A spatially explicit and quantitative vulnerability assessment of ecosystem service change in Europe

Environmental change alters ecosystem functioning and may put the provision of services to human at risk. This paper presents a spatially explicit and quantitative assessment of the corresponding vulnerability for Europe, using a new framework designed to answer multidisciplinary policy relevant questions about the vulnerability of the human-environment system to global change. Scenarios were constructed for a range of possible changes in socio-economic trends, land uses and climate. These scenarios were used as inputs in a range of ecosystem models in order to assess the response of ecosystem function as well as the changes in the services they provide. The framework was used to relate the impacts of changing ecosystem service provision for four sectors in relation to each other, and to combine them with a simple, but generic index for societal adaptive capacity. By allowing analysis of different sectors, regions and development pathways, the vulnerability assessment provides a basis for discussion between stakeholders and policymakers about sustainable management of Europe’s natural resources. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Towards a spatially explicit and quantitative vulnerability assessment of environmental change in Europe

Over the next century, society will increasingly be confronted with the impacts of global change (e.g. pollution, land use changes, and climate change). Multiple scenarios provide us with a range of possible changes in socio-economic trends, land uses and climate (i.e. exposure) and allow us to assess the response of ecosystems and changes in the services they provide (i.e. potential impacts). Since vulnerability to global change is less when society is able to adapt, it is important to provide decision makers with tools that will allow them to assess and compare the vulnerability of different sectors and regions to global change, taking into account exposure and sensitivity, as well as adaptive capacity. This paper presents a method that allows quantitative spatial analyses of the vulnerability of the human-environment system on a European scale. It is a first step towards providing stakeholders and policy makers with a spatially explicit portfolio of comparable projections of ecosystem services, providing a basis for discussion on the sustainable management of Europe’s natural resources.

Commentary: the challenge of quantifying susceptibility to drought-related crisis

This paper is a response to a recent special issue of Regional Environmental Change, “Quantifying vulnerability to drought from different disciplinary perspectives” (vol. 8, number 4, 2008). In this paper, we examine some of the challenges facing efforts to understand vulnerability to drought through quantification as they are manifest in some of the articles in this special issue.

Building a freshman-year foundation for sustainability studies: Terrascope, a case study

Terrascope is a freshman learning community at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in which teams of students work to find solutions to large ‘unsolvable’ problems and to communicate about those problems with a wide variety of audiences in multiple formats. The program strongly promotes students’ autonomy in focusing and structuring their work, and student projects culminate in public presentations, both to general audiences and to panels of technical specialists. Students who have completed the program tend to show strong engagement with environmental and sustainability issues, as well as the skills and experience to work intensively on such issues within multidisciplinary teams. Here, we present the program as a case study, with some discussion of the factors that are key to its operation.

Urban hinterlands—the case of an Israeli town ecological footprint

Modern urban life is characterized by the consumption of materials and energy, which are imported from all over the world and discharge waste that in many cases has a negative impact on ecosystems far from the cities in which they consumed. Indeed, cities cannot survive without worldwide hinterlands for resources and emissions sequestration. The ecological footprint (EF) concept provides valuable insights into the human appropriation of resources relative to earth’s carrying capacity, and therefore it enables us to compare human demands with nature’s supply and provides an indicator of human ecological sustainability. An attempt was made to calculate the EF of Ra’anana, Israel as a case study, to compare the EF-value with the expected for ecological sustainability and to emphasize the dependence on overseas ecosystems. Ra’anana, a town of 67,300 inhabitants in the year 2002, is considered a ‘dormitory town’ with a high quality of life. The EF was calculated using mainly the component method. The calculated EF for Ra’anana is 4.0 ha/resident which means that the required hinterland, located all over the world, is nearly 180 times the size of the town. The town’s EF is twice the value expected for sustainability on a global scale. We draw several scenarios in order to reduce the EF. On a national basis as well as with the town case study, electric energy, food and waste can be reduced and in turn would have a dramatic impact on the EF.

A heuristic for setting effective standards to ensure global environmental sustainability

Most environmental professionals and decision-makers, and certainly the public at large, hold the view that the integrity of earth’s natural environment will be conserved for posterity and sustainable development achieved if all the nations rigorously enforced their environmental and emission standards. It is argued in this paper that this view, sincerely held by many as an “axiomatic truth,” is mistaken and misplaced. This is because as a biogeochemical entity the Earth has limited self-regenerative capacity (SRC) to cope with anthropogenic pollution, and all kinds of environmental problems ensue when that limit is exceeded. Indeed, mounting environmental problems now occurring on all fronts amply testify to the fact that the limit has already been exceeded. They also provide necessary and sufficient proof that environmental and emission standards have been woefully inadequate for protecting earth’s natural environment and life-support systems. It is argued that true global environmental sustainability will be achieved, paving the way to true global sustainable development, if and only if global environmental and emission standards are set so that global anthropogenic pollution does not exceed the limit of earth’s natural SRC to cope with such pollution. These and related issues are discussed in this paper. A simple mathematical model using basic mathematics is also presented to explain how the phenomenon of “positive feedback” works in some of the environmental problems to exacerbate environmental degradation and progressively to erode nature’s SRC.

