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a buffer and a redundancy because it allows an input to be completely turned off
without affecting a process—at least until the storage is exhausted. A reservoir provides is a buffer that provides storage. Adding storage to FEW systems has made
them more reliable and resilient, and can also improve economic efficiency by
allowing FEW producers and consumers to ride out peaks and valleys in commodity
pricing. But storage is not enough to prevent failures or cascades. Decoupling is a
strategy to make remove dependency on a network during an emergency. For example, a house is completely separated from the power grid and runs on its own solar
energy is decoupled.
We also need to mind the soft infrastructure, and make sure that we have the
human systems in place to anticipate, redesign, adapt, repair, and recover from disruptions in the FEW system. These strategies are implemented at interconnection
points between infrastructure layers.
Because a large fraction of the inputs to FEW systems are ecosystem services,
FEW systems are unusually dependent upon the stability and healthy function of the
climate, environment, and natural ecosystems. The production, transportation, and
storage of clean freshwater are mostly provided by the Earth’s water cycle. The
water cycle takes huge amounts of solar energy as an input to distill and transport
ocean water to the continents, where rain falls into watersheds, soaks into storage in
aquifers, and then rivers that reliably release and transport stored groundwater yearround to our large farms and cities (Falkenmark 1977). If the climate changes and
disrupts this water cycle, people will need to build and power water infrastructures
capable of desalinating and transporting a literal river of water from the ocean to the
continental inland—an expensive proposition. Other examples abound; farms
depend heavily on growing climate and soil quality for cost effective production,
and electrical energy is increasingly produced by solar, wind, and hydroelectric
resources. This natural infrastructure has an important role in the FEW system,
so changes to natural infrastructure, ecosystems, and climate have demonstrable
cascading effects throughout the whole FEW system.
10.3 Infrastructure Supports the FEW Supply Chain
Food, Energy and Water supply chains are supported by infrastructure. FEW commodities tend to be massive and voluminous, and therefore require substantial infrastructure (Criterion 2). Inflow/Outflow or Import/Export are implied in every step of
the supply chain. At each step in the supply chain there is a point of origin of the
flow, a point of destination for the flow, a route traveled by the flow, and a mode of
transportation for the commodity flow. The mode of transportation is always a type
of infrastructure, such as a truck operating on a road system. The route follows a
spatial path, consumes time, and crosses a distance. The points of origin and destination exist in space and time, and these represent human producers and consumers,
storage facilities, and also natural systems like aquifers that can produce ecosystem
goods and services. Most supply chains involve a variety of intermediate producers
10 Infrastructure
a buffer and a redundancy because it allows an input to be completely turned off
without affecting a process—at least until the storage is exhausted. A reservoir provides is a buffer that provides storage. Adding storage to FEW systems has made
them more reliable and resilient, and can also improve economic efficiency by
allowing FEW producers and consumers to ride out peaks and valleys in commodity
pricing. But storage is not enough to prevent failures or cascades. Decoupling is a
strategy to make remove dependency on a network during an emergency. For example, a house is completely separated from the power grid and runs on its own solar
energy is decoupled.
We also need to mind the soft infrastructure, and make sure that we have the
human systems in place to anticipate, redesign, adapt, repair, and recover from disruptions in the FEW system. These strategies are implemented at interconnection
points between infrastructure layers.
Because a large fraction of the inputs to FEW systems are ecosystem services,
FEW systems are unusually dependent upon the stability and healthy function of the
climate, environment, and natural ecosystems. The production, transportation, and
storage of clean freshwater are mostly provided by the Earth’s water cycle. The
water cycle takes huge amounts of solar energy as an input to distill and transport
ocean water to the continents, where rain falls into watersheds, soaks into storage in
aquifers, and then rivers that reliably release and transport stored groundwater yearround to our large farms and cities (Falkenmark 1977). If the climate changes and
disrupts this water cycle, people will need to build and power water infrastructures
capable of desalinating and transporting a literal river of water from the ocean to the
continental inland—an expensive proposition. Other examples abound; farms
depend heavily on growing climate and soil quality for cost effective production,
and electrical energy is increasingly produced by solar, wind, and hydroelectric
resources. This natural infrastructure has an important role in the FEW system,
so changes to natural infrastructure, ecosystems, and climate have demonstrable
cascading effects throughout the whole FEW system.
10.3 Infrastructure Supports the FEW Supply Chain
Food, Energy and Water supply chains are supported by infrastructure. FEW commodities tend to be massive and voluminous, and therefore require substantial infrastructure (Criterion 2). Inflow/Outflow or Import/Export are implied in every step of
the supply chain. At each step in the supply chain there is a point of origin of the
flow, a point of destination for the flow, a route traveled by the flow, and a mode of
transportation for the commodity flow. The mode of transportation is always a type
of infrastructure, such as a truck operating on a road system. The route follows a
spatial path, consumes time, and crosses a distance. The points of origin and destination exist in space and time, and these represent human producers and consumers,
storage facilities, and also natural systems like aquifers that can produce ecosystem
goods and services. Most supply chains involve a variety of intermediate producers
10 Infrastructure