Socioeconomic development and vulnerability to land degradation in Italy

In recent years, the surface area affected by land degradation (LD) has significantly increased in southern European regions where the socioeconomic development has been proposed as a basic factor underlying the degree of vulnerability to LD. This paper investigates the correlation between several socioeconomic indicators and the level of vulnerability to LD in Italy, expressed as changes (1990–2000) in a composite index of land vulnerability (ΔLVI). The analysis was carried out over 784 local districts. The impact of per capita value added, agricultural intensity, industrial and tourism concentration, and urban growth was separately tested on ΔLVI. Results indicate that a lower district value added, crop intensification, irrigation, and the level of land vulnerability to degradation are strongly associated with the increasing level of land vulnerability over time, highlighting the role of the socioeconomic development as a main process underlying LD. In this framework, spatially equitable sustainable development may represent the effective strategy to mitigate the detrimental effects of economic growth and regional disparities on Mediterranean LD.     

Ecosystem services and hydroelectricity in Central America: modelling service flows with fuzzy logic and expert knowledge

Because ecosystem services are generally not produced and used in the same place, their assessment should consider the flows of services from ecosystems to users. These flows depend on the characteristics and spatial distribution of ecosystems and users, the spatial relationships between them, and the presence of filters or barriers between ecosystems and users. The objective of this paper is to map the ecosystem services provided to the Costa Rican and Nicaraguan hydroelectric sectors, which are crucial sectors for national sustainable development and depend directly on hydrological ecosystem services. The paper presents an approach for modelling the flows of multiple services from diverse ecosystems to diverse users through different kinds of filters in a landscape. The approach uses expert knowledge and fuzzy numbers to handle uncertainties. The analyses for Costa Rica and Nicaragua show how the approach helps identify priority areas for the conservation and restoration of forests for the services they provide to the hydroelectric sector. As such, it is a useful tool for defining spatially targeted policies for the conservation of ecosystem services and for involving the users of ecosystem services in ecosystem management.     

Anthropogenic impacts on suspended sediment load in the Upper Yangtze river

Climate change and human disturbance drive catchment erosion and increase riverine sediment load sensitively in small and medium-sized watersheds. This is not always true in large basins, where aggregation and buffering effects have dampen the ability to determine the driving forces of sedimentation. Even though there are significant responses to sedimentation in large river basins, it is difficult to get a precise quantitative assessment of specific drivers. This paper develops a methodology to identify driving forces that change suspended sediment load in the Upper Yangtze river. Annual runoff and sediment load data from 1954 to 2005 at the Yichang gauging station in the Upper Yangtze basin, daily precipitation data from 60 meteorological stations, and survey data on reservoir sediment were collected for the study. Sediment load/rainfall erosivity (S/R), is a new proxy indicator introduced to reflect human activities. Since the mid-1980s, S/R in the Upper Yangtze has dramatically declined from 0.21 to 0.03 (×10¹⁰ t ha h MJ⁻¹ mm⁻¹), indicating that human activity has played a key role in the decline of the suspended sediment load. Before the mid-1980s, a higher average S/R is attributed to large-scale deforestation and land reclamation. A significant sediment decrease occurred from 1959 to 1961 during an extreme drought condition, and an increase in sedimentation in 1998 coincided with an extreme flood event, which was well recorded in the S/R curve. This indicates that the S/R proxy is able to distinguish anthropogenic from climate impacts on suspended sediment load, but is not necessarily indicatory in extreme climate events. In addition, typical drivers of riverine sediment load variation including soil conservation projects, reservoirs construction, and land use/cover change are discussed.     

Scenario analysis of perspective change to support climate adaptation: lessons from a pilot study on Dutch river management

Climate adaptation is a complex task surrounded by uncertainty. To support climate adaptation policies, a new scenario approach is pursued to explore possible discontinuous future developments of societal perspectives on climate adaptation issues. The scenario approach was tested for a case study on Dutch river management. In a series of scenario development workshops, a select group of stakeholders explored the perspectives on the management of the River Meuse in the past, present, and future. The process was supported by an analytical perspectives mapping tool to illustrate and analyze the development of perspectives over time. The process and analytical tools contributed to insight into the drivers of perspective change for the case study at hand. Moreover, the stakeholders highlighted the potential of the approach for water management policy for creating awareness about the plurality of perspectives and the dynamics of perspective change, monitoring perspectives and perspective change as part of a flexible policy approach, and anticipating on the occurrence of shock events. Further work is required to better represent the social dynamics of perspectives change, to better empirically ground the perspective change model, and to apply integrated water models in the scenario development process to assess water–society interactions.     

Recent changes in flood preparedness of private households and businesses in Germany

Using the focusing event framework, a comprehensive analysis of private households’ and businesses’ preparedness was undertaken in the aftermath of the 2002 and 2006 flood events on the Elbe River in Germany. In August 2002, preparedness of households (n = 235) and businesses (n = 103) was low: 30% of the households and 54% of the businesses took no precautionary measures before the flood event. Many undertaken emergency measures were ineffective, since only 26% of all households knew how to react when the flood warning came, and only 9% of businesses had an emergency plan in place. Due to this extreme flood, double-loop learning occurred in many households and businesses, so that many did implement precautionary measures. The distribution of adopted precautionary measures for households fits well to Preisendörfer’s low-cost hypothesis, but does not apply for businesses. Only 10% of the households (n = 112), but still 29% of the businesses (n = 41) were unprepared before the flood in 2006. Significant improvement in flood preparedness activities is still necessary. Particularly for businesses, regulatory programs and programs encouraging proactive behaviour should be implemented. The focusing event framework proofed to be a useful tool for a differentiated analysis of the responses to and learning due to a disaster also in the commercial and private sector.     

