Metrics of food security and sustainability An indicator-based vulnerability and resilience approach

In: http://hdl.handle.net/10761/4012

Abstract

Food crises and global climate change, along with natural system depletion, placed food security and environmental sustainability at the top of the political agenda. Analyses of the dynamic interlinkages between food consumption patterns and environmental concerns recently received considerable attention from the international community. Using the lens of a broad sustainability approach and recognizing the systemic dimension of sustainability - as the capacity of a system to maintain its functions over time - the thesis aimed at developing a multidimensional framework, to identify metrics for assessing the sustainability of food systems and diets, applicable at a subregional level. Building on Social-Ecological Systems frameworks, the Mediterranean Latin Arc presents several socioeconomic and biophysical drivers of change making the food system vulnerable in its functions. A vulnerability/resilience approach was applied to analyze the main issues related to food and nutrition security. Formalizing the food system as a dynamic complex system, a model originates from this framework. Several causal models of vulnerability were identified, describing the interactions where drivers of change directly affect food and nutrition security outcomes, disentangling exposure, sensitivity, and resilience. This theoretical modeling exercise allowed the identification of a first suite of indicators. A reduced pool of metrics was then obtained through an expert-based elicitation process (Delphi Survey), moving beyond subjective evaluation and reaching consensus.