47
• “Virtual” water-embedded crops and products that are traded.
• Drought and famine in low development status countries and subsistence farming
economies.
• Access to out-of-season food via trade and long-distance transportation.
• Food waste as a major inefficiency (over 30% is wasted).
• Government policies of overproduction and subsidy.
• Transitions (and declines) of farm communities.
• Smart agriculture technology.
• Bioengineering for higher yields (the green revolution).
• Nutrient and energy input management, including extra use of fertilizer as
“insurance.”
• Nonpoint source farm pollution, oxygen depletion (hypoxia), and aquatic
ecosystems.
• Industrial-scale food supply chains and food safety.
• Changing the nutritional content of foods as a result of breeding and/or heavy
processing.
• Changing diet and its health implications in high development status countries.
• Growing meat consumption and its footprint implications.
• Refrigeration and its fragility and electrical demands.
• Humans as the largest users of the terrestrial land surface.
• Volatility in water supplies from both drought and flood (sometimes in
proximity).
• Volatility of food prices in low development status countries.
• Land competition between crops for first-generation biofuels and other agricultural products.
• Land use for crops that are exported from less developed countries to more
developed countries.
• Impact of global markets and trade.
2.4 Energy Systems
Energy systems, at the largest scale, integrate into a whole the various components
of energy resources, including their form (solid, liquid, gas, etc.), production,
conversion processes (and efficiencies), long-distance transmission, short-distance
distribution, end-use, and wastes. Conversion processes include such actions as the
refining of gasoline and the generation of electricity and the conversion of biomass
into biofuels.
Decision-making defined by political borders, energy processes, or end-user
communities typically defines the boundaries of energy system studies and leads
to a demarcation between external factors and internal interactions, and to the
identification of the structural or functional relationships between different parts
of the system being considered. For example, electrical power grids have no internal physical boundaries, but the wires cross many different corporate, State,
2 Systems Science
• “Virtual” water-embedded crops and products that are traded.
• Drought and famine in low development status countries and subsistence farming
economies.
• Access to out-of-season food via trade and long-distance transportation.
• Food waste as a major inefficiency (over 30% is wasted).
• Government policies of overproduction and subsidy.
• Transitions (and declines) of farm communities.
• Smart agriculture technology.
• Bioengineering for higher yields (the green revolution).
• Nutrient and energy input management, including extra use of fertilizer as
“insurance.”
• Nonpoint source farm pollution, oxygen depletion (hypoxia), and aquatic
ecosystems.
• Industrial-scale food supply chains and food safety.
• Changing the nutritional content of foods as a result of breeding and/or heavy
processing.
• Changing diet and its health implications in high development status countries.
• Growing meat consumption and its footprint implications.
• Refrigeration and its fragility and electrical demands.
• Humans as the largest users of the terrestrial land surface.
• Volatility in water supplies from both drought and flood (sometimes in
proximity).
• Volatility of food prices in low development status countries.
• Land competition between crops for first-generation biofuels and other agricultural products.
• Land use for crops that are exported from less developed countries to more
developed countries.
• Impact of global markets and trade.
2.4 Energy Systems
Energy systems, at the largest scale, integrate into a whole the various components
of energy resources, including their form (solid, liquid, gas, etc.), production,
conversion processes (and efficiencies), long-distance transmission, short-distance
distribution, end-use, and wastes. Conversion processes include such actions as the
refining of gasoline and the generation of electricity and the conversion of biomass
into biofuels.
Decision-making defined by political borders, energy processes, or end-user
communities typically defines the boundaries of energy system studies and leads
to a demarcation between external factors and internal interactions, and to the
identification of the structural or functional relationships between different parts
of the system being considered. For example, electrical power grids have no internal physical boundaries, but the wires cross many different corporate, State,
2 Systems Science