Visioning a food system for equitable transition towards sustainable diets.

The Global Goals to end hunger requires interpretation of problems, and change across multiple domains. We facilitated a workshop aimed at understanding how stakeholders problematise sustainable diet transition (SDT) among a previously-marginalised social group. Using the systems thinking approach, three sub-systems, access to dietary diversity, sustainable beneficiation of natural capital, and 'food choice for well-being', highlighted the main forces governing the current context, and future interventions. Moreover, when viewed as co-evolving processes within the multi-level perspective, our identified microlevel leverage points - multi-faceted literacy, youth empowerment, deliberative policy-making, promotion of sustainable diet aspirations - can be linked and developed through existing national macrolevel strategies. Thus, by reconsidering knowledge use in the pursuit sustainability, transformational SDT can streamline multiple outcomes to restructure socio-technical sectors, reconnect people to nature-based solutions and, support legitimate aspirations. The approach could be applied in countries having complex socio-political legacy and to bridge the local-global goals coherently.

Drinking water vulnerability to climate change and alternatives for adaptation in coastal South and South East Asia.

Drinking water in much of Asia, particularly in coastal and rural settings, is provided by a variety of sources, which are widely distributed and frequently managed at an individual or local community level. Coastal and near-inland drinking water sources in South and South East (SSE) Asia are vulnerable to contamination by seawater, most dramatically from tropical cyclone induced storm surges. This paper assesses spatial vulnerabilities to salinisation of drinking water sources due to meteorological variability and climate change along the (ca. 6000 km) coastline of SSE Asia. The risks of increasing climatic stresses are first considered, and then maps of relative vulnerability along the entire coastline are developed, using data from global scale land surface models, along with an overall vulnerability index. The results show that surface and near-surface drinking water in the coastal areas of the mega-deltas in Vietnam and Bangladesh-India are most vulnerable, putting more than 25 million people at risk of drinking 'saline' water. Climate change is likely to exacerbate this problem, with adverse consequences for health, such as prevalence of hypertension and cardiovascular diseases. There is a need for identifying locations that are most at risk of salinisation in order for policy makers and local officials to implement strategies for reducing these health impacts. To counter the risks associated with these vulnerabilities, possible adaptation measures are also outlined. We conclude that detailed and fine scale vulnerability assessments may become crucial for planning targeted adaptation programmes along these coasts.