XClose

UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources

Home
Menu

Sustainability at the water-food-land nexus

sprinklers
 

What we do


The use of all resources is increasingly recognised as being interlinked, as conceptualised through the water-energy-food nexus debate. ISR pushes the boundaries of this debate through integrating minerals and land into nexus research.

The water and food resource nexus team at the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources is a growing team of academic staff, researchers and postgraduate students working at the global scale on issues related to agricultural production and its environmental impacts.

Our work


The FOODIES Project

The FOODIES project, led by Carole Dalin, is developing worldwide integrated indicators of the environmental sustainability of food production and trade, focusing on the impacts of agriculture on land, water scarcity, water quality and climate change. This is an Independent Research Fellowship project funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). Mark Jwaideh is carrying out a PhD studentship on this topic, particularly looking at water quality impacts.

BIOTA

BIOTA is a research collaboration between UCL and other partners, led by UCL CBER and the Institute for Sustainable Resources. The project aims to reveal the interactions between global biodiversity change and human food security. It is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

In this project, we focus on evaluating and explaining the interactions between food production and biodiversity, and we will also quantify the role of trade linkages in shaping the impacts of food production on biodiversity globally.

In order to effectively progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, it is necessary to understand the interactions between biodiversity changes and human food security. Agricultural land use and land-use change are some of the largest pressures on biodiversity. However, biodiversity changes may also impact food production as it provides important ecosystem services that support agriculture.

In this project, we aim to advance biodiversity models to explain the interactions between biodiversity change and food production at a global scale.

We will also investigate how global trade in agricultural products is linked to biodiversity change, to identify where food consumption has particularly strong biodiversity impacts, potentially in remote regions of the world.

Finally, we will make future predictions to identify the pathways of development in human societies that are likely to lead to smaller or larger interactions with biodiversity.


SHEFS

SHEFS is a global research programme funded by the Wellcome Trust (running from 2017 to 2021) with three country case study sites: the United Kingdom, South Africa and India. The project is a multi-partner research consortium led by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in partnership with the University of KwaZulu Natal; the University College London; the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS); the Centre for Food Policy at City, the University of London; the Food Foundation; the University of Aberdeen; the Royal Veterinary College; and the Centre for Chronic Disease Control in India.

SHEFS is also working with other organisations in this field, in particular the Livestock, Environment and People project (LEAP) led by the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford. It links to and builds upon several other Wellcome Trust-funded research projects looking at global food systems and health, led by LSHTM and SOAS, including Sustainable and Healthy Diets in India (SAHDI), Palm Oil: Sustainability, Health and Economics (POSHE), and Future Diets and Health (FUDAH).

 

People

Carole Dalin 
Principle Research Fellow
View Carole's profile
Send Carole an email

Chrysanthi Rapti
Research Associate
View Chysanthi's profile
Send Chrysanthi an email

David Norse
Honorary Visiting Professor
View David's profile
Send David an email

Tim Newbold
Research Fellow
View Tim's profile
Send Tim an email

Abbie Chapman
Research Fellow
View Abbie's profile
Send Abbie an email

Raimund Bleischwitz
Chair in sustainable Global Resources
View Raimund's profile
Send Raimund an email

Julia Tomei
Lecturer in Energy, Resources and Development
View Julia's profile
Send Julia an email

Monica Ortiz
Research Associate
View Monica's profile
Send Monica an email

Teresa Domenech
Lecturer 
View Teresa's profile
Send Teresa an email

Paul Dodds
Professor of Energy Systems
View Paul's profile
Send Paul an email

Paolo Agnolucci
Associate Professor
View Paolo's profile
Send Paolo an email

Charlie Outhwaite
Research Associate
View Charlie's profile
Send Charlie an email

Elizabeth Boakes
Research Fellow
View Elizabeth's profile
Send Elizabeth an email