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Environment

FSI scholars approach their research on the environment from regulatory, economic and societal angles. The Center on Food Security and the Environment weighs the connection between climate change and agriculture; the impact of biofuel expansion on land and food supply; how to increase crop yields without expanding agricultural lands; and the trends in aquaculture. FSE’s research spans the globe – from the potential of smallholder irrigation to reduce hunger and improve development in sub-Saharan Africa to the devastation of drought on Iowa farms. David Lobell, a senior fellow at FSI and a recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant, has looked at the impacts of increasing wheat and corn crops in Africa, South Asia, Mexico and the United States; and has studied the effects of extreme heat on the world’s staple crops.

Using Climate Models to Improve Indonesian Food Security

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El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events exert significant influence on Southeast Asian rice output and markets. This paper measures ENSO effects on Indonesia's national and regional rice production and on world rice prices, using the August Niño 3.4 sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) to gauge climate variability. It shows that each degree Celsius change in the August SSTA produces a 1,318,000 metric ton effect on output and a $21/metric ton change in the world price for lower quality rice. Of the inter-annual production changes due to SSTA variation, 90% occur within 12 provinces, notably Java and South Sulawesi. New data and models offer opportunities to understand the agricultural effects of ENSO events, to reach early consensus on coming ENSO effects, and to use forecasting to improve agencies' and individuals' capacity to mitigate climate effects on food security. We propose that Indonesia hold an "ENSO summit" each September to analyse the food-security implications of upcoming climate events.

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Publication Type
Journal Articles
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies
Authors
Rosamond L. Naylor
Whitney L. Smith
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Elisabeth Paté-Cornell

475 Via Ortega Room 336
Huang Engineering Building
Stanford, CA 94305

(650) 723-3823
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Burt and Deedee McMurtry Professor of Engineering
Professor of Management Science and Engineering
CISAC Affiliated Faculty Member
Chair (Emerita) of Management Science and Engineering
FSI Senior Fellow by courtesy
mep.png PhD

Dr. M. Elisabeth Paté-Cornell was born in Dakar, Senegal. Her academic degrees are in mathematics and physics (BS, Marseilles, France, 1968), applied mathematics and computer science (MS and Engineer Degree, Institut Polytechnique de Grenoble, France, 1970; 1971), operations research (MS, Stanford, 1972), and engineering-economic systems (Stanford, PhD, 1978). She was an Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at MIT (1978 to 1981). In 1981, she joined the Stanford Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, where she became Professor (1991), then Chair (1997). In 1999, she was named the Burt and Deedee McMurtry Professor in the Stanford School of Engineering. She oversaw from 1999, the merger of two Stanford departments to form a new department of Management Science and Engineering, which she chaired from January 2000 to June 2011. She is a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) of the Stanford Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. She joined CISAC as an affiliated faculty member in September 2011.

She was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1995, to its Council (2001-2007), and to the French Académie des Technologies (2003). She was a member of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board (2001-2004; 2006-2008). Her current memberships include the Boards of Trustees of the Aerospace Corp. (2004-), of InQtel (2006-) and of Draper Corporation (2009-). She is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Naval Postgraduate School, which she chaired from 2004 to 2006.

She is a world leader in engineering risk analysis and management and more generally, the use of Bayesian probability to process incomplete information. Her research and that of her Engineering Risk Research Group at Stanford have focused on the inclusion of technical and management factors in probabilistic risk analysis models with applications to the NASA shuttle tiles, offshore oil platforms and medical systems. Since 2001, she has combined risk analysis and game analysis to assess intelligence information and risks of terrorist attacks.

She is past president (1995)/fellow of the Society for Risk Analysis, and fellow of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science. She has been a consultant to many industrial firms and government organizations. She has authored or co-authored more than a hundred papers in refereed journals and conference proceedings. She has received several best-paper awards from professional organizations and peer-reviewed journals.

See profile here.

Consequences of Increased Global Meat Consumption on the Global Environment: Trade in virtual water and nutrients

Meat production is projected to double by 2020 due to increased incomes, population growth, and rising per capita global consumption of meat. In order to meet this demand, industrialized animal production systems are proliferating and grain production for feed is expanding. These trends will have major consequences on the global environment-affecting the quality of the atmosphere, water, and soil due to nutrient overloads; impacting marine fisheries both locally and globally through fish meal use; and threatening human health, as, for example, through excessive use of antibiotics.

Search for Sustainable Solutions in Salmon Aquaculture

Continued growth in farmed salmon production worldwide--combined with emerging growth in the production of other lucrative farmed finfish species such as bluefin tuna, cod, and halibut--threatens marine ecosystems and heightens the need for sustainable solutions to farming practices. The debate over "whither farmed salmon" remains widely polarized, with environmental groups calling for the complete elimination of marine aquaculture or a move to land-based systems that are economically unviable under current market conditions.

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