Land use has generally been considered a local environmental issue, but it is becoming a force of global importance. Worldwide changes to forests, farmlands, waterways, and air are being driven by the need to provide food, fiber, water, and shelter to more than six billion people. Global croplands, pastures, plantations, and urban areas have expanded in recent decades, accompanied by large increases in energy, water, and fertilizer consumption, along with considerable losses of biodiversity. Such changes in land use have enabled humans to appropriate an increasing share of the planet’s resources, but they also potentially undermine the capacity of ecosystems to sustain food production, maintain freshwater and forest resources, regulate climate and air quality, and ameliorate infectious diseases. We face the challenge of managing trade-offs between immediate human needs and maintaining the capacity of the biosphere to provide goods and services in the long term.

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Global Consequences of Land Use

An essential textbook for any student or researcher in biology needing to design experiments, sample programs or analyse the resulting data The text begins with a revision of estimation and hypothesis testing methods, covering both classical and Bayesian philosophies, before advancing to the analysis of linear and generalized linear models Topics covered include linear and logistic regression, simple and complex ANOVA models (for factorial, nested, block, split-plot and repeated measures and covariance designs), and log-linear models Multivariate techniques, including classification and ordination, are then introduced Special emphasis is placed on checking assumptions, exploratory data analysis and presentation of results The main analyses are illustrated with many examples from published papers and there is an extensive reference list to both the statistical and biological literature The book is supported by a website that provides all data sets, questions for each chapter and links to software

/pdf/experimental-design-and-data-analysis-for-biologists-8ybva8d53x.pdf

Experimental Design and Data Analysis for Biologists

Identifying and quantifying planetary boundaries that must not be transgressed could help prevent human activities from causing unacceptable environmental change, argue Johan Rockstrom and colleagues.

/pdf/a-safe-operating-space-for-humanity-tynyc6i2kf.pdf

A safe operating space for humanity

The management and conservation of the world's oceans require synthesis of spatial data on the distribution and intensity of human activities and the overlap of their impacts on marine ecosystems. We developed an ecosystem-specific, multiscale spatial model to synthesize 17 global data sets of anthropogenic drivers of ecological change for 20 marine ecosystems. Our analysis indicates that no area is unaffected by human influence and that a large fraction (41%) is strongly affected by multiple drivers. However, large areas of relatively little human impact remain, particularly near the poles. The analytical process and resulting maps provide flexible tools for regional and global efforts to allocate conservation resources; to implement ecosystem-based management; and to inform marine spatial planning, education, and basic research.

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A Global Map of Human Impact on Marine Ecosystems

The resilience perspective is increasingly used as an approach for understanding the dynamics of social–ecological systems. This article presents the origin of the resilience perspective and provides an overview of its development to date. With roots in one branch of ecology and the discovery of multiple basins of attraction in ecosystems in the 1960–1970s, it inspired social and environmental scientists to challenge the dominant stable equilibrium view. The resilience approach emphasizes non-linear dynamics, thresholds, uncertainty and surprise, how periods of gradual change interplay with periods of rapid change and how such dynamics interact across temporal and spatial scales. The history was dominated by empirical observations of ecosystem dynamics interpreted in mathematical models, developing into the adaptive management approach for responding to ecosystem change. Serious attempts to integrate the social dimension is currently taking place in resilience work reflected in the large numbers of sciences involved in explorative studies and new discoveries of linked social–ecological systems. Recent advances include understanding of social processes like, social learning and social memory, mental models and knowledge–system integration, visioning and scenario building, leadership, agents and actor groups, social networks, institutional and organizational inertia and change, adaptive capacity, transformability and systems of adaptive governance that allow for management of essential ecosystem services.

Resilience: the emergence of a perspective for social-ecological systems analyses

We are concerned with the management of ecological and economic systems with threshold responses and with several time scales. Although optimal control of such systems is seldom attainable, the form of such optimal controls provides important insights for more practical schemes. Here we optimize the expected discounted net benefits of phosphorus (P) loadings for a potentially eutrophic lake. The benefits accrue to agricultural interests from activities that result in loading, and costs accrue to other interests from the resulting deterioration of water quality. We extend the 1999 results of S. R. Carpenter, D. Ludwig, and W. A. Brock to account for dependence of P recycling upon the concentration of P in sediments. We obtain optimal policies using methods of dynamic programming with two state variables. We find a strong interaction between economic and ecological parameters in determining the optimal policy: the economic discount rate determines whether the time horizon is long or short, and this in turn strongly influences the magnitude of the optimal loadings. Simple policies that neglect dynamics of P in the sediments are inadequate unless the time horizon is short and the dynamics are slow. A stochastic model is essential if there are substantial random fluctuations in loadings. Uncertainty in the determination of the critical P density that triggers recycling cannot be neglected. Our results may be interpreted as a quantitative precautionary principle that takes account of both economic and ecological aspects of the management of the lake. Our results may also be used to illustrate economic ideas such as sustainable development, natural capital, option values, and income.

Optimal phosphorus loading for a potentially

The lakes in the northern highlands of Wisconsin, USA, the lakes and wetlands of Kristianstads Vattenrike in southern Sweden, and the Everglades of Florida, USA, provide cases that can be used to compare the linkages between ecological resilience and social dynamics. The erosion of ecological resilience in aquatic and wetland ecosystems is often a result of past management actions and is manifest as a real or perceived ecological crisis. Learning is a key ingredient in response to the loss of ecological resilience. Learning is facilitated through networks that operate in distinct arenas and are structured for dialogue, synthesis, and imaginative solutions to chart alternative futures. The networks also help counter maladaptive processes such as information control or manipulation, bureaucratic inertia, or corruption. The networks help create institutional arrangements that provide for more learning and flexibility and for the ability to change. Trust and leadership appear to be key elements for adaptability and transformability.

https://www.gbcma.vic.gov.au/downloads/wshop_resilience_reading/resilience_5_ES-2005-1556.pdf

Insight, part of a Special Feature on Exploring Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems Water RATs (Resilience, Adaptability, and Transformability) in Lake and Wetland Social-Ecological Systems

Sustainability's Compass: Indicators of Genuine Wealth

http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-90-481-9476-6_31.pdf

S. R. Carpenter

Papers

Optimal phosphorus loading for a potentially

Insight, part of a Special Feature on Exploring Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems Water RATs (Resilience, Adaptability, and Transformability) in Lake and Wetland Social-Ecological Systems

Sustainability's Compass: Indicators of Genuine Wealth

Askö 2001: Sustainability’s Compass – Indicators of Genuine Wealth