Spatialised method for analysing the impact of food

Diets of residents in cities across the world are shaped by globalised systems of food production, supply, sale and consumption. Consequently, this distances the consumer from the impacts it has on the landscape, in addition to the energy and water needed to grow, process and transport food. This chapter sets out a method for spatialising the impact of Northern Irish food production and consumption by quantifying and visualising the land use in the production cycle, carbon sequestration area to offset full life-cycle emissions and rainwater collection area needed for production. The process spatialises the ‘food print’ at the scale of the individual, the household, the neighbourhood, the city and at the regional level to underscore the challenges of moving towards sustainable forms of production and consumption. It explores future dietary possibilities and the impact it has on the ‘food print’ to highlight the benefits of moving towards vegetarian and vegan diets. Finally, the chapter demonstrates how design interventions in the neighbourhood can reduce the ‘food print’ of residents by proposing productive, technical food systems.


Introduction
The impact of food on the environment, through land use and carbon emissions, is increasingly common in the public discourse.Citizens, as consumers, are beginning to educate themselves on the impacts of the production, processing, packaging, delivery and sale of food on our planet.Likewise, researchers, architects and urbanists highlight the need to deal with food as a core ingredient in the sustainable city of the future.The current, linear food systems are radically transforming our urban and rural landscapes at a scale not seen before.It is, therefore, necessary to make architects and urbanists literate in the role food has in transforming landscapes.While agriculture emits significant proportions of greenhouse gas emissions (figure 5.1), it also offers an opportunity to reimagine the potentials for rural and urban landscapes for future food production under new dietary and climate trajectories.Ensuring food resilience and security, a starting point in visualising how food virtually affects the landscape allows urban designers and architects the opportunity to develop a design-led approach to future food systems.The quantification and visualisation of the impact of food consumption in the region, while mostly virtual, is significant in demonstrating how a multi-scaler, nested approach to intervention must be evaluated in order to identify where design might have the greatest impact.This chapters sets out a new methodology that aims to quantify and spatialize the impact of food consumption, using Northern Ireland as an example.The purpose of this process is to define the challenges facing current food flows that can be applied to contexts all over the world.Similarly, it seeks to determine the virtual footprint of the household in relation to land use, carbon sequestration and water collection based on annual food consumption of the average resident.The baseline analysis will be used to determine how a pathway to sustainable diets can be achieved in addition to identifying ways in which urban spaces can begin to accommodate technical food systems, thereby reducing carbon emissions and land use.Agriculture in Northern Ireland is a significant part of the economy and shapes the rural landscape.Farmland accounts for 72.4% of all land use with a significant proportion of farms (83%) used for livestock production (table 5.1), almost double the United Kingdom (U.K.) average (43%).Notably, 75% of all farms in Northern Ireland are considered to be in less favourable areas (LFAs) due to the poor soil quality, entitling farmers to additional income payments under the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) (DAERA, 2019b;CCC, 2019).Over the last ten years, there has been an increase in the number of pig and poultry livestock across Northern Ireland, 57.5% and 52% respectively, and a significant decrease in land used for crop production, notably cereals (-26.5%) and potatoes (-29.5%)(table 5.2).Consequently, the agriculture sector is the biggest source of CO2 emissions in Northern Ireland annually, accounting for 27% of total emissions, or 5.4 MtCO2e, in 2017 (DAERA, 2019a).1.The individual (PPC); 2. The average household (2.5 PCC); 3. The neighbourhood (in this case, inner east Belfast); 4. The city (Belfast); 5.The region (N.I.).Similarities in area required for land use and sequestration are noted at all scales.Land use refers to the area required for food production based on the per capita consumption of the Northern Irish diet.While most food production takes place virtually, outside of the country, it is determined and compared to the various scales of measurement.Different food requires different areas of land to produce a kilogram or litre for consumption (figure 5.2).The land use required to produce food based on PCC in N.I. is 1,317m 2 per person annually (table 5.5).Cattle, for beef (487m 2 PCC), and cows, for milk (111m 2 PCC), alone account for nearly half of land use for food production.When considering other meats as well including pork (111m 2 PCC) and chicken (136m 2 PCC) totals about 65% of the land use.This demonstrates the significance of livestock in shaping the regions landscape and diets but, more importantly, its environmental footprint.The area of land use for production was similar in size to the area of forest required to sequester the carbon emissions associated with full lifecycle production.This uses data associated with the emissions in production, processing, packaging, transportation and preparation of a given quantity of food (Hamerschlag, 2011).Once calculated, the area of forest needed to sequester the annual rate of emissions determined based on the planting is Sitka Spruce YC 16 which sequesters 3.6 tC/ha/year (Dewar and Cannell, 1992).The emissions based on per capita consumption are 1.71 tCO2e every year, requiring an area of 1,348 m 2 to sequester through forestry (table 5.6).When this is viewed for the entire region, a total of 17.8% of land use for forestry is required, an enormous task for Northern Ireland, considering it currently stands at 8%.Land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) is a net contributor to emissions rather than a net sink in the region (CEH, 2015;CCC, 2019).The largest areas for offsetting annual PCC are beef (572m 2 ), potatoes (305 m 2 ), pork (182m 2 ) and milk (178m 2 ).Interestingly, the difference between areas need to sequester carbon and grow the food (land use) were similar.Finally, the area required to collect all the water needed for food production was determined by assessing rainfall.Data on virtual water, the input needed to produce a kilogram, or litre, of a consumable food product, was assessed (Mekonnen and Hoekstra, 2010;ICE, 2013).It calculated the virtual water in the PCC of Northern Ireland residents and compared it to the average annual rainfall of the area to determine whether it would sufficiently meet the production needs.While this is a completely hypothetical test, as most food is grown elsewhere, the calculation demonstrated that the catchment areas of land use and area for sequestration, as shown previously, is enough to capture the required water for production (table 5.7).Food with the largest water needs for annual PCC in Northern Ireland are beef (326,434l), cereals (92,355l) and chocolate (90,012l).

