Humanity faces the grand challenge of feeding a growing, more affluent population in the coming decades while reducing the environmental burden of agriculture. Approaches that integrate food security and environmental goals offer promise for achieving a more sustainable global food system, yet little work has been done to link potential solutions with agricultural policies. Taking the case of cereal production in India, we use a process-based crop water model and government data on food production and nutrient content to assess the implications of various crop-shifting scenarios on consumptive water demand and nutrient production. We find that historical growth in wheat production during the rabi (non-monsoon) season has been the main driver of the country's increased consumptive irrigation water demand and that rice is the least water-efficient cereal for the production of key nutrients, especially for iron, zinc, and fiber. By replacing rice areas in each district with the alternative cereal (maize, finger millet, pearl millet, or sorghum) with the lowest irrigation (blue) water footprint (WFP), we show that it is possible to reduce irrigation water demand by 33% and improve the production of protein (+1%), iron (+27%), and zinc (+13%) with only a modest reduction in calories. Replacing rice areas with the lowest total (rainfall + irrigation) WFP alternative cereal or the cereal with the highest nutritional yield (metric tons of protein per hectare or kilograms of iron per hectare) yielded similar benefits. By adopting a similar multidimensional framework, India and other nations can identify food security solutions that can achieve multiple sustainability goals simultaneously.

中文翻译：

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替代谷物可以改善印度的用水和营养供应。

人类面临着巨大的挑战，即在未来几十年中养活不断增长的更加富裕的人口，同时减轻农业的环境负担。整合粮食安全和环境目标的方法为实现更可持续的全球粮食系统提供了希望，但将潜在解决方案与农业政策联系起来的工作很少。以印度的谷物生产为例，我们使用基于过程的作物水模型以及有关粮食产量和养分含量的政府数据来评估各种作物轮换情景对耗水量和养分产量的影响。我们发现，狂犬病（非季风）季节小麦产量的历史增长一直是该国的主要推动力。消耗性灌溉用水需求增加，大米是生产关键营养素（尤其是铁，锌和纤维）的节水效果最低的谷物。通过用灌溉水（蓝色）水足迹（WFP）最低的替代谷物（玉米，手指粟，珍珠粟或高粱）代替每个地区的水稻种植面积，我们证明可以将灌溉水需求减少33％并仅适度减少卡路里，从而提高蛋白质（+ 1％），铁（+ 27％）和锌（+ 13％）的产量。用粮食计划署替代谷物总量最低（降雨+灌溉）或营养产量最高（每公顷公吨蛋白质或每公顷铁千克）的谷物代替水稻地区也能获得类似的收益。通过采用类似的多维框架，