Data collection and analysis

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3.2 Data collection and analysis

The study has been largely based on desk analysis of available literature on linkages between ecosystem services and food security at global and regional Amazon level, the state of food security, the impacts of land use change mainly through deforestation for agricultural expansion and intensification and the development of industrial activities, the effects of climate change as a “threat multiplier” for food security, as well as sustainable solution to mitigate trade-offs between economic development and social and environmental sustainability. Most challenges related to data collection refer to the availability of up-to-date, disaggregated information regarding the state of food security in the Amazon region. In general, the data are disaggregated by country and there is little information for the Amazon region per se. The only documents addressing this topic in the Amazon basin were elaborated 15 years ago by the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization ACTO, which fails to reflect recent development and trends in the region related to deforestation, the expansion of land for biofuels production or population growth. This also makes it difficult to draw conclusion tailored for the basin only, or to compare basin-level results with the overall food security state in the country. Moreover, where information on food security is available for departmental level, it is strictly related to the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals MDG and does not go beyond hunger and malnutrition figures, missing out indicators that refer to physical and economic access to food or utilization. Another aspect worth mentioning is that most of the publications that address the food security, land use change and climate change topics in the Amazon are focusing on the Brazilian rainforest. This indicates the need for more attention on the other countries that share territory in the basin too, since they are equally rich in biodiversity and in various ecosystem services essential for human subsistence and well-being and since the extent of the threats to food security reaches these regions too. To provide an insight into the future climate projections in the Amazon we used GIS tools, apart from analyzing existing literature. Hence, the A1B scenario of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change IPCC was run for all 24 Global 14 Climate Models GCMs for the year 2050. The average was calculated for both mean annual precipitation and mean annual temperature. In order to identify and illustrate deforestation rates in the Amazon basin, we also used Terra-i, a monitoring tool that detects land-cover changes as a consequence of human activity in near-real times, with updates every 16 days and for every 250 m² of land. The tool is the result of collaboration between the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, The Nature Conservancy, the School of Business and Engineering and King’s College London 1 . The data are available for the entire Latin America, from 2004 up until the present. 1 For more information, see http:terra-i.orgterra-idata.html 15

4. ECOSYSTEM SERVICES AND FOOD SECURITY