About
This visualization system maps food flows between counties in the United States. Total food flows are provided in units of mass [kg] for the year 2012. Food flows are unique to each county, so the list of partner counties and the color scale changes with each county selection.
Note that there are three categories of relationships that can exist between counties:
- Food outflows only
- Food outflow only indicates that the selected county only sends food to the highlighted counties.
- Food inflows only
- Food inflow only indicates that the selected county only receives food from the highlighted counties.
- Both inflows and outflows
- Both food inflows and outflows indicate that the selected county receives and sends food to the highlighted counties.
Note that the list of partner counties and the color scale changes with each county selection.
Glossary
- FIPS code
- Numeric identifier for each county in the United States
- Food outflow
- Food being sent out of a county
- Food inflow
- Food coming into a county
- Food net flow
- Food inflow - Food outflow
- Units
- mass [kg]
- Year
- 2012
Food Categories
The following is a list of Standard Classification of Transported Goods (SCTG) food categories included in this study.
| SCTG | Model |
|---|---|
| 1 | Animals and fish (live) |
| 2 | Cereal grains (includes seed) |
| 3 | Agricultural products (excludes animal feed, cereal grains, and forage products) |
| 4 | Animal feed, eggs, honey, and other products of animal origin |
| 5 | Meat, poultry, fish, seafood, and their preparations |
| 6 | Milled grain products and preparations, and bakery products |
| 7 | Other prepared foodstuffs, fats and oils |
Methods
This information is generated by the Food Flow Model, a data-driven methodology to estimate spatially explicit food flows. The Food Flow Model integrates machine learning, network properties, production and consumption statistics, mass balance constraints, and linear programming. A full description of the methods used to generate county-to-county food flows in the United States is provided in the accompanying academic journal article (Lin et al, 2019).
Citation
Lin, X., P.J. Ruess, L. Marston, and M. Konar (2019) Food flows between counties in the United States, Environmental Research Letters, Vol 14, Issue 3, pp. 084011, doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/ab29ae
Funding
This material is based upon work supported by the following National Science Foundation Grants:
- ACI-1639529
- (INFEWS/T1: Mesoscale Data Fusion to Map and Model the U.S. Food, Energy, and Water (FEW) System)
- CBET-1844773
- (CAREER: A National Strategy for a Resilient Food Supply Chain)
- BCS-2032065
- (RAPID: Spatial Resilience of Food Production, Supply Chains, and Security to COVID-19)
Contact information
Megan Konar
Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
mkonar@illinois.edu
Michael McKelvey
Office for Mathematics, Science, and Technology Education
College of Education
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
mmckelve@illinois.edu
Engage with us on Twitter: @FoodFlows