Master student analyses nutrient flows

My name is Sharareh Farshchiha and I am doing my master in Environmental Science at Gothenburg University. I write my master thesis for Sweden Water Research in collaboration with Robin Harder as my supervisor in SLU.  The aim of the study is to map and analyze the circularity of nutrient flows (N, P, K) for the current agricultural system, food consumption, and waste management infrastructure in Sweden. To analysis the nutrient flows, the Swedish food system was divided into five subsystems where the analysis performed focused on: 1. agricultural land, 2. livestock production, 3. food processing, 4. food consumption, and 5. residual management. The five subsystems was investigated considering internal and external nutrient flows. Internal flow represents the regional food system while the external flow relates to any food system outside of the geographical region of Sweden which interacts with the regional food system by food and feed imports and exports. To calculate the amount of nutrients in the five subsystems associated with external and internal flows, a calculation model was performed in Microsoft Excel. The model calculation in this study was developed by Robin Harder for Swedish food system. The extend of the model for waste system was done by a collaboration between me and a student from Lund University, Emma Enström, who is doing her master thesis in the same topic but for Skåne.