Monitoring Food & Environmental Security–Challenges of the 21th Century

Global society is currently challenged by a few serious problems: food production is growing slower than population; Earth's water & soil fertility have been over-exploited; demands for more food put constraints on Earth resources, threatening environmental security; warmer climate will intensify droughts increasing agricultural losses, which affect food security. These problems will affect food security (FS) and environmental security (ES). These two issues are currently discussed widely in terms of what damage we should expect, when and where, how intensive the damages will be, how to estimate them numerically and how to avoid the consequences in due time. This presentation will specifically focus on how to observe FS and ES from the new generation of operational environmental satellites; how to estimate losses in agriculture due to large-scale weather disasters (flood and drought) how a warming climate has already limited agricultural output and will change it in the future, which regions will be affected first and what is the coincidence to have food production losses in the main agricultural regions; how to provide 2-3 months advanced warnings on regional droughts; how 4-6 months advanced regional food shortages contribute to a reduction in the number of hungry and malnutrition people; how to avoid deterioration of Earth natural resources. These topics are relevant to decision makers in the governments, international policy makers, relief organizations, private sector, academia and users dealing with climate, food supply/demands, weather extremes, agricultural technology, policies, observational systems and growing population