Stakeholder engagement in social learning to resolve controversies over land-use change to plantation forestry

Rapid land-use change arising from incentives for afforestation has created tensions in rural communities previously dominated by agricultural enterprises. This paper reports on an innovative experiment with social learning that incorporated participatory modelling to resolve community concerns in a case study of plantation forestry in the Upper Clarence catchment of north-eastern NSW Australia. The development of a diagnostic framework helped identify socioeconomic and environmental issues within the community for investigation by a self-selected participatory advisory committee (PAC) representing a diversity of views. Implementation of a social learning exercise offered empathetic and intellectual engagement among PAC members that maintained interest, built confidence, and improved problem-solving capacity while fostering group ownership over decision making. A shared understanding of dynamic landscape problems helped empower participants to collaboratively develop solutions for improved management and operational practices, and cooperate to explore further options for plantation industry development under existing policy guidelines which are presented in this paper. As a result of frank discussions between diverse stakeholders in a mutually respectful learning environment that combined local, scientific and expert knowledge, concerns dissipated and participants developed a more favourable view of plantation forestry activity.     

Influence of peatland and land cover distribution on fire regimes in insular Southeast Asia

Anthropogenic biomass burning in insular Southeast Asia facilitates conversion and degradation of ecosystems and emits high amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. We analyzed the influence of peat soil and land cover distribution on the occurrence and characteristics of vegetation fires. Two years of satellite-based active fire detections over Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, Borneo and Java were examined together with land cover and peatland maps. Our results showed that fire occurrence nearly tripled (23,000 → 68,000) from a wet La Niña year (2008) to a drier El Niño year (2009). In both years, fires were concentrated in peatlands (in 2009 41% of fires vs. 10% of land area), and the majority of large-scale burning took place in peatlands. Variation in peatland land cover within the study area was noticed to create remarkable different fire regimes. Biomass burning in the intensely managed Sumatran peatlands was characterized by large-scale land clearance fires that took place annually to varying extent. The largely unmanaged degraded peatland ecosystems of Borneo, on the other hand, experienced very little fire activity in a wet year but were ravaged by large-scale wildfires when El Niño conditions arose. We conclude that fire regime characteristics in insular Southeast Asia are strongly connected to occurrence of peat soil and land management status. This leads to high variation of fire activity within this region both annually (depending on weather patters) and over longer time range (depending on land cover/management issues) and greatly complicates estimation of the effects of fires.     

Analyzing coastal wetland change in the Yancheng National Nature Reserve,China

Coastal zones provide habitat cores and corridors that maintain the diversity of entire landscapes, and they can form the cornerstone elements of regional conservation strategies. Natural environmental driving factors and excessive anthropogenic activities play important roles in coastal wetland change. Many studies have used remote sensing images to map and assess coastal wetland change on local or regional scales. This paper aims to provide insight into coastal wetland change in the Yancheng National Nature Reserve (YNNR) using remote sensing technology and landscape metrics analysis. The results reveal that grass flat and reed areas have significantly decreased, whereas agriculture fields, aquaculture ponds and built-up areas have continuously increased from 1988 to 2006. The spatial pattern of the coastal landscape has become fragmented and heterogeneous under great pressure from rapid economic development and population growth. The wetland changes have important impacts on natural habitat of the red-crowned cranes. The results of this study provide basic information that is required for developing measures toward a sustainable management and conservation of the YNNR.     

A context-inclusive approach to support energy policy formulation and evaluation

Observing the many and varied reactions to the Kyoto Protocol, it becomes clear that different governments find themselves in different contexts that eventually direct them toward taking dissimilar positions on energy issues. This paper, through five integrated studies, investigates whether contextualizing energy issues is (are) relevant to support energy policy formulation and evaluation and provides insights into how to operationalize the contextualization. Instead of considering the most widely accepted tools currently used to assess and evaluate energy policy, this research proposes the utilization of a holistic framework that incorporates social, economic and environmental factors as well as their relations to the energy sector to better contextualize global, regional and national energy issues. This framework, which accounts for feedback loops, delays and non-linearity, is applied to case studies to investigate the longer-term performance of selected energy policies. Results of the study indicate the likely emergence of various unexpected side effects and elements of policy resistance over the medium and longer term due to the interrelations existing between energy and society, economy and environment. Furthermore, while side effects and unintended consequences may arise both within the energy sector and in the other sectors, they simultaneously influence society, economy and environment.     

Land-cover changes in and around a National Park in a mountain landscape in the Pyrenees

The current state of Mediterranean mountain areas has been driven by two main factors: intense traditional human activity and the dynamics of the ecosystem itself. In this study, we examine land-cover changes in a National Park in the Pyrenees mountains (NE Iberian Peninsula), which was designated a protected area 55 years ago. First, we have analyzed spatio-temporal changes in land-cover pattern and forest dynamics from 1957 to 2005. During this period, land-cover dynamics consisted of two main processes: (i) expansion of the forest area and (ii) increasing cover of forests already present in 1957. To analyze the role of the conservation level of the park, we have also compared the results obtained within the park with those of unprotected, peripheral areas. In the two areas with different protection level, dense forests increased throughout the period because of the reduction in forestry activities. The peripheral area showed a higher rate of forest-cover change from 1957 to 2005 compared to the National Park. This higher increase in forest cover in the peripheral area could be related to a higher proportion in the National Park of screes and rocky areas and to the decline and transformation of forest activities in these peripheral, lower elevation areas.