Global ecosystem sustainability indexing and patterns in the success of SDGs of water, energy and food security

Implementing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the water, energy, and food (WEF) sectors requires addressing complex global challenges related to balancing resource demand and ecosystem sustainability. This study introduces a hybrid composite index for assessing ecosystem sustainability and progress toward WEF-related SDGs from 2000 to 2020 across countries worldwide. The index is based on two fundamental concepts: eco-efficiency, which quantifies sustainable resource utilization, and ecological resilience, which evaluates strategies to mitigate global ecosystem threats. The findings reveal modest improvements in food security (SDG 2), though the ecosystem-based food security (EFS) sub-index declined from 1.2 to 0.9, falling below the critical threshold of 1 and posing risks to 62% of countries globally, with 80% of sub-Saharan African and Middle Eastern countries most impacted. The ecosystem-based water security (EWS) sub-index showed moderate progress, increasing from 1.2 to 1.71, yet 39% of countries still fall below threshold levels. Although ecosystem-based energy security (EES) remains above the critical threshold, it declined from 3.4 to 3.1. Many factors, including insufficient ecological resilience to counter ecosystem stressors, contribute to the overall declining trends. Integrating eco-efficient practices and resilience-building measures presents promising solutions. The study further identifies 27 natural and 11 human-made ecosystem elements as opportunities to improve WEF security and bolster resilience capacities. • A new hybrid index of ecosystem sustainability in WEF security was created. • Eco-efficiency and ecological resilience are central to the assessment. • Ensuring WEF security while tackling ecosystem decline is a global issue. • Human and natural ecosystem elements are evaluated to enhance WEF security.