Is the food system in Europe respecting the scarcity of natural resources such as water, soil fertility and fish stock?
The following section describes the metrics on Preservation of Natural resources that was embedded in Deliverable 6.3.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Performance metric 4: Preservation of Natural Resources
Sustainable water use
Description: Freshwater is regarded as one of the most important resources of the planet with agriculture being one of the largest consumers, with a current estimate of four billion people facing water scarcity today (Mekonnen & Hoekstra 2016). Climate change is likely to aggravate water scarcity and increase the number of people living with less than 500m3 of water per capita and year available (Schewe et al. 2014). Assessing sustainable use of water poses a particular challenge because of its large regional, but also temporal variability in water stress (Pfister & Bayer 2014) and the global water flows embedded in traded products (Vanham & Bidoglio 2014). The water footprint concept comprises the ‘blue’, ‘green’ and ‘grey’ water footprints, whereby the blue and green water footprints are associated with water consumption while the grey water footprint deals with water pollution (Hoekstra et al. 2011), whereby the green water footprints accounts for rain-fed water consumption and the blue water footprint for water evapotranspiration from additional irrigation water (Mekonnen & Hoekstra 2011).
Water use efficiency needs to increase substantially which is reflected in Sustainability Development Goals “Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all “12, in particular target 6.4 (increase water use efficiency) and here indicator 6.4.2 “Level of water stress: freshwater withdrawal as a proportion of available freshwater resources”
According to indicator 6.4.2, water stress is the ratio of water use (withdrawal) and water availability. Various authors point out that environmental flows that are required to maintain ecosystem services functioning need to be included (e.g. Mekonnen & Hoekstra 2016; Vanham et al. 2009). Also, return flows should be considered, thus using net rather than gross water abstraction (Mekonnen & Hoekstra 2016).
As many data required for a detailed assessment are not available for SUSFANS, we measures sustainable water as water consumption of blue and green water.
Policy vision: In theory, a zero blue water footprint is possible (Vanham & Bidoglio 2013); for the blue water footprint, we use a policy vision of zero blue water consumption in a food supply chain, recognizing however that zero blue water use is not realistic for some parts of Europe and also not required, depending on the renewal rate of blue water. However, also green water consumption might pose an environmental problem depending on the its impact on the local water stress and water environmental flows (Vanham & Bidoglio 2013). We therefore tentatively set a policy vision of a reduced green water footprint of 20% below reference situation. In accordance to the SDG target year, we set the target year for the policy goal to be 2030.
Policy targets: Linear interpolation to the policy target year as policy target, calculated from the water use calculated for the reference year and the value plus two points by 2030, or policy goal if the policy target year is 2030 or late.
Aggregated variables: Green and blue water consumption. If possible, they should be calculated separately, and their progress towards the policy goal averaged.
Sustainable exploitation of wild-caught seafood resources
Description: Capture fisheries have been proven to be challenging to manage. Research on how to define sustainable production levels has been intensive. One concept is the Maximum Sustainable Yield MSY (Mace 2001), the current management objective for yield in EU fisheries (EU 2014). Maximum Economic Yield MEY instead of MSY may allow for more profitable fisheries with a “biological buffer” (Marchal et al. 2016).
Today around 2500 species (or groups of species) are fished for, based on FAO landing statistics. Since the late 1980s, global production of capture fisheries has remained relatively constant; the limit has been reached. According to the latest estimates (2013), roughly 31% of the stocks were fished at unsustainable exploitation levels; 58% were fully fished whereas 11% under-utilized (FAO 2016)
Policy vision: The Common Fisheries Policy has set the target that stocks should be fished allowing for maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) by 2020.
Policy targets: Distance to optimum exploitation F/FMSY (see aggregated variables). Progress in this objective has been made in the northern fishing areas, while the Mediterranean shows little success (EU 2014).
Aggregated variables: Fishing pressure F and optimum fishing pressure FMSY These values vary between stocks and years and are not yet available for all stocks exploited in the EU. They are reported on an annual basis by the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES) for stocks in the Northeast Atlantic.
Maintenance of soil fertility
Description: Soil quality is influenced by a large number of factors, including soil acidification, mainly through deposition of N compounds, level of organic matter (linked to the GHG balance), soil physical quality (e.g avoiding compaction and/or soil erosion). Several of these threats to soil quality are already covered in other aggregated indictors.
In SUSFANS we therefore assess the aggregate indicator ‘maintenance of soil fertility’ by defining soil degradation in terms of loss of soils by soil erosion.
Policy vision: Long term policy vision is an increase of soil organic matter in agricultural soils. At the climate change negotiations at the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21) in Paris (November 30 to December 11, 2015), the “4 per Thousand” proposal was launched calling for a voluntary action plan to enhance soil organic carbon (SOC) content of world soils to a 40 cm (16 in) depth at the rate of 0.4% per year (Lal 2016; UNFCCC 2015).
Policy targets: In line with policy vision.
Aggregated variables: Loss of soil with soil erosion.