Abstract
Food consumption is closely associated with resource consumption and environmental sustainability. An unreasonable dietary pattern would cause great pressure or damage to resources and the environment. It is particularly important to reduce the negative impact of household food consumption on resources and the environment while simultaneously ensuring people’s nutrient intake and health. This study applied the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) database to quantitatively study the spatial-temporal analysis of multiple footprints of household food consumption at multiple scales and explored the driving mechanism of the multiple footprints. The results showed that, except land footprint (LF), the other four types of footprints all decreased at varying degrees; the water footprint (WF), carbon footprint (CF), nitrogen footprint (NF) and energy footprint (EF) decreased by 18.24%, 17.82%, 12.03% and 20.36%, respectively, from 2000 to 2011; multiple footprints of food consumption of household in Guizhou was the highest among the 12 provinces involved in the study; this shows that resource consumption (water, energy and land resource) and environmental influences (CO2 emissions and nitrogen emissions) brought by food consumption of per household in Guizhou are much greater than in other provinces, which has a negative influence on sustainable development; by analyzing the driving factors of multiple footprints, it is shown that nutrient intake, household attributes, educational level and health conditions were significantly correlated to multiple footprints. Among them, nutrient intake has greater impact on the multiple footprints of Chinese household food consumption. By comparing multiple footprints of different dietary patterns, it was found that the current Chinese dietary pattern would cause excessive resource consumption, which would bring more pressure on resources and the environment. Adjusting household living habits would possibly reverse the unsustainable situation, such as reducing the consumption of animal-derived foods and adjusting the dietary pattern of households with a higher educational level and income status. Chinese Dietary Guidelines 2016 has better sustainability; the promotion of this dietary pattern across the country would help China to relieve the pressure on resources and environment from the consumer side, promoting the realization of sustainable development.
Highlights
Food consumption would have a profound impact on human health, resource consumption and environment sustainability [1,2]
In order to quantify the impacts of food consumption on resources and environment, this study considered five footprint indicators, including water footprint (WF), carbon footprint (CF), nitrogen footprint (NF), energy footprint (EF) and land footprint (LF)
The dietary pattern of households in China is not a sustainable form of development; the following suggestions are proposed: (i) we suggest that households should reduce the consumption of red meat, because the multiple footprints of unit yield for red meat is higher than other kinds of foods
Summary
Food consumption would have a profound impact on human health, resource consumption and environment sustainability [1,2]. Agricultural production directly pressures water, energy, and land resources [4,5,6], and causes environmental issues including threats to biodiversity; increase in GHG emissions; and harm to marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems [7,8,9]. In order to quantify the impacts of food consumption on resources and environment, this study considered five footprint indicators, including water footprint (WF), carbon footprint (CF), nitrogen footprint (NF), energy footprint (EF) and land footprint (LF). EF represents the primary energy consumption and is used to calculate the energy embodied in goods or services [14,15]. LF is the amount of land used to produce goods and services [16,17]
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