期刊名称：ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences
印刷版ISSN：2194-9042
电子版ISSN：2194-9050
出版年度：2002
卷号：XXXIV Part 1
出版社：Copernicus Publications
摘要：Geospatial Indicators (GI) is an exploration into the use of GIS, remote sensing and spatial reasoning methods to identify regions at risk due to inadequate food and water resources that are a result of inherent environmental scarcity, stress due to environmental dynamics and change, or inadequate social capital. The purpose is to lay an evidentiary foundation to assess risk on a global basis as a result of unmitigated environmental scarcities. This paper focuses on first results in Continental Africa and validation of those results using UN/FAO reported food emergencies over the past decade. GI process models are constructed using basic factors like population, land cover, and topography, to estimate inherent environmental capacity to supply sufficient food and water resources to meet expected demand. This inherent natural capacity, based on time history and/or representative data, depicts vulnerability to food or water insecurity. This vulnerability is then modulated using estimates of environmental dynamics derived from near real time measures of precipitation, vegetation development (based on AVHRR Land Pathfinder), and risk to natural hazards. Such dynamics depict additional stress to which the natural system is then exposed. Subsequent food and water balance surfaces are compared to measures of regional social capacity. Social capacity metrics reflect a region's resilience to scarcity as a function of governance, wealth, and infrastructure. The interplay of these computed factors of vulnerability, stress, and capacity provide estimates of the risk and likelihood of food and water insecurity
