NTR: Famine (revisiting)

[laurenechan]

NTR: famine
Definition: A widespread scarcity of food caused by several factors including war, inflation, crop failure, population imbalance, or government policies.
Parent: Environmental system process (ENVO:02500000)

Previously we had discussed the term 'maternal famine' on #655. @diatomsRcool and I have more recently discussed think we might move forward with an ENVO term for the general sense of famine (caused by ecological and non ecological factors) and an ecocore term that specifically relates to shortages of food for any organism for ecological reasons.

[wdduncan]

IMHO

widespread scarcity of food

sounds like a quality (PATO_0000068). The quality could perhaps characterize an ecoregion (ENVO_01000276) or an ecosystem (ENVO_01001110).
But, representing missing or lacking things is tricky. We need to be careful about not stating that absent things exist.

[cmungall]

I strongly endorse @pbuttigieg's proposal to model analogous to drought as a process:

#655 (comment)

This fits with instance data we would want to incorporate and causal modeling. This will also work well with ECTO

Pier also specifies a species neutral definition with the UN def as a subclass
#655 (comment)

Is this necessary? Might it cause confusion to use 'famine' in this more general way? Perhaps use a more neutral name for the species-generic superclass?

I'm also not sure we need different classes for different bodies' definition. I'd prefer to keep it simple: a single class (perhaps with a more general 'food crisis' as a superclass). Use the UN definition as an exemplar.

But, representing missing or lacking things is tricky. We need to be careful about not stating that absent things exist.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2011/07/382342-when-food-security-crisis-becomes-famine

A famine can be declared only when certain measures of mortality, malnutrition and hunger are met. They are: at least 20 per cent of households in an area face extreme food shortages with a limited ability to cope; acute malnutrition rates exceed 30 per cent; and the death rate exceeds two persons per day per 10,000 persons

No absence so no worries about OWL absence modeling but we wouldn't even attempt to model the UN quantitative definition in OWL

[wdduncan]

@cmungall If I follow you, then I agree, famine can be defined in terms of the measures you cite.
Food shortage and malnutrition seem to me be a more like qualities than processes.

[diatomsRcool]

I also think @pbuttigieg 's idea for treating famine like drought. When famine is in ENVO, I can use the term in ECTO for a clinical use case.