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Background While there has been increasing global recognition and impetus for action to transform food systems towards greater food security, sustainability and better health outcomes, Israel has only recently begun to focus on the diverse challenges of its food system and its potential for transformation. Methods An expert opinion survey (n = 50) on Israel’s food system was conducted as part of a larger study on the systemic features of Israel’s food system transition to understand its policy gaps and find strategies towards a healthy and sustainable food system. The survey ranks the relevance and importance of food system challenges and policy preferences. Policy implications are then examined by identifying potential priorities, gaps and dissensus. Results The survey finds that there is a majority agreement (76%) that Israel’s food policies are lacking or severely lacking. Respondents relate strongly to both concepts of nutritional security (90% think that access to nutritious food is relevant or highly relevant) and national food security (more than 80% perceive food security as part of national security). Respondents overwhelmingly recognize the benefits of Israeli agriculture with 60–90% agreeing or strongly agreeing that it benefits food security, economic value and national identity. Top-ranked problems include overall systemic problems such as the lack of national goals, strategic planning, and integrated policymaking across ministries, and specific ones such as food waste, costly farming inputs, and food affordability. The most preferred policy actions include establishing a national strategy for food and agriculture, making food affordable for vulnerable households, and incentivising sustainable farming methods. The key policy gaps include the lack of resilience in agriculture and the food system, insufficient data and knowledge for policy action, inadequate attention to the regulation of the food industry for better health and inadequate food policy attention for minority groups. Conclusions Building on this study's findings, further policy research and implementation areas to be covered include government responsibility for universal food security, strategic systemic policies for food systems, prevention and preparedness for future crises, and promoting resilience. The way forward may best be through an inter-ministerial committee with the responsibility, budgets, mandate and executive authority to plan data-driven policies for a sustainable food system for Israel’s future.

Agriculture is a major driver of the ongoing biodiversity decline, demanding an urgent transition towards a system that reconciles productivity and profitability with nature conservation; however, where public policies promoting such transitions are in place, their design often poorly fits the relevant biogeophysical systems, decreasing the policies’ expected effectiveness. Spatial scale mismatches are a primary example in this regard. The literature reviewed in this paper, drawing from both ecology and policy studies, suggests to foster policy implementation at the landscape scale, where most functional ecological processes—and the delivery of related ecosystem services—occur on farmland. Two strategies are identified for coordinating policy implementation at the landscape scale: the promotion of farmers’ collective action and the partition of space on an ecologically sound basis through spatial planning. As the new European Union Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) post-2023 is currently being defined, we assess if and how the draft agri-biodiversity legislation includes any of the strategies above. We find no comprehensive uptake of the landscape-scale perspective at the EU level, thereby suggesting that a powerful tool to overcome the CAP underperformance on biodiversity is being overlooked.

Many aspects of wellbeing have been studied in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, studies that measure a comprehensive, multi-faceted conceptualization of wellbeing are rare. Using a broad conceptualization of wellbeing, based on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) wellbeing indicators and a theoretical model of wellbeing developed previously, this study empirically assesses the wellbeing effects of COVID-19 in Israel. A representative sample of the adult population in Israel was surveyed and structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the impacts of the pandemic on a number of wellbeing indicators. Relationships among indicators were also analyzed. The study’s findings highlight the importance of social interactions, economics, mental health, and leisure on wellbeing. The study can be used by policymakers to fully understand the impact of various COVID-19 response policies on the wellbeing of the population.

Environmental challenges demand local-level engagement. This study delves into the often overlooked entrepreneurial role played by “off-the-map” local authorities in environmental policy. By examining factors influencing Local Environmental Policy Initiatives (LEPIs), including demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, environmental impact, and promotion strategies, we offer a comprehensive analysis. In contrast to studies that spotlight prominent cities, we prioritize the majority—ordinary local governments. Leveraging Israel as a case study, we employ a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods, to validate prior hypotheses suggesting that economically stable and larger authorities tend to initiate more LEPIs. Nevertheless, our research reveals a pro-environmental inclination, even among authorities traditionally not categorized as entrepreneurial. Consequently, smaller and less influential authorities adopt tailored approaches such as problem-framing and terminology strategies to drive environmental initiatives forward. These findings underscore the critical role of local authorities in advancing environmentally sustainable practices, emphasizing their significance in the broader landscape of environmental policy. Notably, they highlight the imperative nature of targeting strategies toward untypical entrepreneurial authorities, to maximize the potential impact of widespread environmental change from the bottom up.

Marginalized resource-dependent groups (MRDGs) are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and weather extremes. However, research on MRDGs tends to analyze their vulnerability in a specific point in time, thereby neglecting the examination of changes that evolve over time spans that are similar to those on which climatic changes occur. This study adopts a long-term perspective, examining changes in the vulnerability of the marginalized and traditionally agro-pastoralist Bedouin residing in the semi-arid and drought-prone northern Negev region. Utilizing multiple data sources, the study compares the vulnerability of the Bedouin during two severe droughts separated by a 40-year period—the 1957–63 drought and the 1998–2000 drought. The changes in the impacts of the droughts on the Bedouin are identified and analyzed, as well as the main factors explaining these changes. The results indicate that the vulnerability of the Bedouin to droughts has declined considerably, largely due to integration in Israel’s market economy and improved access to water infrastructure. Large-scale economic transformations and changes in settlement and water supply patterns explain much of the reduction in vulnerability. However, the Bedouin have remained marginalized and are vulnerable to fluctuations in market conditions. Thus, while we find that the vulnerability of even the most vulnerable groups can decline over time, we also observe that their vulnerability may change its form from “climate vulnerability” to more general social vulnerability.