Carbon neutral Biggar: calculating the community carbon footprint and renewable energy options for footprint reduction

The objective of this research was to develop a community carbon footprint model that could be used to assess the size and major components of a community’s carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. The town of Biggar aims to become Scotland’s first carbon neutral town. As expected for this rural community, car transport accounted for nearly half of the CO₂ emissions, with natural gas and electricity consumption resulting in a further 24% and 12% of total emissions, respectively, and air travel being the last major component at 10% of emissions. An assessment was also made of the wind and solar resources of the town. One large wind turbine would provide the town’s electricity, while three to four turbines would be needed to offset all CO₂ emissions. In contrast, offsetting by tree planting would require in the region of 2,000 ha of trees.

Ten years of international scientific cooperation in fisheries,aquaculture and coastal zones: some preliminary lessons

The paper examines preliminary experiences with international scientific cooperation in fisheries, aquaculture and coastal zone issues through 90 projects in successive European Research Framework Programmes (FP4–FP6: 1994–2006). FPs had increasingly ambitious objectives in response to international commitments, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Millennium Development Goals, the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation and dialogue with partner regions. Sustainable aquatic food production in the context of respect for ecosystems was a central concern. Engagement with different social actors and attention to investment in education, people and institutions enabled uptake of research results in education, innovation and some impact. The emphasis in several recent projects on more integrated analyses and knowledge products in the public domain is an encouraging response to the growing crisis of aquatic resource systems. It is suggested that significant up-scaling will be required. This might be done through institutional internalisation and better translation of research results into policy developments supportive of transitions towards sustainable production systems and ecosystem rehabilitation. Capacity building to use research in novel ways and other enabling mechanisms need to be put in place to increase societal and environmental benefits of the research.

The influence of climate and dam construction on the Ibera wetlands, Argentina

The purpose of this work is to assess the impact on the Esteros del Ibera wetland ecosystem caused by the Yacyreta dam, a large hydroelectric power plant on the Parana River, Argentina, in comparison to other factors of environmental change. The project of the dam started around 1970. The power plant began operating in 1994. In 1989, the neighboring Ibera wetland ecosystem showed a substantial increase in the water level for which several different causes were conceivable, including climate change and the dam construction. We analyzed all existing hydrometeorological data and studied other changes that were observed in this ecosystem. A water balance model was used to analyze different scenarios. Increased groundwater inflow, generated since the construction of the dam, appears to be affecting the wetland more than any other factor. The study has implications for the assessment of global and regional consequences of building dams.

Refining the ecological footprint

Ecological footprint measures how much of the biosphere’s annual regenerative capacity is required to renew the natural resources used by a defined population in a given year. Ecological footprint analysis (EFA) compares the footprint with biocapacity. When a population’s footprint is greater than biocapacity it is reported to be engaging in ecological overshoot. Recent estimates show that humanity’s footprint exceeds Earth’s biocapacity by 23%. Despite increasing popularity of EFA, definitional, theoretical, and methodological issues hinder more widespread scientific acceptance and use in policy settings. Of particular concern is how EFA is defined and what it actually measures, exclusion of open oceans and less productive lands from biocapacity accounts, failure to allocate space for other species, use of agricultural productivity potential as the basis for equivalence factors (EQF), how the global carbon budget is allocated, and failure to capture unsustainable use of aquatic or terrestrial ecosystems. This article clarifies the definition of EFA and proposes several methodological and theoretical refinements. Our new approach includes the entire surface of the Earth in biocapacity, allocates space for other species, changes the basis of EQF to net primary productivity (NPP), reallocates the carbon budget, and reports carbon sequestration biocapacity. We apply the new approach to footprint accounts for 138 countries and compare our results with output from the standard model. We find humanity’s global footprint and ecological overshoot to be substantially greater, and suggest the new approach is an important step toward making EFA a more accurate and meaningful sustainability assessment tool.

