Water journal calls for special issue submissions: “Water-Energy-Food Nexus in the Greater Mekong Subregion of Southeast Asia”

Open-access journal Water is calling for papers and contributions for an upcoming special issue covering the Water-Energy-Food nexus in the Greater Mekong Subregion. See below for the call in full, or over at their site.

Dear Colleagues,

The Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) is a prime exemplar of the large-scale, dynamic interactions between monsoon climate and human activities. Water resources and food production in the basin have relied on timely rainfall and the seasonal flows of the rivers and streams of the Mekong and its tributaries, supporting approximately 60 million people in the region for generations. However, the rhythm and intensity of the Asian monsoon climate over the last 50 years have changed noticeably, with more frequent floods and intense droughts devastating crops and dramatically altering aquatic ecosystems, and deeply disrupting rural livelihoods. Meanwhile, rising temperature in the Himalayas has increased snowmelt causing glacial retreat and altering freshwater dynamics in the region. Humans are responding to these changes. Land use change and construction of dams, unsynchronized with agricultural crops, have adversely affected the delivery of associated ecosystem services that local communities rely on. Expansion of irrigated agriculture and cropland abandonment due to changes in distribution of water resource further affect food production and freshwater resources. Together, these aforementioned changes in climate, land use, dam construction, and irrigation are having significant impacts on the WEF systems. Science-based solutions are being sought in order to address these emerging sustainability issues and the WEF Nexus, an important theme of the Future Earth and its KANs (knowledge action networks), in Monsoon Asia is emerging as one of the most important priorities appropriate to addressing these regional sustainability issues. This Special Issue presents a collective wisdom of latest research related to the WEF Nexus issues in the region. The overall aim is to promoting sustainable pathways of future GMS, Future Asia and future Earth. The Special Issue themes may include but not necessarily limited to the following: Theories and innovations in WEF Nexus; human interventions to hydrological processes and consequences in the GMS; land use and land cover changes and implications to water, energy and food systems; regional climate variability and its implications to WEF systems; science and technologies for solutions to food, energy and water nexus adaptation strategies and regional governance across boundaries.

Prof. Jiaguo Qi
Prof. Richard Lawford
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI’s English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.