In the modernist era, water is discussed as a single substance which has multiple uses. I argue that from a normative perspective water should be discussed in the plural term (‘waters’), as they constitute a variety of ‘things’ with a similar chemical composition. Waters are composed of multiple ‘needs’, which are uses with a normative rationale, and of ‘wants’, which are desires that should be seen as economic demands. Moreover, waters should also be differentiated by source: natural, recycled or produced. This new language of water has direct policy implications. Needs, differentiated into direct human needs, spiritual needs, environmental needs and community needs, which may be prioritized, should be supplied regardless of cost considerations. ‘Wants’ and produced water should be priced at the full social cost of supply. Hence, while the rates at which needs are supplied should be determined by affordability, regardless of spatial differentiation in supply cost, the pricing of water supplied for ‘wants’ will vary over space. Thus water which is supplied through the same pipe to the same house may be subject to different pricing logics. However, there are many nuances to these generalizations, which have still to be fleshed out.

Effective stakeholder engagement is essential for basin management, requiring structured approaches to foster collaboration and consensus. This paper applies the Issue Generating Assessment (IGA) method, which identifies core issues for stakeholder discussion, to basin management. Focusing on the Israeli part of the Hadera Basin, we identify the core issues that should be discussed by stakeholders using the IGA method. To this end 39 participants across 14 sectors evaluating three generic basin management strategies were asked to qualitatively explain their evaluations. By analyzing these explanations utilizing the IGA method, four core issues emerged: (1) Managing uncertainty: addressing climate change and land use impacts on stream flow; (2) Mutual impacts management: handling interactions between the stream and its surroundings; (3) Integration of uses: balancing various stream utilization priorities; (4) Defining natural system functions: determining the role of natural systems. For each core issue, we proposed questions to guide stakeholder discussions. The IGA method is thus found to be useful, and has the potential to foster meaningful dialogue in structured stakeholder meetings, thereby focusing discussions and allowing understandings among stakeholders to be reached as a basis for basin management plans. Such early understandings may contribute to the development of strategies for sustainable basin management.

In the wake of rapid population growth coupled with climate change and environmental degradation, countries around the world face increasing uncertainty in their ability to provide ample, safe and sustainable potable water. To meet this uncertainty, seawater desalination has been advanced around the world as a reliable new supply that improves water quality, aquifer restoration, water security and is essentially insensitive to climate change. Not only are the number of facilities increasing, but the size of the facilities is also increasing in order to take advantage of economies of scale. This paper analyzes the emerging trend of extra-large-capacity (XL) seawater desalination facilities by examining the rate of their global diffusion and the variables that influence this rate. These variables are explored quantitatively using logistic regression. In addition, selected country case studies provide insight into the factors that drive the adoption of XL desalination. They indicate that the decision to embark on XL desalination is largely determined by internal political factors. Specifically, XL desalination is advanced when the political costs of alternative water management strategies are high.

Collapse of residential buildings is the major cause of death during earthquakes. Seismic retrofitting of residential buildings is a cost-effective way to reduce injury and death. However, seismic retrofitting is a complex policy problem, entailing multiple barriers and requiring multi-stakeholder, multi-level, multi-sectoral, and multi-disciplinary collaborations. Policy packages are an approach to address complex, multi-dimensional policy challenges by developing synergic combinations of policy instruments, geared to achieving policy goals, while minimizing unintended effects and enhancing legitimacy and political feasibility. Israel has a long history of seismic activity, and a seismic building code was introduced in 1980. Yet, 20% of the country’s housing units predate the building code and require seismic retrofitting. A current market-based plan is attractive only in high property value areas, while the most vulnerable regions are largely in the periphery. This paper presents a three-step methodology to formulate policy packages for seismic retrofitting in Israel. Through expert workshops, 69 relevant policy instruments were identified and analyzed. Then, three effective policy packages were formulated based on the interrelations of the various instruments. Finally, the packages were modified to enhance social and political acceptability. The three packages are a ‘national package’ assigning responsibility to a national-level authority, a ‘municipal package’ assigning responsibility to local government, and a ‘civilian package’ which aims to create conditions for homeowners to retrofit with less government intervention. Each package is comprised of 16 policy instruments, seven of which are common to all three packages.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries implemented widespread restrictions in an effort to mitigate the spread of the virus. These measures had various impacts on the wellbeing of residents. This study explores the effects of the pandemic on wellbeing across different segments of the population in Israel, a country that rapidly administered vaccines and eased restrictions. Two online surveys were conducted on a representative sample of the population, one during the peak of the crisis and another 15 months later during the tail end. The analysis, conducted using multivariate statistical methods, revealed that the negative effects on wellbeing observed during the height of the crisis had largely diminished over time. The significant lifestyle changes prompted by the pandemic and governmental responses had mostly short-lived consequences on wellbeing. Yet, social connections continued to exhibit the strongest association with mitigating subjective wellbeing impacts. Additionally, this study found that the gap in wellbeing between disadvantaged and privileged groups widened as the crisis subsided, suggesting that some disasters may have an initial equalizing effect that wears off with time. The results emphasize the importance of considering the wellbeing impacts when implementing public health policies and providing ongoing support, particularly for disadvantaged populations, throughout the recovery period.