Descrizione del progetto
Tracciare l’impronta ambientale della produzione alimentare
La produzione di cibo è vitale per l’umanità; sfortunatamente, tuttavia, provoca ingenti danni ambientali. Negli ultimi 60 anni, uno sviluppo rapido e ineguale ha messo a dura prova le capacità di sopportazione del pianeta. Nonostante i progressi compiuti in tal ambito, i primi impatti esercitati a livello alimentare prima del 1961 sono tuttora scarsamente quantificati. Il progetto WHEP, finanziato dal CER, cercherà di colmare questa lacuna tracciando l’impronta ambientale degli alimenti e mettendola in connessione all’alimentazione umana a partire dal 1850 con l’obiettivo di quantificare gli impatti, analizzare il ruolo del commercio e valutare le disuguaglianze. Gli obiettivi di WHEP comprendono la creazione di una banca dati globale, la stima degli impatti ambientali generati, la tracciabilità dell’impronta dei prodotti nelle catene commerciali e l’analisi delle traiettorie all’interno di uno spazio operativo sicuro e giusto. La ricerca svolta nell’ambito del progetto promette di svelare la storia dell’impatto ambientale dell’alimentazione, aprendo la strada all’elaborazione di politiche eque e sostenibili.
Obiettivo
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.
Campo scientifico
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsIstituzione ospitante
28006 Madrid
Spagna