Source
doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.153355 — original publication (opens in a new tab; the file is not redistributed)
Summary
Schmidt et al. (2022) develop and field-test a community-scale food-energy-water (FEW) security assessment framework through interviews with 114 households in three off-grid rural Alaska communities (Cordova, Kongiganak, Igiugig). Where national nexus indices score resource availability and access, this framework adds quality and preference as distinct components and assesses all four within a “Society” frame, across the food, energy and water sectors — and crucially it measures both contemporary (purchased) and traditional (subsistence/harvested) sources side by side. The headline finding is that subsistence/locally-harvested resources scored markedly more secure than purchased ones across every component, and the authors link this directly to self-sufficiency. The communities are off-grid and run real renewable microgrids (hydro, wind, RivGen in-river hydro), making this a close empirical analogue to the remote-NZ settings Neobiome studies. For Neobiome Intelligence it is both a design reference (the four-component decomposition) and an evidence source for the SSI indicators on basic needs, cultural heritage, and human/social capital.
Key claims
See key_claims frontmatter (8 claims, all cited to source location).
Neobiome Intelligence relevance
- Composite decomposition (NI design). The availability / access / quality / preference four-component model is a richer decomposition than the access-vs-availability split in the national WEF Nexus Index (LIT_049) — and the “preference” and “quality” axes capture exactly what a self-sufficiency tool can otherwise miss: a resource can be locally available and accessible yet culturally inappropriate or low-quality, and so not contribute to felt security. Feeds the Self-Sufficiency Calculation Framework LIT_050.
- Self-sufficiency raises measured security (empirical). The subsistence-vs-purchased result is direct empirical support for Neobiome’s core thesis: locally-harvested (self-sufficient) food sources scored more secure than purchased ones on all four components, and the authors attribute this to self-sufficiency itself — not just to cost LIT_050.
- External-dependence is the dominant vulnerability (I06 / resilience). Costs, transportation and weather — all originating outside the community — were the top drivers of insecurity, which is the quantitative case for reducing external supply dependence (the Neobiome objective). Health is the key internal lever.
- Off-grid RE integration + the human factor (D01). Real off-grid microgrid examples (Cordova hydro 60%, Kongiganak wind-to-thermal-heat, Igiugig RivGen targeting 90%) plus the finding that RE success depended on communication, shared vision, Indigenous values and human capital more than on the technology — a governance/social-capital lesson for any Neobiome energy deployment.
- ⚠ Scope. Rural Alaska / Arctic context; subsistence harvest scale (per-capita wild-food harvest far exceeds NZ norms) and Indigenous Yup’ik cultural framing are context-specific. Transfers as framework + qualitative lesson, not as transferable numeric benchmarks.
Research targets
Research gaps
- Whether the NI self-sufficiency composite adopts the four-component (availability/access/quality/preference) decomposition — a tool-design decision weighed alongside the Simpson (arithmetic) and Wang/HDI (geometric) aggregation question (RT_006, RT_016, RT_029). Not an external retrieval.
- (No new documents to retrieve — the framework is self-contained and its antecedents are already covered by CR_002/CR_003 and LIT_049.)
Connections
Links to
Sources (1): LIT_049
Referenced by
SSI indicators (3): I03: Local Wisdom & Cultural Heritage · I04: Human Development & Social Capital · I07: Fulfilment of Basic Needs
Sources (2): LIT_079 · LIT_099
Concepts (2): Environmental Livelihood Security (FEW-Nexus +… · Self-Sufficiency Calculation Framework