A GIS-Based Simulation Method for Regional Food Potential and Demand

Abstract

A quantitative assessment of food-water-energy interactions is important to assess pathways and scenarios towards a holistically sustainable regional development. While a range of tools and methods exist that assess energetic demands and potentials on a regional scale, the same is not true for assessments of regional food demand and potential. This work introduces a new food simulation workflow to address local food potential and demand at the regional level, by extending an existing regional energy-water simulation platform. The goal of this work is to develop a GIS-based bottom-up approach to simulate regional food demand that can be linked to similarly GIS-based workflows assessing regional water demands and energetic demands and potentials. This allows us to study food-water-energy issues on a local scale. For this, a CityGML land use data model is extended with a feed and animal potential raster map as well as a soil type map to serve as the main inputs. The workflow simulates: (1) the vegetal and animal product food potentials by taking climate, crop type, soil type, organic farming, and food waste parameters into account; (2) the food demand of vegetal and animal products influenced by population change, body weight, age, human development index, and other indicators. The method is tested and validated in three German counties with various land use coverages. The results show that restricting land used exclusively for energy crop production is the most effective way to increase annual food production potential. Climate change by 2050 is expected to result in annual biomass yield changes between −4% and 2% depending on the region. The amount of animal product consumption is expected to rise by 16% by 2050, while 4% fewer vegetal products are excepted to be consumed.