Description
write and present an assessment of a food-water system of your choice. You can choose any topic related to sustainable food and water systems, spanning from agriculture production, landscape planning, conservation, soils, water, climate shocks, policy, historical accounts, urban food production, water management systems, etc.
You also have the freedom to focus your term paper on a specific region (your city, state, country, planet).
One suggestion (not a requirement) is to introduce the topic of your choice and describe how such system works, how it is changing in response to global and/or societal changes, and how conservation opportunities could affect the future pathways of your system with focus on ways to make your system mode sustainable. I strongly suggest getting some inspiration about how to format your term paper from the policy briefs listed below.
The description of the system of your choice may rely on the material presented in class but may also include social-economic or other aspects of food-water systems (e.g., climate change) that havent been discussed yet. The term paper should have at least 2,500 words and as many as ten figures although fewer figures are advised. References do not count towards the 2,500 words.
Note that if you use one of the tools listed below (or others that you may find), you will get 5 extra points out of 100. In other words, if you create a new map or a new analysis to quantify changes in food-water systems (either over time or space), you get extra 5 points. the presentation HAS to be about the term paper you wrote.
You have the choice to develop of your project in pairs or alone.
I put together a list of websites that may help you to develop your paper.
Examples of policy briefs:
http://www.fao.org/3/cb2227en/CB2227EN.pdf (Links to an external site.)
Tools:
https://trase.earth/explore (Links to an external site.)
https://www.globalforestwatch.org/ (Links to an external site.)
https://www.wri.org/aqueduct/ (Links to an external site.)
https://waterpeacesecurity.org/map (Links to an external site.)
https://app.climateengine.org/climateEngine (Links to an external site.)
Infographic (please feel free to use these figures in your paper):
http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/foodpricesindex/en/ (Links to an external site.)
http://www.fao.org/resources/infographics/en/ (Links to an external site.)
https://www.wri.org/resources/data-visualizations/tale-two-watersheds (Links to an external site.)
https://www.wri.org/resources/data-visualizations/protein-scorecard (Links to an external site.)
Some interesting material:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/feeding-9-billion/ (Links to an external site.)
https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Statistics/ (Links to an external site.)
https://nifa.usda.gov/program/sustainable-agriculture-program (Links to an external site.)
https://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/sustainable-agriculture-0 (Links to an external site.)
fao.org/organicag/oa-faq/oa-faq2/en/ (Links to an external site.)
http://www.fao.org/publications/sofi/en/ (Links to an external site.)
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.estlett.5b00122 (Links to an external site.)
https://naturalcapitalproject.stanford.edu/ (Links to an external site.)
https://undocs.org/en/E/2020/57 (Links to an external site.)
http://www.fao.org/sdg-progress-report/en/#sdg-15 (Links to an external site.)
Certification:
https://responsiblesoy.org/?lang=en (Links to an external site.)
http://foodalliance.org/ (Links to an external site.)
https://www.usda.gov/topics/organic (Links to an external site.)
http://www.leonardoacademy.org/services/standards/agstandard.html (Links to an external site.)
https://rspo.org/ (Links to an external site.)
SDGs and agri:
http://www.fao.org/sdg-progress-report/en/#chapeau (Links to an external site.)
Misc:
https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/what-sustainable-agriculture (Links to an external site.)