The food-print of Paris: long-term reconstruction of the nitrogen flows imported into the city from its rural hinterland

Billen, Gilles; Barles, Sabine; Garnier, Josette; Rouillard, Joséphine; Benoit, Paul

doi:10.1007/s10113-008-0051-y

Cited by 107 publications

(87 citation statements)

References 15 publications

(17 reference statements)

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“…These figures correspond to the mean values currently observed in the three basins, based on official agricultural statistics (Agreste 2000;NIS 2000), and conversion coefficients (cf. Table 1, in Billen et al 2009b). The area devoted to cereal cultivation is then calculated by assuming that a certain proportion of the agricultural area not devoted to fodder crops is used for N 2 -fixing green manure production.…”

Section: Agronomical Constraintsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nitrogen cycling in a hypothetical scenario of generalised organic agriculture in the Seine, Somme and Scheldt watersheds

et al. 2010

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Nitrogen contamination of ground and surface water in the Seine, Somme and Scheldt watersheds, as well as in the receiving coastal marine zones, results in severe ecological problems. Previous modelling results showed that the implementation of classical management measures involving improvement of wastewater purification and ''good agricultural practices'' are not sufficient to obviate these problems. A more radical scenario was therefore established, consisting of a generalised shift to organic agriculture of all agricultural areas in the three basins, with the additional constraints that livestock is fed only on local fodder production. This scenario involves an increased livestock density in the Seine and Somme and a decrease in livestock in the Scheldt basin. It leads to a significant reduction of agricultural production that finally brings the three basins closer to autotrophy/heterotrophy equilibrium. Nitrate concentrations in most of the drainage network would drop below the threshold of 2.25 mgN/l in the most optimistic hypothesis. The excess of nitrogen over silica (with respect to the requirements of marine diatoms) delivered into the coastal zones would be decreased by a factor from 2 to 5, thus strongly reducing, but not entirely eliminating the potential for marine eutrophication.

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Section: Agronomical Constraintsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nitrogen cycling in a hypothetical scenario of generalised organic agriculture in the Seine, Somme and Scheldt watersheds

et al. 2010

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“…Yet, adopting a common bio-physical and socio-metabolic approach, linked to land-use and global environmental changes, 120 Williams (2003). 121 Stanhill (1984), Schmid Neset (2005) and Billen et al (2009). would help achieve a greater understanding of how economic growth actually occurs, and the role ecological impacts entail on life-support systems of the Earth.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…65 Krausmann (2013). 66 Billen et al (2009). However, if we adopt an ecological-economic perspective we can easily see that market networks might also become a double-edged sword.…”

Section: Land-use and Livestock Breeding As A Crucial Metabolic Hingementioning

confidence: 99%

The Basic Environmental History

Agnoletti¹,

Serneri²

2014

Environmental History

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Ecological economics is enabling economic and environmental historians to enhance their understanding of economic growth, by placing it in a broader perspective of biophysical interactions between nature and society. In this chapter, several ongoing researches and historical debates are examined from this standpoint such as the missing role of energy carriers in GDP growth, the socio-metabolic profiles of past and present societies, the pre-industrial 'Smithian' responses to 'Malthusian' traps, the role of efficient land-use in breeding livestock to increase agricultural yields, the reasons why the Industrial Revolution began in a high wage and cheap energy economy, the first globalization as a socio-metabolic watershed, and the question of whether there was a general crisis of biomass energies at the coming of fossil fuels era. Research discussing long-term socio-metabolic transitions may contribute to our understanding of how economic growth actually occurred, and which ecological impacts affected the Earth's life-support systems. Equally, these projects leave room for the institutional settings or ruling actors needed to explain why growth has happened and by whom. Far from naturalising history, the use of ecology in the explanation of human history historialises ecology.

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“…The definition of a hinterland varies in literature but depends upon resource demand in the city and on the ease of transportation between the city and the resource production area, which is determined by geographic, infrastructural and socio-economic factors (Billen et al, 2009). To capture these elements, we define city hinterlands based on the hierarchical overlay of supra-to subnational administrative borders and Thiessen polygon operation among cities based on the gravity equation of trade with mass equal to demand and distance equal to the cost distance of trade via road, rail and inland water ways (Fig.…”

Section: The City and Its Hinterlandmentioning

confidence: 99%

A framework for modelling the complexities of food and water security under globalisation

et al. 2018

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Abstract. We present a new framework for modelling the complexities of food and water security under globalisation. The framework sets out a method to capture regional and sectoral interdependencies and cross-scale feedbacks within the global food system that contribute to emergent water use patterns. The framework integrates aspects of existing models and approaches in the fields of hydrology and integrated assessment modelling. The core of the framework is a multi-agent network of city agents connected by infrastructural trade networks. Agents receive socio-economic and environmental constraint information from integrated assessment models and hydrological models respectively and simulate complex, socio-environmental dynamics that operate within those constraints. The emergent changes in food and water resources are aggregated and fed back to the original models with minimal modification of the structure of those models. It is our conviction that the framework presented can form the basis for a new wave of decision tools that capture complex socio-environmental change within our globalised world. In doing so they will contribute to illuminating pathways towards a sustainable future for humans, ecosystems and the water they share.

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The food-print of Paris: long-term reconstruction of the nitrogen flows imported into the city from its rural hinterland

Cited by 107 publications

References 15 publications

Nitrogen cycling in a hypothetical scenario of generalised organic agriculture in the Seine, Somme and Scheldt watersheds

Nitrogen cycling in a hypothetical scenario of generalised organic agriculture in the Seine, Somme and Scheldt watersheds

The Basic Environmental History

A framework for modelling the complexities of food and water security under globalisation

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