Safe operating spaces for regional rural development John Dearing Geography and Environment UN Development Information Day 24th October2012

ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION HUMAN DEPRIVATION Raworth 2012

DEPRIVATION AND DEGRADATION Land-water conflicts Food price crises Can we devise a tool that allows us to plan for sustainable development within safe environmental limits? Raworth 2012

Rockström et al 2009 Nature 461, Scheffer et al 2001 Nature 413, Planetary Safe Operating Spaces Abrupt changes Humanity has already exceeded safe limits for biodiversity, nitrogen cycle and climate…..idea based on typology of ‘abrupt changes’ or ‘tipping points’……….

Nine planetary boundaries Raworth policy/safe-and-just-space- humanity

Living in a doughnut- a safe and just space for humanity Raworth 2012

Falling far below the social foundation Raworth 2012

How to combine these together at regional scales? Use socio-economic records and national/international norms to set ‘social foundation’ But how to set regional boundaries for biophysical conditions?

a b c Threshold/fold bifurcation/alternative states Normal variability Distance from background Rate change (1 st derivative) Boundary = x times background Boundary =  y/  t Boundary = x times variability (z score units) Boundary = threshold condition/ tipping point State 2 State 1 Minimum limit Maximum limit Background state Undesirable state t y Boundary = rising variance/skewness/autocorrelation Increasing variability d Regional boundary How to define a regional boundary? Dearing et al unpub.

ESPA Yangtze Shanghai 250 km Can we define a regional safe operating space that defines biophysical boundaries for sustainable economic development? Nanjing

Lower Yangtze basin: provisioning and regulating services Dearing et al 2012 PNAS Zhang et al in manuscript Lake sediment records- regulating services Official statistical records- provisioning services Trade-off between agricultural intensification and ecological degradation Evidence for improved regulating services since 2000 as provisioning services decline

Lower Yangtze basin: early warning signals of lake ecosystem collapse Rising variance from 1960s Rising variance from the 1960s Normalized value Standard deviation Tipping point passed early1990s No obvious single driving force Zhang et al in manuscript Wang et al 2012 Nature Early warning may be possible for other lakes that are not nutrient enriched

‘Poverty stricken’ Shucheng County Ke Zhang 2012 Social foundation nearly reached, except sanitation Environmental ceiling exceeded for water quality, soil stability and air quality Potential conflict between the needs for new sanitation measures and treatment of existing water Can food demands from growing urban areas be met locally?

Conclusions Creation of ‘Safe and just operating spaces at regional scales’ are feasible but more research needed to assess biophysical boundaries; Long environmental records allow assessment of ‘limits’, ‘boundaries’, ‘tipping points’ In Chinese studies, lake sediment records are particularly useful for showing early warning signals of lake ecosystem collapses; Thanks to everybody at the Safe Operating Spaces workshop, especially Kate Raworth, Ke Zhang and Rong Wang. Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation Programme (ESPA), Evidence and Impacts Research Grant programme ‘Safe operating spaces for regional rural development: a new conceptual tool for evaluating complex socio-ecological system dynamics’; Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation Programme (ESPA), Programme Framework Grant‘Poverty and ecology: developing a new evolutionary approach’ (NERC project no. NE/I002960/1); International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), Directorate IPO, Stockholm.