Complex Land Systems: the Need for Long Time Perspectives to Assess their Future

Dearing, John A.; Braimoh, Ademola K.; Reenberg, Anette; Turner, B. L.; Leeuw, Sander van der

doi:10.5751/es-03645-150421

Cited by 154 publications

(102 citation statements)

References 79 publications

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“…A key challenge for sustainability science is how to project the significance of the spatial patterning of vegetation (5,6) into the past. This is an important goal because the past offers "completed experiments," where it is possible to determine what happened next in a long sequence of events, providing valuable insights to modern managers and policy makers (29,30).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anticipating land surface change

Streeter

Dugmore

2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The interplay of human actions and natural processes over varied spatial and temporal scales can result in abrupt transitions between contrasting land surface states. Understanding these transitions is a key goal of sustainability science because they can represent abrupt losses of natural capital. This paper recognizes flickering between alternate land surface states in advance of threshold change and critical slowing down in advance of both threshold changes and noncritical transformation. The early warning signals we observe are rises in autocorrelation, variance, and skewness within millimeterresolution thickness measurements of tephra layers deposited in A. D. 2010 and A.D. 2011. These signals reflect changing patterns of surface vegetation, which are known to provide early warning signals of critical transformations. They were observed toward migrating soil erosion fronts, cryoturbation limits, and expanding deflation zones, thus providing potential early warning signals of land surface change. The record of the spatial patterning of vegetation contained in contemporary tephra layers shows how proximity to land surface change could be assessed in the widespread regions affected by shallow layers of volcanic fallout (those that can be subsumed within the existing vegetation cover). This insight shows how we could use tephra layers in the stratigraphic record to identify "near misses," close encounters with thresholds that did not lead to tipping points, and thus provide additional tools for archaeology, sustainability science, and contemporary land management.bifurcations | geomorphology | Iceland | resilience | tephrochronology

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anticipating land surface change

Streeter

Dugmore

2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Awareness of the temporal dimension is also important; ecosystems are neither fixed nor stable but are continually adapting to changes in geomorphological processes over decadal, centennial, millennial and longer timescales in response to a range of natural and human drivers (Dearing, 2006;Dearing et al, 2010). To understand how ecosystems respond to change, it is vital to think in terms of geomorphological processes and their changes over both space and time.…”

Section: Geodiversity and Climate Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Engaging with geodiversity—why it matters

Gordon

Barron

Hansom

et al. 2012

Proceedings of the Geologists' Association

127

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The Conference, 'Engaging with Geodiversity -Why it Matters', December 2010, addressed the wider relevance of geodiversity in Scotland. A key challenge is to integrate geodiversity within existing policy relating to the way we work and live, and therefore to inform better the decisions we make about a sustainable future for our environment. This will require partnership working among the geoscience, geoconservation and voluntary sectors at both national and local levels, not only to demonstrate convincingly the economic, social, cultural and environmental values and benefits of geodiversity, but also to deliver real outcomes for both people and nature. The key drivers that provide particular opportunities, as well as challenges, for the integration of geodiversity are the development of an ecosystem approach and how society responds to climate change. Addressing these will be crucial from a geoconservation perspective to develop a wider understanding of the essential environmental role played by geodiversity and for the protection of key sites, both from a policy perspective in delivering economic, social and environmental benefits, and from an academic perspective in ensuring support for geoscience. The key message -that geodiversity matters -must be communicated strongly to the highest levels of government, among key interest groups and at a local community level.

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“…However, we have no comparative assessment of equivalent social tipping points considering environmental, economic or governance stressors. Nevertheless, this knowledge gap is of considerable concern as societal transformations in response to global environmental or social change shift the context of adaptation, resilience and future transformability [94,95]. Hence, suitable frameworks that include long-term integrative perspectives of SES dynamics have recently been advocated to deepen our knowledge of past breakdowns and historical collapses in SESs [96], complex land system dynamics [94] and land function [97] and resilience of past landscapes [98].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With Holling's adaptive cycle metaphor and the DDP analytical framework, we were able to identify key processes that explain the resilience and vulnerability of the Amapola SES dynamics. Having gone through four adaptive cycles in its 450 year history, the Amapola DSES has a long and complex socio-cultural and biophysical legacy [94] having crossed socio-cultural, socio-political and socio-economic thresholds [19,94]. The Amapola SES has maintained itself because of the surprisingly high resilience of its biophysical and social systems.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Climate change, land-use change, loss of biodiversity and degradation of ecosystem services as well as globalization, neoliberal politics, monetary crisis, global markets, industrialization and urbanization are all global change drivers directly or indirectly affecting DSESs. It is the biophysical or social subsystem that is responding to external drivers of change; however, since SESs are coupled, the response to multiple drivers may be amplified [94]. Thus, it is important to understand the nature of SES responses and feedback to multi-causal continuous or abrupt changes in system dynamics that may lead systems to local thresholds or global tipping points.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Navigating challenges and opportunities of land degradation and sustainable livelihood development in dryland social–ecological systems: a case study from Mexico

Huber-Sannwald

Palacios

Moreno

et al. 2012

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Drylands are one of the most diverse yet highly vulnerable social–ecological systems on Earth. Water scarcity has contributed to high levels of heterogeneity, variability and unpredictability, which together have shaped the long coadaptative process of coupling humans and nature. Land degradation and desertification in drylands are some of the largest and most far-reaching global environmental and social change problems, and thus are a daunting challenge for science and society. In this study, we merged the Drylands Development Paradigm, Holling's adaptive cycle metaphor and resilience theory to assess the challenges and opportunities for livelihood development in the Amapola dryland social–ecological system (DSES), a small isolated village in the semi-arid region of Mexico. After 450 years of local social–ecological evolution, external drivers (neoliberal policies, change in land reform legislation) have become the most dominant force in livelihood development, at the cost of loss of natural and cultural capital and an increasingly dysfunctional landscape. Local DSESs have become increasingly coupled to dynamic larger-scale drivers. Hence, cross-scale connectedness feeds back on and transforms local self-sustaining subsistence farming conditions, causing loss of livelihood resilience and diversification in a globally changing world. Effective efforts to combat desertification and improve livelihood security in DSESs need to consider their cyclical rhythms. Hence, we advocate novel dryland stewardship strategies, which foster adaptive capacity, and continuous evaluation and social learning at all levels. Finally, we call for an effective, flexible and viable policy framework that enhances local biotic and cultural diversity of drylands to transform global drylands into a resilient biome in the context of global environmental and social change.

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Complex Land Systems: the Need for Long Time Perspectives to Assess their Future

Cited by 154 publications

References 79 publications

Anticipating land surface change

Anticipating land surface change

Engaging with geodiversity—why it matters

Navigating challenges and opportunities of land degradation and sustainable livelihood development in dryland social–ecological systems: a case study from Mexico

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