Integrating the social and natural sciences in environmental research: a discussion paper

This paper considers the practical and intellectual challenges that attend efforts to integrate the social and natural sciences in environmental research, and the broader political, social and economic context in which this takes place. Based on the experiences of researchers in Australia—but with obvious relevance for researchers in many countries—it is the outcome of an interdisciplinary workshop which brought together social and natural scientists involved in environmental management. This event and the wider discussions that followed were initiated to enable researchers to exchange ideas about the obstacles to interdisciplinary collaboration, and to discuss ways to overcome these. The paper provides a summary of the issues and proposes some guidelines for interdisciplinary collaboration. These may be summarised as follows:

Measuring individuals’ valuation distributions using a stochastic payment card approach: application to solid waste management in Nigeria

The objectives of this study are twofold. First it aims to establish empirical grounds for pricing the services of a new environmental management initiative in Enugu state, Nigeria. A joint initiative of the UK Department for International Development (DfID), Enugu State Environmental Protection Agency (ENSEPA) and the State and Local Government Programme (SLGP). The second is to test the empirical performance of a new approach to the contingent valuation method (CVM) i.e., the Stochastic Payment Card (SPC) design proposed by Wang (Contingent valuation of environmental resources: A stochastic perspective, 1997a, Journal of Environmental Economics & Management, 32:219–232, 1997b). The SPC design unlike many of the conventional CVM elicitation formats, takes into account the stochastic nature of individuals’ valuation decisions. The data for the analysis were obtained from a random sample survey of a district in Enugu metropolis. The results show that, on average, households in this city are willing to pay (WTP) 215 Naira ($1.6) monthly as against 200 Naira ($1.5) currently charged for the service by ENSEPA. Analysis of individual’s valuation distribution function indicates that this amount is positively and significantly related to the gender of the respondent, household income and the respondent’s perception of environmental quality.

Training future experts in “biodiversity and ecosystem services”: a progress report

Biodiversity is essential for multiple aspects of human life and well-being, but many current assessments of the functioning of biodiversity and ecosystems, understanding of risks posed by environmental change and the best practice of their management of ecosystems are lacking a unified scientific and conceptual basis. Methods such as scenario analysis, and terms such as ecosystem services, are widely used, but their meaning is understood in many different ways depending on context, user needs and experience of researchers. In order to advance the conceptual basis for ecosystem analysis and management in a rapidly changing world, as well as the ability of young scientists to reflect upon these concepts, we have organised five 2-week-long summer schools in Peyresq, a remote village in the Southern French Alps. In total 173 participants have worked intensively with 69 experienced researchers and a team of conveners and tutors in order to discuss a broad range of views on topics on ecosystem analysis and functioning. Topics ranged from conditions of and threats to various ecosystems due to environmental change, models and scenarios for assessment, stakeholder perceptions and needs for information, to the social and economic contexts for biodiversity. We report our experience from these schools, present the training concept which has emerged from them and suggest lines of further development.

The impact of climate change on tourism in Germany,the UK and Ireland: a simulation study

We downscale the results of a global tourism simulation model at a national resolution to a regional resolution. We use this to investigate the impact of climate change on the regions of Germany, Ireland and the UK. Because of climate change, tourists from all three countries would spend more holidays in the home country. In all three countries, climate change would first reduce the number of international arrivals—as Western European international tourist demand falls—but later increase numbers—as tourism demand from increasingly rich tropical countries grows. In Ireland and the UK, the regional pattern of demand shifts is similar to the international one: tourism shifts north. In Germany, the opposite pattern is observed as the continental interior warms faster than the coast: tourism shifts south.

A new approach to quantifying and comparing vulnerability to drought

In this study we develop an “inference modeling” approach to compare and analyze how different disciplines (economics, political science, and behavioral science/environmental psychology) estimate vulnerability to drought. It is thought that a better understanding of these differences can lead to a synthesis of insights from the different disciplines and eventually to more comprehensive assessments of vulnerability. The new methodology consists of (1) developing inference models whose variables and assertions incorporate qualitative knowledge about vulnerability, (2) converting qualitative model variables into quantitative indicators by using fuzzy set theory, (3) collecting data on the values of the indicators from case study regions, (4) inputting the regional data to the models and computing quantitative values for susceptibility. The methodology was applied to three case study regions (in India, Portugal and Russia) having a range of socio-economic and water stress conditions. In some cases the estimates of susceptibility were surprisingly similar, in others not, depending on the factors included in the disciplinary models and their relative weights. A new approach was also taken to testing vulnerability parameters by comparing estimated water stress against a data set of drought occurrences based on media analysis. The new methodologies developed in this paper provide a consistent basis for comparing differences between disciplinary perspectives, and for identifying the importance of the differences.

