Biophysical Model

Can Indigenous food systems meet the dietary needs for the people who depend on them? What will be the impact of climate change? Our biophysical simulation model helps to answer these questions for all 24 tribal nations in Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina.

You can read more about it here and below.

How did we do this?

Step 1: We started by working with our Indigenous Advisory Council and other Indigenous partners to collect primary data on land boundaries, crops of cultural importance, demographic characteristics of the Indigenous population, and the population size.

Step 2: Then, we collected secondary data on crop growing requirements, geoclimatic variables of our study area, and any remaining tribal land boundaries.

Step 3: Using the primary and secondary data from the earlier steps, we built a geoclimatic model that estimates the amount of agricultural land available to produce each crop of interest. This model is described here and here.

Step 4: Finally, we combined all of the data generated from the earlier steps to parameterize our new biophysical model.

What did we find?

In a changing climate, Indigenous food systems in the eastern US can support some, but not all, of the population's dietary needs using prime farmland.

However, all dietary needs can be met by:

1) expanding agricultural production onto subprime lands, and/or;

2) importing some foods.

This can be seen in the figure on the right, which shows Food Sovereignty Coefficients (FSC) for different scenarios. A FSC of 1 or higher (green boxes) means that Indigenous food systems can meet the dietary needs of the entire population. For example, a FSC of 2.13 means that 213% of the population can meet their dietary needs.