Convergence Accelerator Track J: Convergence Towards a Disaster Resilient Food System

融合加速器轨道 J：走向抗灾粮食系统的融合

• 批准号: 2236058
• 负责人: Lauren Clay
• 金额: $ 62.4万
• 依托单位: University of Maryland Baltimore County
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-12-15 至 2024-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2236058&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Convergence; Accelerator; Track; Towards; Disaster

This project supports improved food system resilience and food security in communities at-risk for hurricanes. The broader impact and societal benefits of this Convergence Accelerator Phase I project is to improve food system resilience and reduce disaster-induced food insecurity, improving the health and well-being of individuals in society. To achieve this goal, the convergence research team will develop an annual measure of community food security and subscales for individual systems that contribute to community food security. This measure will help organizations and agencies identify communities at higher risk for food insecurity following hurricane disasters and provide actionable information for communities to build food system resilience to hazards and environmental change. Between 11-15% of the U.S. population experienced food insecurity annually between 2008 and 2018. Food and nutrition insecurity rates can increase threefold following disasters. Households struggling before a disaster are at greatest risk. Increased food and nutrition insecurity rates persist for years while households and communities recover. Currently, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) measures household and individual level food and nutrition insecurity in the US annually and food deserts as a single dimension of community level food and nutrition security every four years. Food deserts are an indicator of accessibility of retail food in communities but miss multiple additional systems that influence community-level food and nutrition security. This project aims to create a Food Index for Resilience, Security, & Tangible Solutions (FIRST) that measures food system functioning. The FIRST will combine information from experts in the fields of disaster science, coastal engineering, food and nutrition security, nonprofit management, and supply chain management with local community knowledge. The FIRST will provide a tool for communities preparing for, responding to, and recovering from disasters and environmental change.The food system is a complex adaptive system made up of a set of autonomous, interdependent sub-systems. When a disaster occurs, multiple systems are impacted. Currently, we rely on single-dimensional and infrequent measures of food availability and accessibility. Further, current measures do not account for disaster risk to multiple sub-systems. The proposed research will generate specific and timely metrics of food system and sub-system functioning and community food security to provide communities with actionable data to bolster food system resilience and reduce food and nutrition insecurity following hurricane disasters. Improved metrics will support mitigation and preparedness amid slower onset environmental changes, especially among those most at-risk as well as support more effective response and recovery of food systems and food security. Using a convergence approach and systems dynamics modeling methodology, our team of academics, non-profits, government, and industry partners will develop and validate the FIRST. The research team will develop a conceptual and computational model of community-level food system resilience (FIRST) then run the model to describe food system resilience for pilot communities in North Carolina. The computational model will be evaluated in three historical hurricane events in North Carolina to evaluate the validity and reliability of the metric. FIRST scores for pilot counties in North Carolina as well as historical case data will be shared with community members to ground truth the results and elicit information about the usefulness of FIRST scores and how the scores could be used to bolster food system resilience. Information from pilot communities will set the stage for scaling up the model nationally for hurricanes and developing a roadmap with tangible solutions for building community food resilience. Annual measurement at the community-level will support more equitable disaster preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation to reduce disaster-induced food and nutrition insecurity. Sub-system scores for economic, health, social, and political systems will support more equitable policies and programs to assist populations at greatest risk for both food insecurity and disaster exposure, including lower income, racial and ethnic minority, and households with children.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该项目支持提高飓风高危社区的粮食系统复原力和粮食安全。这一融合加速器第一阶段项目的更广泛影响和社会效益是提高粮食系统的复原力，减少灾害引起的粮食不安全，改善社会个人的健康和福祉。为了实现这一目标，融合研究小组将制定社区粮食安全的年度衡量标准，并为有助于社区粮食安全的个别系统制定分量表。这一措施将帮助各组织和机构确定飓风灾害后粮食不安全风险较高的社区，并为社区建设粮食系统对灾害和环境变化的复原力提供可操作的信息。2008年至2018年期间，每年有11%-15%的美国人口经历了粮食不安全的情况。灾难发生后，粮食和营养不安全的比率可能会增加三倍。在灾难发生前挣扎的家庭面临的风险最大。在家庭和社区恢复的同时，粮食和营养不安全率的增加持续了多年。目前，美国农业部(USDA)每年衡量美国家庭和个人层面的粮食和营养不安全状况，每四年将粮食沙漠作为社区层面粮食和营养安全的一个方面进行衡量。食品沙漠是社区零售食品可获得性的一个指标，但缺少影响社区一级粮食和营养安全的多个额外系统。该项目旨在创建一个食品弹性、安全和有形解决方案指数(First)，以衡量食品系统的功能。第一个将把灾害科学、沿海工程、食品和营养安全、非营利性管理和供应链管理领域的专家的信息与当地社区的知识结合起来。第一个将为社区准备、响应和恢复灾害和环境变化提供工具。食物系统是一个复杂的适应系统，由一组自治的、相互依赖的子系统组成。当灾难发生时，多个系统会受到影响。目前，我们依赖单一的、不常用的粮食供应和可获得性衡量标准。此外，目前的措施没有考虑到多个子系统的灾害风险。拟议的研究将产生粮食系统和子系统功能以及社区粮食安全的具体和及时的衡量标准，以向社区提供可操作的数据，以加强粮食系统的复原力，减少飓风灾害后粮食和营养的不安全。改进的衡量标准将支持在发生较慢的环境变化时的缓解和备灾，特别是在风险最高的环境变化中，并支持更有效地应对和恢复粮食系统和粮食安全。使用融合方法和系统动力学建模方法，我们的学者、非营利组织、政府和行业合作伙伴团队将开发和验证第一个。研究小组将开发一个社区层面食物系统复原力的概念和计算模型(首先)，然后运行该模型来描述北卡罗来纳州试点社区的食物系统复原力。该计算模型将在北卡罗来纳州的三次历史飓风事件中进行评估，以评估该指标的有效性和可靠性。北卡罗来纳州试点县的第一个分数以及历史案例数据将与社区成员共享，以证实结果的真实性，并获得有关第一个分数的有用性以及如何使用这些分数来支持食品系统弹性的信息。来自试点社区的信息将为在全国推广飓风模型和制定路线图奠定基础，该路线图具有建立社区粮食复原力的切实解决方案。社区一级的年度衡量将支持更公平的备灾、应对、恢复和减灾，以减少灾害引起的粮食和营养不安全。经济、健康、社会和政治系统的子系统得分将支持更公平的政策和计划，以帮助面临粮食不安全和灾难风险的最高风险人群，包括低收入、种族和少数民族以及有孩子的家庭。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。