Land-water-food nexus of biofuels: Discourse and policy debates in Brazil

Autor(es)

Benites-Lazaro, L. L. ^{[1, 2]} ; Giatti, L. L. ^[2] ; Sousa Junior, W. C. ^[3] ; Giarolla, A. ^[1]

Afiliação do(s) autor(es)

^[1] Natl Inst Space Res INPE, Earth Syst Sci Ctr, Av Astronautas 1758, BR-12227010 Sao Jose Dos Campos - Brazil

^[2] Univ Sao Paulo, Sch Publ Hlth, Dept Environm Hlth, Av Dr Arnaldo 715, BR-03178200 Sao Paulo - Brazil

^[3] Aeronaut Inst Technol, Water Resources Dept, Praca Marechal Eduardo Gomes 50, BR-12228900 Sao Jose Dos Campos - Brazil

• Tipo de documento: Artigo Científico
• Fonte: ENVIRONMENTAL DEVELOPMENT; v. 33, MAR 2020.
• Citações Web of Science: 1

Resumo

Concerns regarding water scarcity, food security, and land/soil degradation are increasing, and these issues are far from being independent of bioenergy production. The competing need for land and water resources in food and bioenergy production have been at the forefront of policy debates. In this study, we examined policy debates related to land, food and water use in sugarcane ethanol production, and the challenges to integrated land-water-energy-food policies. We analyzed large amounts of data obtained from governmental and business documents, Brazilian newspapers, and the bulletins of non-governmental organizations over the last ten years by combining an unsupervised probabilistic latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) model with sentiment analysis. The results show that land, energy and water are managed in isolation by separate and disconnected institutional entities. Although the discourses of actors have evolved over time in response to certain events (e.g., expansion of sugarcane and water scarcity), the discussions and resultant public policies have failed to consider the interdependence among various sectors. To achieve sustainable resource use, sugarcane ethanol expansion should be considered by decision-makers and companies within a wider governance framework based on nexus dynamics; specifically, trade-offs in land and water use with sectors beyond bioenergy must be acknowledged. (AU)

• Processo FAPESP: 15/03804-9 - Governança ambiental da macrometrópole paulista face à variabilidade climática
• Beneficiário: Pedro Roberto Jacobi
• Modalidade de apoio: Auxílio à Pesquisa - Programa de Pesquisa sobre Mudanças Climáticas Globais - Temático
• Processo FAPESP: 17/17796-3 - Conflitos e relações de poder: o nexo água-energia-alimentos na produção do etanol no Estado de São Paulo
• Beneficiário: Lira Luz Benites Lazaro
• Modalidade de apoio: Bolsas no Brasil - Pós-Doutorado