A Closer Look at the IMPACT of Climate Change on Country-Level Food Security and Nutrition

In light of increasing variability of climatic conditions and its effect on global food systems and the ecosystems that support them, increasing attention is being paid by policymakers and researchers to the policies that can best address the likely impacts on food supply and security in those countries that are particularly vulnerable – namely, developing countries. The global food and water policy modeling framework of IMPACT-WATER was used to look at possible adaptation strategies that food producers and resource managers might undertake to cope with changing environmental conditions, as part of the ADAPT project. For this project, IFPRI’s IMPACT-WATER model was linked to other streamflow and runoff models that could downscale the climate scenarios from General Circulation Models down to the relevant river basin scales, in order to examine their impact on food production and markets. The discussion of the model linkage process and some highlighted results will illustrate the importance of incorporating environmentally-focused research questions into trade policy modeling framework in order to address important issues surrounding global environmental change and its effect on global food systems and economies.