How developing countries can engage in GHG reduction: a case study for China

It has been clearly recognized that future global climate change will limit the possibilities for sustainable development in China. To minimize these negative effects, as a practical strategy, we suggest that the Chinese government engage in international cooperation as a key contributor in the prevention of global warming. This suggestion results from numerical estimations of China’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emission trends accompanied with economic growth up to 2100. The results show that China’s gross domestic product (GDP), measured in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP), may overtake the sum of the GDPs of the United States and Canada in 2020. It is predicted that GDP per capita may reach US$20,000 and $80,000 in 2050 and 2100, respectively; meanwhile, CO₂ emissions in China will increase from 6.6 billion tons (in carbon equivalent units) in 1990 to 54.6 billion tons in 2100. This means that the global peak concentration of GHG cannot be practically reduced without significant contributions from China. For international cooperation in mitigating global climate change, we introduce a new option, “per-capita emission restricted by assigned amount,” as an accounting rule for GHG reduction. This baseline classifies global CO₂ reduction actions into three categories: compulsory reduction, self-imposed reduction, and voluntary reduction. We suggest that China contribute to world CO₂ reduction according to the following timetable: voluntary reduction until 2012, self-imposed reduction until 2020, and compulsory reduction from 2020. The simulation results also indicate that China can benefit from this strategy in terms of improvements in its domestic economy and environment, for instance, by reducing fossil fuel consumption and the emission of pollutants.

Climate change and natural disasters: macroeconomic performance and distributional impacts

Commonly occurring natural events become natural disasters when they affect the population through death and injury, and/or through the destruction of natural and physical capital on which people rely for their livelihood and quality of life. Climate change plays a role in that it tends to increase the frequency and intensity of weather-related natural disasters. Additionally, climate change may put people at risk by influencing access to water, coastal flooding, disease and hunger, and leaving them with a more degraded environment, leading, in turn, to increased vulnerability. The purpose of this paper is to present a review and synthesis of the literature and case studies addressing differential impacts of climate change-related natural disasters on a society and its economy. Developed and developing countries show different vulnerabilities to natural disasters. Even within countries, impacts vary significantly across population and economic sectors. When losses from natural disasters are large, their cumulative effect can have notable macroeconomic impacts, which feed back to further pronounce existing income inequalities and lower income levels. Impacts tend to be most pronounced for women, the young and elderly, and people of ethnic or racial minorities.

The ecological footprint: an exhibit at an intergenerational trial?

This paper aims at assessing the extent to which the ecological footprint indicator (EF) can be regarded as an exhibit allowing an intergenerational trial about the use of natural resources. For that purpose, we examine various criticisms questioning the relevancy of EF measures for the study of environmental justice between generations. We explore the difficulties raised by the physical—and highly aggregated—nature of EF measures, as well as problems related to the number, the possible non-existence, and the tastes of future generations. The extent to which postulates on nature’s regeneration and technological progress affect the significance of EF studies is also discussed. It is concluded that those criticisms, by identifying various weaknesses of EF measures for the study of intergenerational justice, point to several crucial refinements of existing EF-based analyses.

Climate change and coastal vulnerability assessment: scenarios for integrated assessment

Coastal vulnerability assessments still focus mainly on sea-level rise, with less attention paid to other dimensions of climate change. The influence of non-climatic environmental change or socio-economic change is even less considered, and is often completely ignored. Given that the profound coastal changes of the twentieth century are likely to continue through the twenty-first century, this is a major omission, which may overstate the importance of climate change, and may also miss significant interactions of climate change with other non-climate drivers. To better support climate and coastal management policy development, more integrated assessments of climatic change in coastal areas are required, including the significant non-climatic changes. This paper explores the development of relevant climate and non-climate drivers, with an emphasis on the non-climate drivers. While these issues are applicable within any scenario framework, our ideas are illustrated using the widely used SRES scenarios, with both impacts and adaptation being considered. Importantly, scenario development is a process, and the assumptions that are made about future conditions concerning the coast need to be explicit, transparent and open to scientific debate concerning their realism and likelihood. These issues are generic across other sectors.

Formation of the resource concept in Japan: pre-war and post-war efforts in knowledge integration

The objective of this paper is to trace the evolution of the resource concept in modern Japan by highlighting key individuals who played major roles in communicating this idea to a wider audience during its formation and development between the 1910s and 1950s. Special attention will be paid to the effect of different historical contexts on interpretations of the term “resource”. The paper reveals how the integration of knowledge indispensable for achieving sustainability occurs. The orientation of resource policy was drastically different before and after World War II. In the pre-war period, the military government used the resource concept to create a comprehensive inventory of the nation’s military forces, and “resource” was thus a convenient term to neutralize the aggressive connotations of top-down military mobilization. After the turn to democratic principles in 1945, “resource” suddenly acquired a symbolic meaning as a means to serve the people. Despite these contrasts, however, pre and post-war resource concepts share a commonality in that the government acted as the centralizing force, providing a platform to integrate disparate knowledge under the resource concept. At a time when society itself is more prone to fragmentation, the resource concept, which played a significant role in unification in the past, should be re-examined. The history of the concept in Japan, particularly during the pre and post-war period up until the 1950s, contains a wealth of insights as to how this can be achieved.