What Is the Vulnerability of a Food System to Global Environmental Change

By P. Ericksen. 2008

279 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Assessing the vulnerability of broadly described food systems to global environmental change requires a new, synthetic approach. Food systems can best be conceptualized as the integration of humans and the environment or coupled social-ecological systems. However, much of the existing literature on vulnerability assessment focuses on either social or ecological systems, and conceptual gaps limit the holistic evaluation of linked systems in which both social and ecosystem outcomes are important. I suggest an approach with which to integrate factors across a food system to assess the system's vulnerability to environmental change by focusing on key processes and system characteristics. However, the multiple objectives of different actors in food systems make tradeoffs inevitable and complicate the evaluation of vulnerability. Further development and use of this approach is a promising avenue for future research because empirical evidence is needed to further elaborate these understandings.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, General Agricultural and Biological Sciences, General Health Professions

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ade3c931150f606057fd57d84ec1d53fd2c9fd6b

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

1. V. Reyes‐García
2. E. Oteros‐Rozas
3. E. Gómez‐Baggethun
4. Ricardo Ontillera-Sánchez
5. John J. A. Ingram
6. Pau Sanosa
7. José A. González

In General Agricultural and Biological Sciences

1. V. Reyes‐García
2. E. Oteros‐Rozas
3. E. Gómez‐Baggethun
4. Ricardo Ontillera-Sánchez
5. John J. A. Ingram
6. Pau Sanosa
7. José A. González

In General Health Professions

1. John J. A. Ingram

Citations in the corpus

• Exploring European food system vulnerabilities: Towards integrated food security governance (2017, unknown): “Such conceptualizations have proven to be particularly relevant in conducting systemic analyses of food security, since environmental and social outcomes are critical to delivering good food for all (Ericksen 2008b).”
• A food systems approach to researching food security and its interactions with global environmental change (2011, background): “Food system Activities and food security Outcomes (derived from Ericksen 2008a; Ingram 2009; Ericksen et al. 2010a) Food systems encompass a number of Activities which give rise to a number of food security Outcomes.”
• Research, part of a Special Feature on Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Adaptation to Global Environmental Change: North and South Perspectives Traditional ecological knowledge among transhumant pastoralists in Mediterranean Spain (2013, background): “The management of risks in food production caused by fluctuations in primary productivity and water availability is a major challenge for human populations (Ericksen 2008).”