A Model Based Analysis of Jamaican Food Security Under Potential Climate Change Conditions

摘要

Rural income opportunities in Jamaica continue to deteriorate, increasing poverty in the countryside and fueling migration to urban peripheral areas. Food security is threatened by these trends especially in the face of future climate change includingincreased frequency and intensity of hurricanes. Participatory scenario modeling is a viable tool for exploring the risks to the Jamaican population's food security and can aid in making adaptive management plans. We have constructed an interactive model, QnD:Jamaica, that serves as a unique decision support tool to address and analyze the risks and resiliencies of four socioeconomic scenarios to global climate change. Specifically QnD:Jamaica simulates three key flows: domestic production/food imports, urban/rural migration, and financial gains/losses as they respond to the four scenarios. Through formal and informal dialogues with Jamaican stakeholder's we iteratively refined both the model structure and the collaborative development methodology. The model and its creation process have generated knowledge that will aid in future management decisions regarding food security in Jamaica and the Caribbean. QnD:Jamaica does not provide technical solutions but rather gives insights into questions regarding options for decreasing Jamaican food security vulnerabilities to natural disasters. Initial scenario results show how the food security of various rural and urban populations can vary over time and space with respect to climatic and economic changes.