With limited land resources, inadequate energy supply, and growing water stress, South Asia faces the challenge of providing enough water and energy to grow enough food for the burgeoning population. Using secondary data from diverse sources, this paper explores the food, water, and energy nexus from a regional dimension, emphasizing the role of Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) ecosystem services in sustaining food, water, and energy security downstream.

The National Wetland Atlas 2011 has used confusing and inappropriate classifications. Many man-made wetlands have been treated as naturally occurring, tanks have become lakes, and a large number of ponds have become nondescript entities. The number of inland wetlands estimated is far less when compared to other known sources of data, creating reasonable doubt on the reliability of the exercise. This article emphasises the need for releasing the complete geo-coordinates and areal data sets, and undertaking accurate assessments of the numbers and water spreads of tanks and ponds.

As the world’s largest distributed store of fresh water, ground water plays a central part in sustaining ecosystems and enabling human adaptation to climate variability and change. The strategic importance of ground water for global water and food security will probably intensify under climate change as more frequent and intense climate extremes (droughts and floods) increase variability in precipitation, soil moisture and surface water.

On the basis of a climate modelling study, Lal et al. predicted that during the winter months there will be 5–25% less rainfall and in the summer season the monsoon rainfall will be not only 10–15% more than the normal, but also quite variable and specially irregular in Central India.