 The smart irrigation smartwash discussion paper is developed by the Land and Water Division of FAO as a contribution to the topical debate on the rapidly evolving situation of COVID-19 and its impact on nutrition and food security beyond the well-defined health risks. End-outly, exploiting irrigation potential has a major role in enhancing food security. However, expanding irrigation entails considerable growth in water use. Meanwhile, provision of safe water for sanitation is the precondition to slow down the spread of the pandemic. The twin-track smart irrigation smartwash approach clearly embodies that water resources should be employed for multiple uses in order to respond to both food security and health needs. The fight against the pandemic is a marathon, not a sprint. As far as emergency interventions can be highly beneficial in reducing the most negative impacts of hunger and pandemics, countries are required to define their strategies to protect the most vulnerable and ensure resources are available for the most basic human needs – food security and human health. This evolving assessment starts with the identification of geographical hotspots of COVID-19 impacts in the context of agriculture, food production and hygiene. The mapping is carried out along largely agreed risk indicators of food insecurity and health. The probability of food security impacts is assessed through irrigated agriculture and the probability of health impact through the provision of safe water. Countries with the most overlapping levels of vulnerability are identified as potential hotspots. On the other side, the spreading trend of the pandemic is analysed considering also the reliability of reported cases. The intersection between countries with high vulnerability related to agricultural production and countries with high vulnerability related to the pandemic spread are finally defined as geographical hotspots. After the vulnerability mapping and analysis investment categorization matrix is completed, the investment packages for interventions can be proposed for the affected countries. Here we can divide the investment packages into two levels of interventions – the on-form level and the system level. There are hundreds of system level water conservation technologies. However, a set of selected technologies that meet the multiple use criteria are presented in this paper to address the challenges under consideration that is the food security and public hygiene.