Developing integrated environmental indicators for sustainable global food production and trade

制定可持续全球粮食生产和贸易的综合环境指标

• 批准号: NE/N01524X/1
• 负责人: Carole Dalin
• 金额: $ 74.7万
• 依托单位: University College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2016 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FN01524X%2F1
• 关键词: Developing; integrated; environmental; indicators; sustainable

The proposed research aims to improve understanding of the environmental impact and sustainability of global food production and trade, and to propose solutions to alleviate this impact. The natural environment, providing us with essential resources and ecosystem services, is under increasing pressure from human activities. Importantly, increasing demand for food, due to population growth and socio-economic development, have led to the intensive use of water, land, and fertilisers in agriculture. Irrigation accounts for more than two thirds of freshwater withdrawn globally, and agriculture occupies more than one third of the Earth's land surface and emits a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, food production will need to significantly increase to feed about two additional billion people by 2050. Ensuring environmentally sustainable, sufficient food production is thus a difficult and pressing global challenge.To address this challenge, my research will provide critical improvements in our current understanding of the multiple environmental impacts of agriculture, by accounting for different practices and local conditions across the world. This will allow a comprehensive assessment of agricultural sustainability and help to quantify trade-offs associated with different agricultural management strategies. Indeed, as agricultural practices are tightly linked (e.g. water and soil management), it is essential to consider all major environmental aspects to avoid the unintended consequences of strategies focused on a single aspect. The research will also consider trade; following recent globalisation, international food trade has grown rapidly since the 1980s, allowing for the development of major export-oriented agricultural regions. This crucial role of trade in global agricultural systems will be integrated in the evaluation of potential pathways to achieve environmentally sustainable agriculture.The proposed research addresses critical areas of integration necessary to assess pathways to sustainable agriculture: (1) comprehensive estimation of environmental impacts, (2) integration across a range of products (crops and livestock), (3) innovative quantitative measures of sustainability and (4) simultaneous linking of all environmental stresses with global trade.To reach my research objectives, I will combine emerging environmental datasets and models to consistently estimate the potential environmental impacts of food production, via water and land resource use, eutrophication (ecosystem pollution through nutrient leakage) and climate change. I will then apply innovative techniques to combine these estimates into spatially detailed indicators of the environmental sustainability of global food production. This ambitious and innovative research project will provide the first tool to simultaneously evaluate the major environmental impacts of food systems. It is highly significant as it targets the key global challenges of environmental sustainability and food security. I will then combine the indicators with international food trade data to analyse the increasingly significant linkages between food producing regions and remote consumers. Finally, I will use the developed global datasets, indicators, and trade analysis to carry out country level case studies assessing pathways to achieving environmental sustainability of food production and supply.The research draws from environmental footprint analysis, which has been used successfully to both understand and stimulate policy interest in global resource use and scarcity. More recently, the interactions between water, food, trade and the climate have been increasingly recognised in many studies pinpointing the need for multi-disciplinary and cross-sectoral approaches. Using state-of-the-art, emerging environmental datasets, this work will generate new knowledge on globally significant environmental processes and profile policy relevant insights.

拟议的研究旨在提高对全球粮食生产和贸易的环境影响和可持续性的了解，并提出减轻这种影响的解决方案。自然环境为我们提供了必要的资源和生态系统服务，但人类活动带来的压力却越来越大。重要的是，由于人口增长和社会经济发展，对粮食的需求不断增加，导致农业中水、土地和肥料的密集使用。灌溉占全球淡水抽取量的三分之二以上，农业占据地球陆地表面的三分之一以上，排放的温室气体占全球四分之一。此外，到 2050 年，粮食产量将需要大幅增加，才能养活另外约 20 亿人。因此，确保环境可持续、充足的粮食生产是一项艰巨而紧迫的全球挑战。为了应对这一挑战，我的研究将通过考虑世界各地的不同做法和当地条件，对我们目前对农业多重环境影响的理解做出重大改进。这将有助于对农业可持续性进行全面评估，并有助于量化与不同农业管理策略相关的权衡。事实上，由于农业实践紧密相连（例如水和土壤管理），因此必须考虑所有主要环境方面，以避免专注于单一方面的战略产生意想不到的后果。该研究还将考虑贸易；随着最近的全球化，国际食品贸易自20世纪80年代以来迅速增长，促进了主要出口导向型农业地区的发展。贸易在全球农业系统中的这一关键作用将被纳入对实现环境可持续农业的潜在途径的评估中。拟议的研究涉及评估可持续农业途径所需的关键整合领域：(1) 环境影响的综合评估，(2) 一系列产品（农作物和牲畜）的整合，(3) 可持续发展的创新定量措施以及 (4) 同时链接 为了实现我的研究目标，我将结合新兴的环境数据集和模型，通过水和土地资源的利用、富营养化（营养物泄漏造成的生态系统污染）和气候变化，持续评估粮食生产对环境的潜在影响。然后，我将应用创新技术将这些估计结合起来，形成全球粮食生产环境可持续性的空间详细指标。这个雄心勃勃的创新研究项目将提供第一个同时评估粮食系统对环境的主要影响的工具。它非常重要，因为它针对的是环境可持续性和粮食安全的主要全球挑战。然后，我将把这些指标与国际食品贸易数据结合起来，分析食品生产地区和偏远消费者之间日益重要的联系。最后，我将利用已开发的全球数据集、指标和贸易分析来开展国家级案例研究，评估实现粮食生产和供应的环境可持续性的途径。该研究借鉴了环境足迹分析，该分析已成功用于理解和激发政策对全球资源利用和稀缺性的兴趣。最近，许多研究越来越认识到水、粮食、贸易和气候之间的相互作用，指出需要采取多学科和跨部门方法。这项工作将使用最先进的新兴环境数据集，产生有关全球重要环境过程的新知识，并分析政策相关见解。

项目成果

Climate change impacts on water sustainability of South African crop production.

• DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ac80cf
• 发表时间: 2022-08-01
• 期刊: Environmental research letters : ERL [Web site]

Beyond the Green Revolution: A roadmap for sustainable food systems research and action

• DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ac9425
• 发表时间: 2022-09
• 期刊: Environmental Research Letters
• 影响因子: 6.7
• 作者: K. Davis;C. Dalin;M. Kummu;Landon T. Marston;P. Pingali;Marta Tuninetti

What do changing weather and climate shocks and stresses mean for the UK food system?

不断变化的天气和气候冲击和压力对英国粮食系统意味着什么？

• DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ac68f9
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: Environmental Research Letters
• 影响因子: 6.7
• 作者: Falloon P

Global Groundwater

全球地下水

• DOI: 10.1016/b978-0-12-818172-0.00025-6
• 发表时间: 2021
• 作者: Dalin C

Encyclopedia of Food Security and Sustainability

粮食安全和可持续发展百科全书

• DOI: 10.1016/b978-0-08-100596-5.22500-6
• 发表时间: 2019
• 作者: Dalin C