The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are offered as a comprehensive strategy to guide and encourage sustainable development at multiple scales both nationally and internationally. Furthermore, through the development of indicators associated with each goal and sub-goal, the SDGs support the notion of monitoring, evaluation and adaptive management, underpinned by the aspirations of social justice, equity and transparency. As such, the ethical intention of the SDGs is well founded. However, possible conflicts and trade-offs between individual SDGs have received little attention. For example, SDGs relating to poverty (SDG 1), inequality (SDG 10), food security (SDG2), economic development (SDG 8) and life in water and on land (SDGs 14 and 15), are potentially competing in many circumstances. In a social-ecological context, policy support and formulation are increasingly adopting systems approaches, which analyse the complex interactions of system elements. Adopting such an approach in this work, the above SDGs are analysed for coastal Bangladesh. This demonstrates multiple potential trade-offs between the SDGs, including agricultural farming approaches in the light of poverty reduction, and between economic growth and environmental integrity as well as equity. To develop coherent and policy relevant socio-ecological strategies, appropriate decision frameworks need to be co-developed across the range of stakeholders and decision-makers. Integrated models have great potential to support such a process.
Deltas are precarious environments experiencing significant biophysical, and socio-economic changes with the ebb and flow of seasons (including with floods and drought), with infrastructural developments (such as dikes and polders), with the movement of people, and as a result of climate and environmental variability and change. Decisions are being taken about the future of deltas and about the provision of adaptation investment to enable people and the environment to respond to the changing climate and related changes. The paper presents a framework to identify options for, and trade-offs between, long term adaptation strategies in deltas. Using a three step process, we: (1) identify current policy-led adaptations actions in deltas by conducting literature searches on current observable adaptations, potential transformational adaptations and government policy; (2) develop narratives of future adaptation policy directions that take into account investment cost of adaptation and the extent to which significant policy change/political effort is required; and (3) explore trade-offs that occur within each policy direction using a subjective weighting process developed during a collaborative expert workshop. We conclude that the process of developing policy directions for adaptation can assist policy makers in scoping the spectrum of options that exist, while enabling them to consider their own willingness to make significant policy changes within the delta and to initiate transformative change.
Taxonomic name validation and elucidation in biodiversity collection datasets (specimens and names) at institutions are well established, as is the enabling of historical scientific literature, thanks to the work at the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), Plazi TreamentBank, and others. However, a significant area yet to be enhanced in this way is in the assembly of environmental impact survey (EIS) assessments across states or countries. In this project, we looked at using new tools such as AWS Textract to extract text from a range of document types, together with the newly-released gnfinder tool to find taxon names in submitted EIS documents, match them in the Global Names Index and other sources, then use this unique names list to interrogate the Atlas of Living Australia to find additional applicable data, such as the taxonomic and conservation status of given names. The result is a consolidated report summarising the validity and status of taxon names in each EIS report, saving many hours of manual lookup across multiple datasets and thereby significantly streamlining the process of evaluating each environmental proposal.
<p>There is growing recognition that new approaches, underpinned by more system-oriented decision support tools, will be required to facilitate development compatible with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to prevent the risk of dangerous socio-environmental breakdown. We demonstrate the potential of Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) to inform strategic policy decision making at a regional level, helping to understand key trade-offs as well as indirect or unintended impacts. The stakeholder co-produced Delta Dynamic Emulator Model (&#916;DIEM) model is applied to the southwest coastal zone (pop. 14m) where high rates of extreme poverty prevail. The model integrates biophysical drivers, ecosystem services and community level household wellbeing, and in this work is applied an behalf of the Planning Commission of the Government of Bangladesh in order to assess strategic risk in coastal Bangladesh (2050) and particularly to support the Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100. The intervention we investigated included i) A proposed extensive polder network in the south-central region of coastal Bangladesh ii) Strategic development of a chronically waterlogged area of the delta. In both areas we highlight insights on implications of biophysical drivers on poverty, livelihoods and inequality as well as on risk transfer between regions and populations associated with implementation. In doing so we critically assess IAMs&#8217; growing potential to ask and explore key questions and scenarios about the functioning of integrated biophysical and socioeconomic systems. Finally, we point to ongoing applications of the model in West Bengal</p>
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