seed quality: one thousand seed mass, germination test, first germination counting, index of germination speed and electrical conductivity. The regression showed a linear response in function of organic compost levels, where larger levels resulted higher yield despite the seed quality is not affected