Hazards SEES: Understanding Cross-Scale Interactions of Trade and Food Policy to Improve Resilience to Drought Risk

受干旱影响地区的粮食安全受到水文、农业和社会系统之间一系列复杂相互作用的影响。以前考察干旱对粮食安全影响的模型没有纳入精细空间尺度上的粮食贸易和粮食流动，但这些组成部分是区域粮食系统的关键组成部分。在撒哈拉以南非洲，自然灾害造成的死亡人数和经济损失中，旱灾和洪灾约占80%和70%。赞比亚特别容易受到干旱的影响，营养不良、贫困、收入不平等、感染艾滋病毒/艾滋病和疟疾，受教育程度低。赞比亚的农业生产是靠雨水灌溉的，这进一步增加了该地区的脆弱性。由于该地区极度脆弱，赞比亚是研究干旱风险、作物生产、贸易和政策之间的相互作用如何影响粮食安全的理想地点。通过将贸易和政策的影响纳入预测的水文和农业模型，该项目正在改进现有的饥荒预警系统，这些系统很少评估一个区域通过粮食转让和贸易缓解干旱的能力。该项目的目标是利用一个新的综合框架了解干旱灾害对自给自足农业的影响，该框架融合了干旱风险和作物生产的数据、模型和知识；它们与基于贸易和基于援助的应对措施的动态相互作用；以及它们对家庭粮食安全和消费的影响。我们正在解决三个问题：1)赞比亚干旱风险的时空尺度是什么？风险如何转化为农业影响？2)贸易和国内粮食政策在地方和国家一级对粮食安全的作用是什么？3)通过将对政策和粮食转让的理解纳入农业干旱预警系统，能否更有效地减少干旱影响？为了回答这些问题，我们正在收集生物物理数据，以说明历史上干旱及其对区域农业的影响；审查家庭和市场层面的数据，以确定粮食安全结果、市场价格和粮食来源的特点；利用复杂的网络分析，确定粮食贸易和流动的特点；评估与价格波动和基础设施相关的市场一体化，以确定家庭、社区和地区各级的经济风险和复原力；研究国家一级的政策如何制约地方一级的决策；开发高分辨率预测的计算模型，并探索资源分配和风险管理的概率解决方案。该项目是在每个维度的经验基础上在如此精细的空间尺度上创建粮食贸易、家庭消费和作物生产的综合模式的第一个项目。

Food security in regions affected by drought is influenced by a complex set of interactions between hydrological, agricultural, and social systems. Previous models examining the impact of drought on food security have not incorporated food trade and food movements at fine spatial scales, yet these components are critical parts of regional food systems. In sub-Saharan Africa droughts and floods account for approximately 80% of fatalities and 70% of the economic losses that are due to natural hazards. Zambia is particularly vulnerable to droughts, having high levels of malnutrition, poverty, income inequality, exposure to HIV/AIDS and malaria, and low levels of educational attainment. Zambia's agricultural production is rain-fed, which further increases vulnerability in the region. With the extreme vulnerability of the region, Zambia serves as an ideal place to study how the interactions between drought risk, crop production, trade, and policy affect food security. By incorporating the effects of trade and policy into predictive hydrological and agricultural models, this project is improving existing early warning systems for famine which rarely assess the capacity for a region to ameliorate drought via food transfers and trade. This project's goal is to understand the effect of drought hazards in subsistence agriculture using a novel integrative framework that merges data, models, and knowledge of drought risk and crop production; their interactions with the dynamics of trade-based and aid-based responses; and their effect on household food security and consumption. We are addressing three questions: 1) What are the spatio-temporal scales of drought risk across Zambia and how does risk transfer into agricultural impacts? 2) What is the role of trade and domestic food policy on food security at local to national levels? 3) Can drought impacts be more effectively reduced by integrating an understanding of policy and food transfers into an agricultural drought early warning system? To answer these questions, we are collecting biophysical data to characterize historical droughts and their impacts on regional agriculture; examining household and market level data to characterize food security outcomes, market prices, and food sourcing; using complex network analysis to characterize food trade and flows; assessing market integration associated with price fluctuations and infrastructure to determine economic exposure and resilience at the household, community and district levels; examining how policies at the national scale constrain decisions at the local scale; and developing computational models for high resolution predictions and to explore probabilistic solutions for resource allocation and risk management. This project is the first to create an integrated model of food trade, household consumption and crop production at such fine spatial scales built on an empirical foundation in each dimension.