Visualising the impact
To visualise each of the measures, the area for land use and sequestration were spatialised to household level as a means to provide literacy to designers about the impact of food on our landscapes.The new terrace house, where all food is produced locally and immediate to the home, allows the designer to acknowledge the spatial requirements to meet the current consumption of the residents (Steele, 2019).The scale of the household is important because it is big enough to be efficient in addition to offering scalability and replicability for urban agricultural systems.Imagining and spatialising the 'food print' of the old terraces houses of Belfast demonstrates the detached nature of the food supply chain but responds directly to seeing how our impact on the landscape, although removed, is significant.The area needed to provide food for a household, while sequestering all the carbon in the production of that food, takes up a footprint 156 times greater the footprint of a typical Belfast terrace.Due to the high levels of rainwater in Northern Ireland the area required for this capturing can take place within this identified area.Spatialising this data acts as a starting point for imagining how architects and urbanists can test new dietary and urban trajectories that fracture global supply chains while hinging visions for productive neighbourhoods around principles of food production.1.To reduce food mileage and the associated costs of transportation and carbon emissions.2. To imagine how our diets can accommodate a sustainable, locally sourced location based on available resources, including water and soil, while increasing health and wellbeing through nutritional balance.3. To bring food production to the forefront of citizens realisation of the impact on our landscape the farm to plate process takes.This new terrace house is not ideal; the street, if it were to produce each homes food, is unimaginably large (figure 5.3).In reality it is a fractured, fragmented landscape in distant and varied locations and, as such, is an abstracted figure.However, it provokes the designer to intervene in order to reduce or localise these spaces through more efficient systems of production and sustainable food pathways which respond to local context.

