Transcript 6 MB pps - Work programmes

Overview
Making Scotland’s Rural Environment
More Sustainable
Steve Albon
Aims and Thematic Objectives
Integrative research based around Scotland’s Natural Resources
To help
• determine key factors influencing function and resilience
and which link to sustainability of Scotland’s ‘quality’ brand.
• improve knowledge on hazard identification, the threat that
various risks pose, and solutions to adapt and mitigate.
• develop appropriate balance of land use: agriculture/forestry,
environmental services, recreation, tourism, wildlife refuge.
Addressing ‘Big’ Policy Issues
Responding to Climate Change
Protecting Biodiversity
Sustainability of Rural Scotland
Sustainable Development (SD)
Guiding Principles
•
•
•
Living within environmental
limits
Ensuring a healthy and just
society
Achieving a sustainable
economy
Wise use of
Environmental
Environment
Science
SUSTAINABILITY
Social
Science
justice
•
•
Economic
prosperity
Science
Promoting good governance
Using sound science
responsibly
Conceptual Frameworks for ‘SD’
Concept of resilience and adaptive cycles
(e.g. Gunderson and Holling, 2001)
Redrawn from
Ritz et al 2003
PERTURB
RESPONSE
Resilience:
the capacity of a system to
absorb perturbations and
remain in a functionally similar
state
Multiple stable states:
a set of ‘functionally similar’ states
for a system
RESISTANCE
RESILIENCE
TIME
Basins of attraction
Structure of Talk
•
•
Background
Responding to Climate
Change
•
Detecting change
•
Understanding key drivers
and mechanisms
•
Stakeholder involvement
•
Integrated Modelling
Sustainable Rural
Development
•
Scenario analysis
–
•
Supporting policy
development
•
Knowledge Exchange
–
•
Conservation of soil
carbon
Protecting Biodiversity
–
–
•
Our Approach
Species Loss
Habitat Loss
Values and attitudes
1. Responding to Climate Change
Mid-Summer Day Challenge
Cabinet Secretary for Finance
and Sustainable Growth
John Swinney announced
“We will introduce a
Scottish Climate Change Bill
and consult on a mandatory
long-term target to reduce
our emissions by 80% by
2050”.
•
equivalent to reductions of
3% each year.
•
consult on proposals for
targets based on average
annual reductions over a 5
year period.
A Low Carbon Rural Economy?
Adaptation and mitigation challenges
•
Rural - Urban connections: carbon (C) footprint of transport
•
Land use change to reduce Green House Gas emissions
•
Feasibility of biomass crop and renewable energy
•
Practices to conserve C and/or sequester more C
Conservation of Soil Carbon
• Erosion (water and wind)
• Floods and landslides
• Decline soil organic matter
Loss of Soil Organic Matter
Survey in England and Wales found significant rate of loss of
soil organic matter (SOM) (Bellamy et al 2005)
• Scotland no contemporary estimates of SOM but more dissolved
organic carbon (DOC) is being found in our lakes and rivers
Understanding Changes in DOC
•
•
•
•
Increases seen in 80% of 160
sites in Scotland
Trend consistent in space &
time - climate driver – ToC
But increase in rate varies
within & between catchments
Geology, Soils, Land Use?
Nitrate concentration
Need Multi-disciplinary Science
Sources of flow
Silica concentration
Latest Statistical Methods
GW
SSF
0.4
0.6
OF
0.0
0.2
Proportion
0.8
Comparison of Proportions without Flow as a Covariate - 25/04/00
25/4/00
26/4/00
27/4/00
28/4/00
30/4/00
1/5/00
Date
GW
SSF
0.2
0.4
0.6
OF
0.0
Proportion
0.8
Comparison of Proportions with Flow as a Covariate - 25/04/00
25/4/00
26/4/00
27/4/00
28/4/00
Date
30/4/00
1/5/00
Is Soil Carbon Changing?
