Safe operating spaces for regional rural
development
John Dearing
Geography and Environment
UN Development Information Day
24th October2012
HUMAN DEPRIVATION
ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION
Raworth 2012
DEPRIVATION AND DEGRADATION
Land-water conflicts
Can we devise a tool that allows us to plan for
sustainable development within safe
environmentalFood
limits?
price crises
Raworth 2012
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’……….
Rockström et al 2009 Nature 461, 472-475
Scheffer et al 2001 Nature 413, 591- 596
Nine planetary boundaries
http://www.oxfam.org/en/grow/
policy/safe-and-just-spacehumanity
Raworth 2012
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?
How to define a regional boundary?
a
y
Background state
Distance from background
Rate change (1st derivative)
Undesirable state
Boundary = x times background
Boundary = dy/dt
Maximum limit
b
Normal variability
Minimum limit
Boundary = x times variability
(z score units)
c
Increasing variability
Boundary = rising
variance/skewness/autocorrelation
d
State 1
Boundary = threshold condition/
tipping point
Threshold/fold
bifurcation/alternative
states
State 2
t
Dearing et al unpub.
ESPA Yangtze
Nanjing
Shanghai
Can we define a regional
safe operating space that
defines biophysical
boundaries for sustainable
economic development?
250 km
Lower Yangtze basin: provisioning and
regulating services 1900-2010
1Lake sediment recordsregulating services
0.9
Trade-off between
agricultural
intensification and
ecological
degradation
0.8
Normalized value
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
Evidence for
improved regulating
services since 2000
as provisioning
services decline
Water quality
Sediment quality
Soil stability
0.3
0.2
Air quality
Total crop yield
Oil crop yield
0.1
0
1900
Official statistical recordsprovisioning services
Aquatic yield
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
Year
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
Dearing et al 2012 PNAS
Zhang et al in manuscript
Lower Yangtze basin: early warning signals
of lake ecosystem collapse
Tipping point
passed early1990s
1
Normalized value
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.4
0.3
No obvious single
driving force
GDP
Fertilizer usage
0.2
0.1
0
1900
Standard deviation
Population
0.5
Aquatic ecosystem
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
1.2
1
Early warning may
be possible for
other lakes that
are not nutrient
enriched
Rising
variance from
the 1960s
0.8
0.6
2010
0.4
0.2
0
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
Zhang et al in manuscript
Wang et al 2012 Nature
‘Poverty stricken’ Shucheng County
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?
Ke Zhang 2012
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
(IGBP), Directorate IPO, Stockholm.
Programme