Descripción del proyecto
Rastreo de la huella ambiental de la producción alimentaria
La producción de alimentos es vital para la humanidad pero provoca grandes daños ambientales. En los últimos sesenta años, el desarrollo rápido y desigual ha puesto a prueba los límites del planeta. A pesar de los avances, los primeros efectos anteriores a 1961 siguen estando mal cuantificados. En respuesta, el equipo del proyecto WHEP, financiado por el Consejo Europeo de Investigación, abordará esta cuestión rastreando la huella ambiental de los alimentos y relacionándola con la nutrición humana desde 1850. Su objetivo es cuantificar los efectos, analizar el papel del comercio y evaluar las desigualdades. Entre los objetivos de WHEP figuran la creación de una base de datos mundial, la estimación del impacto ambiental, el rastreo de la huella de los productos en las cadenas comerciales y el análisis de las trayectorias dentro del espacio de funcionamiento seguro y justo. Esta investigación promete desvelar la historia del impacto ambiental de los alimentos, lo que allanará el camino a la formulación de unas políticas justas y sostenibles.
Objetivo
Food production covers the most basic human need, and simultaneously is the main driver of anthropogenic environmental impacts. These impacts have resulted in the transgression, during the brief period since the industrial revolution, of the planetary boundaries defining the safe operating space of humanity. A rich research literature quantifies the last 60 years’ fast, heterogeneous, and often unfair development in food supply and related environmental impacts, and how these depend on agro-climatic factors, technology, and trade flows, all of which have greatly changed but with different trajectories around the world. However, these developments lack an integrated approach, and are very poorly quantified before 1961. WHEP will bridge these knowledge gaps, assessing “who has eaten the planet” by answering the questions: “What are the environmental impacts of food production since 1850?”, “What is the role of trade in food supply and in displacing the responsibilities for these impacts?” “How are impacts related to planetary boundaries, food supply and inequality?” These highly ambitious goals are addressed by four objectives: 1) Constructing a consolidated global country-level annual database on agricultural production and management, using massive data collation in combination with modelling; 2) Estimating the environmental impacts: greenhouse gas emissions and carbon, land, water, nitrogen, and phosphorus through spatially explicit, integrated, dynamic modelling; 3) Calculating product footprints and tracing them along international trade chains; and 4) Analyzing the observed trajectories in the safe and just operating space, by assessing the drivers, and how impacts at the production and consumption levels are related to fair and healthy supply. This ground-breaking research will shed new light on the environmental history of food, opening up many new research frontiers, and providing necessary information to design fair and sustainable policies.
Ámbito científico
Palabras clave
Programa(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Régimen de financiación
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsInstitución de acogida
28006 Madrid
España