Pathways to new diets
One of the most obvious ways to reduce the ecological footprint of the city is to consider how diets might evolve in the future to reduce emissions and land use, globally and locally.While it is not likely that residents of Northern Ireland will fully transition their diets, the following proposes the most extreme possibilities of moving to completely vegan and vegetarian diets.This aims to demonstrate the reduction in space requirements for food.Firstly, the British diet was spatialised to get a sense of how the Northern Irish diet compares (figure 5.4).Secondly, vegetarian based diets were considered through the same spatialised methodology.These took recommended daily intake of vegetables and fruits from the National Health Services (NHS, 2019) for approximately four portions of 80g of fruit and vegetables each day, fresh, canned or frozen.Lastly, a vegan diet was considered using the same method and based on the NHS recommended intake.This was five portions of 80g of fruit and vegetables each day, again fresh, canned or frozen, in addition to at least 30g of dried fruit.The results showed notable reductions in each of these dietary types compared to the Northern Irish diet.For example, compared to Northern Ireland, the spatialised results of the other diets is significantly less, Great Britain (87%), vegetarian (52%) and vegan (40%).Notably, when vegetarian and vegan diets are tested, the land use for production becomes significantly smaller than area required to sequester CO2 emissions than the current Northern Irish and British diets.This emphasises the reliance on meats for residents in Northern Ireland and the future potential health implications for residents.Similarly, it demonstrates the ecological footprint of food is bigger in this region than elsewhere and, as such, requires an immediate move towards reduction in meatbased diets which have the greatest impact on land use and in carbon emissions.While it is difficult to design new pathways to future food consumption within the realms of urban design practice, there are approaches to reducing land use and carbon emissions of diets by designing and integrating technical food systems within urban landscapes.

Matrix of urban agriculture
The spatialisation of the 'food print' of diets is an endeavour grounded in the view of enquiry, as defined in the previous chapter.It uses a quantification process to see how form changes although does not overtly describe the design intervention.As such, a validation process, the movement of a form-based or design proposition, must be set out to view how sites of urban agriculture and food systems can inform a designer on the productive qualities of a space.The following looks at this process for an interface area in inner east Belfast.The design proposition for the Short Strand peace wall employs a hydroponic growing system that utilises media beds for nutrient delivery for tomatoes over three levels (figure 5.5).Shortfalls of this system means it requires daily monitoring, needs mined minerals for the delivery of nutrients and the water needs to be changed periodically.However, it is a lightweight and low maintenance system, ideal for its placement along the peace wall.The length of the structure is 30 metres and can produce approximately 30 crops per square metre.Annually, it can produce 2,700 crops, or 540,000 tomatoes.The equates to a total of 32,400 kg of tomatoes annually, if the average tomato weighs 60g.This 135m 2 structure, with a footprint of 45m 2 , the area of a typical Belfast terrace house, can produce tomatoes for 69% of all the residents of inner East Belfast (32,834) for the year.It reduces the area of land required for tomato production for this population alone from 811m 2 to 45m 2 , a 94.5% decease.
While not all design propositions can reduce this area as significantly, when combined with new diets, the focus of fewer crucial food types can alter land use significantly.Even though land use is decreased significantly, other effects on carbon emissions and water use must also be considered because of the food system employed.The proposition relies on a temperaturecontrolled structure to produce the tomatoes, energy to pump water through the system and mineral inputs for nutrients.A decrease in food mileage, however, reduces emissions from transportation.While more water is used than convention growing, the water is reused in the system a number of times and in a growing season may utilise less water per plant or kilogram of food produced.While it is difficult to quantify how these directly impact the carbon sequestration area and water use, it raises a significant question about current data availability for designers especially in the validation process of a design proposition.Much of the quantitative data does not always reflect the nuances of a place, i.e. the emissions of a particular farming method in Northern Ireland compared to the data available for France or the United States.This raises different, but equally important, issues with data to the one explored in the previous chapter.It relates to accessibility and availability of information to qualify a design proposition as having a positive or negative impact on the FEW-nexus, i.e. will the above system increase or decrease carbon emissions for every kilogram of tomatoes grown.Design instead focuses on the softer, social impacts such a design proposition seeks to operate within, its effectiveness.One that has a detailed, spatial understanding of a place and employs a system.In this case it seeks to provide new connections to food and growing which fosters interactions in a zone that is shared and collective, rather than divisive and inhibiting.Design in this case places visibility and engagement with the existing built environment as an immeasurable metric in the FEW-nexus, but one that is critical to future urban food production.

