Abstract
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG) underscores the need for eliminating hunger, improving nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture. For achieving SDG2, it is critical to address several factors such as agricultural production, groundwater depletion, and glacier decline under climate change. Using longitudinal district-level data from India from 2000–2016, a framework is developed for analyzing the data on agricultural outputs, well-depths (distance from ground to water tables), and in situ and remote sensing data on glacier thicknesses for the sustainability of food systems. First, the analysis of data on the production of rice, wheat, maize, sorghum, and pearl millet for 310 districts in India showed that greater rice output was significantly associated with higher well depths. Second, milk production was positively associated with well depths, indicating that improving diet quality entails higher water utilization. Third, an analysis of remote sensing data on changes in glacier heights for 0.5° × 0.5° grids in the Northern Hemisphere indicated large and significant declines over time; glacier thickness reductions were generally small using in situ data. Overall, the empirical results will facilitate the formulation of evidence-based policies for tackling ‘zero hunger’ and diet quality goals, cultivating water-efficient crops, recharging groundwater, and monitoring the dynamics of glaciers for long-term sustainability.