Food security indicators in deltaic and coastal research: a scoping review

Abstract

Delta regions occupy a small proportion of the earth’s surface area, yet they are home to more than 500 million people. While numerous regional studies have examined the prevalence and the determinants of food security in specific delta and coastal regions, there is still a paucity of systematic analysis on the food security indicators commonly used by scientists and policymakers. To fill this gap, we carried out a systematic review using Covidence, a Cochrane-adopted systematic review processing software. Only scientific papers were considered for review, and the search was conducted in the following databases: SCOPUS, Thomson Reuters Web of Science, Science Direct, ProQuest, and Google Scholar. Following screening for duplicates, relevance, and full-text eligibility, 80 articles were retained for review. In total, 143 different food security indicators were identified (excluding duplicates), with measures of food availability featuring in 27% of reviewed papers. In contrast, indicators capturing the stability of food security were the least commonly applied (8% of reviewed papers). Furthermore, we find a weak level of alignment between deltaic food security indicators and the SDG 2 indicators, only two targets and their indicators were directly aligned in the papers reviewed. Therefore, in order to achieve the aspirational goal of zero hunger in delta regions and worldwide, we suggest researchers and policymakers directly align their choice of food security indicators with those of SDG 2, whilst simultaneously increasing the diversity of indicators to better capture the utilization and stability of food security in an ever-changing and more chaotic climate.