National Soils Inventory Scotland
Key points:
• Data captured 1978-1987
• 5 km grid (2826 sites),
analytical data at 10 km points (721 sites)
• Objective site selection - area estimates
• Scottish National Soils Archive
Monitoring Change in Soil C
20 km re-sampling, similar to EU,
as before aligned to OS Grid
To detect change
• in key soil properties
e.g: carbon
• Compare sampling methods
e.g: NSRI, CEH
• Test suitability of new indicators
e.g: bulk density, porosity,
measures of biodiversity
2. Protecting Biodiversity
Scotland’s Biodiversity
Strategy
•
Species and Habitat
– halting loss
•
People
– raising awareness
•
Landscapes & Ecosystems
– enhancing biodiversity
•
Integration and Coordination
– framework for inclusion in all
decision making
•
Knowledge
– best new and existing
information for stakeholders
Reversing loss of biodiversity
Species solutions need research
Priority Species for Action
Freshwater
Pearl Mussel
Small Cow Wheat
Melampyrum sylvaticum
Woolly Willow
Salix lanata
Habitat loss & Landscape change
Expansion of forestry
Mammalian
Across
Scotland
herbivores
area heather
moor
can by
be 25%
reduced
landscape
since 1945
engineers
How Grazing Impact Varies
L
L/M
M
M/H
20 40 60
Grazing
Class
South Impact
Ross, 2000
0
n = 2041
L
L/M
M
M/H
Percentage
20 40 60
M
M/H
Grazing Impact Class
H
20 40 60
L/M
South Loch Tay, 1998
n = 3437
20 40 60
0
20 40 60
H
L/M
M
M/H
H
Grazing
Impact
Class
Angus,
1999
n = 1067
L/M
M
M/H
H
Grazing Impact Class
West Grampian, 2002
n = 969
L
L/M
M
M/H
H
0
L
Percentage
0
n = 719
M/H
n = 2072
L
H
Grazing Impact Class
Midwest, 2003
M
Grazing Impact Class
Cairngorm-Speyside,
1997
L
H
Percentage
L
L/M
0
Percentage
20 40 60
0
n = 2651
H
n = 972
L
Gairloch, 1998
M/H
Grazing
Impact Class
East
Sutherland,
2000
20 40 60
20 40 60
Percentage
H
Grazing Impact Class
M
0
M/H
L/M
20 40 60
M
20 40 60
H
n = 819
L/M
n = 1182
0
M/H
0
Percentage
Percentage
M
Grazing
Impact2001
Class
North Ross,
L
Percentage
L/M
Northern, 1999
0
n = 836
L
Percentage
Percentage
20 40 60
West Sutherland, 2000
0
Percentage
and which species?
L
L/M
M
M/H
H
Grazing Impact Class
Grazing Impact Class
Also cattle, rabbits,
mountain hare, red grouse
0.3
0.1
-0.1
impact
predicted
Median
Median
Change
in Probability
Impact varies with species
Sheep
Cattle
Rabbits
Hares
Deer
Grouse
And density
5
5
Coarse grassland
Dwarf-shrub heath
4
Impact Score
Impact Score
4
3
R2 = 0.2845
2
2
1
1
0
0
0
5
10
15
20
Deer density km-2
25
30
R2 = 0.6891
3
0
5
10
15
20
Deer density km-2
25
30
3. Sustainable Rural Development
•
What sort of landscape
do we want?
•
Can we mitigate
unwanted change?
•
How can we adapt our
demands to ensure the
viability of rural
livelihoods?
Diversification for ‘SD’
Scientific American
Stewardship payments
• Maintaining biodiversity
•
Carbon conservation –
in particular soil C
•
Renewable power
•
Sustainable timber
•
Water resources –
pollution and flood
control
•
Food security - premium
Human-Environment Interactions
ECOLOGICAL DIMENSION
Boundary conditions
Structures
Processes
Ecosystem services
Ecosystem functions
•
Provisioning services
–
•
benefits from provision
food, fibre or fuel
Regulating services
–
•
What are key threats to resource & do
we understand change processes?
benefits from erosion
control, water purification
What are relevant issues that
emerge from the interaction?
Cultural services
–
benefits related to
recreation
Societal values
HUMAN DIMENSION
What do people value about a
resource and the changes to it?
Values, Attitudes and Behaviour
•
•
Emerging issues not based on expert knowledge alone,
explicitly include ‘lay’ stakeholders’ perceptions
Lay stakeholders’ understanding contingent on translation
process and perception, prior knowledge and experience
Focus Groups
•
•
•
Mountaineers
Birdwatchers
Tourists
–
–
•
•
•
•
within Scotland
outside Scotland
Local residents
Foresters
Farmers
Beliefs/Values
Attitudes
Human-Nature
relationship
“sense of place”
•
General view on
biodiversity
management
Values attributed to
‘balance’ of nature
•
Specific attitude
towards particular
measures
Benefits & function
of biodiversity
Not all ecosystem functions easily ‘translatable’ to allow
lay stakeholders to make meaningful value judgements!
Institutions and Property Rights
Rivalry in consumption
Feasibility of Exclusion
YES
NO
Private
Common Pool
YES
• Sheep farm
• Estate quarry
NO
Club
• Deer population
Public
• Crofter’s grazings
• Landscape
Interactions with Governance
• Economic – market orientated
• Regulatory - fines
• Voluntary - cooperation
Stakeholder Involvement
•
Who is currently
involved?
•
What interest do they
represent?
•
How is their involvement
shaping the plan?
•
How can conflicts of
interest be resolved ?
•
Innovative, interactive
process – see this
afternoon’s workshop!
Summary: Science Integral to ‘SD’
Reduce Uncertainty
Environmental
Stakeholder
Involvement
Programme 3
Social
Economic
Development of Indicators
Scenario
analysis
Acknowledgements
Work Package Coordinators
Helaina Black
Iain Brown
Speakers & Workshop Facilitators
Alison Hester
Kirsty Blackstock
Rupert Hough
Graphics & Logistics
Colin Campbell
Simon Langan
John Brown
Bob Ferrier
Keith Matthews
Pat Carnegie
Alison Hester
Robin Pakeman
Jane Lund
Wendy Kenyon
Alan Renwick
Lorraine Robertson
Alan Renwick
Andy Vinten
All the Poster authors/presenters
Staff of Main Research Providers
Programme 3 Advisory Board
Michael Usher, Maggie Gill and Ian Bainbridge