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Consuming Fuel and Fuelling Consumption: Modelling Human Caloric Demands and Fuelwood Use

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Abstract

This paper describes a conceptual framework that was developed to integrate livestock, human, cultivation and forest constraints to model community fuelwood consumption over a 25-year planning horizon. This framework was constructed as an energy balance based on human caloric requirements in order to examine the effects of household-level decisions for nutrition, fuelwood and land use. A scenario from a virtual community in Uganda is presented to illustrate the utility of this model to allow rapid policy and scenario evaluation. User-defined inputs combined with published research data are used in simulating resource responses and energy consumption rates. This model is a potential tool to monitor fuelwood consumption and to understand the implications of various land-use practices.

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Notes

  1. While externalities are important, their makeup can be unique for each locale and household. This framework omits these externalities and focuses only on agricultural, livestock and human and physical constraints.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, University of New Hampshire, 121 James Hall, Durham, NH, 03824, USA

    Joel Hartter

  2. Forest Engineering Department, Oregon State University, 204 Peavy Hall, Corvallis, OR, 97331, USA

    Kevin Boston

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  1. Joel Hartter
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  2. Kevin Boston
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Correspondence to Joel Hartter.

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Hartter, J., Boston, K. Consuming Fuel and Fuelling Consumption: Modelling Human Caloric Demands and Fuelwood Use. Small-scale Forestry 7, 1–15 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-008-9037-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-008-9037-3

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