Conclusion
Quantifying the PCC of Northern Ireland reveals significant distinctions between its residents and those living in the rest of the United Kingdom.It indicates the huge virtual impact of food on landscape for production, sequestration and rainwater capture.When spatialised this demonstrates the fact that the low density of the country could meet this demand.However, this abstracted approach raises two significant challenges.The first is establishing a design-led process of urban and landscape design interventions which ensures this virtual production can be located in Northern Ireland.Secondly, and in parallel, how can more sustainable food pathways be shaped through this process in order to reduce the impact on our natural resources and mitigate against the risks of climate change.
The challenge of design in the FEW-nexus requires new ways of visualising the problem and the solution, as defined here are ways of doing both.One way engages with the problem or content through spatialising the impact of our diets on land use and carbon emissions.Another way seeks to offer a solution, the form, through a design proposition.The methodology set out demonstrates an innovative approach for architects and urban designers to visualise the existing spatial impact of food while also acting as a tool to understand how an intervention will change FEW flows and resource use.However, the model could be improved through access to localised data in relation to food production and land use that is specific to farming techniques and practices in a specific context.Secondly, granular data about current food consumption patterns for different household types and socioeconomic backgrounds, would provide greater accuracy and detail to the results.Despite this, the ability for this method to be applied to varying contexts is significant.It can account for the consumption patterns of other regions, the Netherlands or Italy for example, while accommodating how farming practices in each country affect the method.In the Netherlands, for instance, intensive farming practices will radically alter the 'food print' because of differing land-use, carbon emissions and water use metrics.Future research will focus on new and varied technical food systems in the urban context and how it can shape productive neighbourhoods, economically and socially.Hyper-localising the production, storing and distribution of food in close proximity to the consumer, would allow for added integration into the model and further reduce carbon emissions associated with transportation and reduce significantly packaging requirements.Notably, the emphasis on virtual food production proves problematic and, as such, future work may will begin to analyse and spatialise where and how food moves from global systems to local interfaces.It will critique growing techniques, transportation, times (of production and storage), distance from farm to fork and consumer access points.In tandem with this methodology, it will allow for effective hyper-local design propositions that consider food types and interfaces that can significantly reduce land-use and carbon emissions.

Figure 5 . 2
Figure 5.2 Area required to produce one kg / l of food compared to the footprint and area of the average N.I.terrace house (Gerbens-Leenes and Nonhebel, 2002; Williams, Audley and Sanders, 2006).

Figure 5 . 3
Figure 5.3 How big is your patch?The 'food print' of McMaster Street in Belfast's Titanic Quarter based on the area of land use and area of forestry to sequester carbon per household according to average Northern Irish diet.

Figure 5 . 4
Figure 5.4 Changes to land use and area for sequestration under new dietary conditions.Current diet (top) is compared to Great Britain (G.B.), vegetarian and vegan diets.All measured at the scale of the household (2.5 PPC for Northern Ireland (N.I.)

Figure 5 . 5
Figure 5.5 Growing-up: a vertical hydroponic system on an existing peace wall in Inner East Belfast.

Fresh and processed vegetables, including potatoes
consumption depending on household type, as either single person households, lone parent households or cohabiting households.It is notable that lone parent households consume significantly greater amounts of frozen meats and smaller quantities of fresh and processed fruit (table 5.4).It highlights the important challenge of granular data in relation to household type and socio-economic makeup of a household in order to allow more specific design approaches to an area of the city.For example, 17.9% of all households in inner East Belfast are single parent households.Similarly, the data evidences trends in relation to PCC food consumption between 2006-2017.While similar amounts of carcase meat are being consumed there are increased volumes of non-carcase meat eaten; less bread; and, greater volumes of potatoes and fruit (processed and fresh).

Table 5
.4 Northern Ireland weekly PCC by household(DARDNI, 2006)and average PCC (ONS, 2017) 1. Land use for production 2. Area of forest for carbon sequestration of emissions associated with full lifecycle production; 3. Rainwater collection for virtual water needed for production.Data is scaled at five levels:

Table 5 .6
Area required for carbon sequestration of full life-cycle emissions for food production based on average annual consumption of a Northern Irish resident

Table 5 .7
Virtual water use for food production and annual rainwater capture in N.I. based on the average annual food consumption of a Northern Irish resident