Jennifer Hodbod
Expertise
Staff Profiles
- e-mail address
- j.hodbod@uea.ac.uk
- First Name
- Jennifer
- Surname
- Hodbod
- Institution
- University of East Anglia
- Postal Address
-
Tyndall Centre University of East Anglia Norwich Norfolk NR4 7TJ United Kingdom
- Current Position
- PhD Researcher
- Role at Tyndall
-
Affiliated PhD Student
- Research Interests
-
The Impacts of Biofuels on the Social-Ecological Resilience of Food Systems at Multiple Scales
- Other website
- http://www.resalliance.org/cdirs/raprojects/index.php/20
- Mendeley.com
- http://www.mendeley.com/profiles/jennifer-hodbod/
PhD Researchers Profile
- Tyndall Research Theme
- Energy
- Duration of your PhD
- 2009-2012
- Thesis's Supervisor
- Prof. Neil Adger & Prof. Mike Hulme
- Funder
- ESRC
- My Thesis' Abstract
-
This PhD focuses on biofuel introduction or expansion as a policy response, so that biofuels can be framed as a perturbation to the food system at multiple scales, allowing the impacts on social-ecological resilience that emerge to be identified. The current literature presents evidence that biofuels can erode the resilience of social-ecological systems, for example via deforestation, agricultural run-off and conversion of peat lands. However, there are also opportunities for biofuels to enhance the resilience of social-ecological systems- for example by the substitution of traditional biomass in rural households in developing countries. This would reduce deforestation in the immediate area or increase agricultural residues returned to agricultural land, whilst allowing households to move up the energy ladder. This PhD presents a systems analysis of the impacts of biofuel expansion, summarising the impacts on resilience at multiple scales, from the household to the national level and focussing on systems where biofuel substitutes for fuelwood as well as affecting food production.
Biofuel expansion is explored in Ethiopia, as the introduction of the ‘Biofuel Development and Utilisation Strategy of Ethiopia’ in September 2007 mandated the use of biofuels for both the transport and domestic market. This research analyses food systems at multiple scales- household, regional, and national- as adaptive cycles examining how biofuel production has cascading impacts at various scales. At the household level, preliminary data is used to explore the diversity of entitlements (i.e. how a household accesses its food) for supply actors involved in the production of sugarcane. Concurrently, the impacts of substituting woodfuel or kerosene for ethanol within the home are investigated- focussing on changes in expenditure on energy, health benefits of removing wood smoke from confined areas, and time savings. By combining the supply and demand chain findings, an analysis of the impact of biofuel expansion on food production at a regional level is presented, incorporating land use change, crop substitutions, food price changes and job creations. At a national level, the diversity of institutions is addressed so to examine the autonomy of the system and the decision-making process behind the distribution of Ethiopian ethanol between export, domestic energy and transport energy.
Biofuels impact multiple systems (food, land, energy) at multiple scales (household, regional, national, global). The framing presented in this PhD allows the complexity within food systems to be acknowledged, and the factors that erode and enhance resilience to be identified and weighted, so to provide an overall indication of the impact of biofuel expansion on the resilience of food systems. By combining the different scales of analysis, a broader insight is provided into the impacts of biofuel expansion on a country’s food systems than by using a single method such as life cycle analysis or cost-benefit analysis. Taking a whole system perspective also allows the interactions and possible pathways between adaptive cycles to be addressed.
Research Themes
History
- Member for
- 3 years 2 weeks