HITE

1
HITE

• Human Impact on Terrestrial Ecosystems

2
IGBP-PAGES-HITE

• The IGBP is comprised of 10 core projects, Past
  Global Changes (PAGES) is one such project
• PAGES is comprised of five research foci
• Focus five Ecosystem Processes and
  Human-Environment Interactions contains three
  projects.
• HITE is one project within Focus 5.

3
Project Aims

• Promote and integrate case studies that
  reconstruct long term human-environment dynamics
  that underlie present ecosystem

4
The HITE Objective

• To further the use of palaeorecords
• Document and understand interactions between
  human activity and ecosystem response through
  time
• THROUGH
• Looking forward
• Integration interdisciplinary work

5
Human Impact Ecosystem Response

• Human Impacts
• Deforestation/afforestation/reforestation
• Cultivation/grazing
• Fire
• Pollution
• Ecosystem Responses
• Habitat destruction/transformation
• Alteration of nutrient sediment and water fluxes

6
Key Questions

• What are the major human impacts that have
  influenced ecosystems that we see in the present
  day?
• How can information about past conditions
  influence suitable land use and management
  strategies?
• What insights do palaeodata sets give on
  frequency magnitude of ecological change?

7
What Information Is Needed?

• Human impact-climate-ecosystem interactions
• Key dynamics and sensitivity
• Spatial scale dependency
• Simulation models

8
Where Is Information Needed?

• Ecosystem driven examples
• Conservation
• Specific process-response dynamics
• Impact driven examples
• Projected human response to climate change
• Projected adaptive responses to climate change
• Science driven agenda examples

9
Action Plan

• Break down major themes of research activity into
  workstreams
• Workstream 1 Compiling information for specific
  ecosystems
• Workstream 2 Human agendas
• Workstream 3 Ecosystem agendas
• Workstream 4 Science agendas

10
Human Agendas

• Sustainability of Human Landscapes
• Population growth
• Climate change
• Projected Vulnerability.

11
Human Agendas

• Greatest pressures on water and land resources by
  human population pressure in 2050 in (Fischer
  Heilig 1997)
• Pressure on
• Indian subcontinent
• S-C Africa
• N Africa

12
Human Agendas

• Pressures on water availability from population
  growth AND climate change (Vörösmarty et al.,
  2000)
• Greatest pressure
• S.America
• Africa
• Asia

13
Vulnerability

• High Vulnerability high sensitivity low
  adaptive capacity
• Africa high vulnerability
• Asia vulnerability highest in developing
  countries
• N. America vulnerability highest in indigenous
  groups and those dependant on climate sensitive
  resources.
• (IPCC 2001)

14
Ecosystem Agendas

• Conservation and management of valued landscapes
• Biodiversity hotspots/wilderness at global level
• Majority have human population growth rates
  exceeding the global average more than ½ have
  densities exceeding the global average.
• Threatened or highly valued ecosystems at
  national level

15
People Biodiversity (Cincotta Engleman)
16
Role of HITE

• Integration and synthesis
• New case studies
• Interdisciplinary studies
• Methodological and technical developments

17
Synthesis

• Review, integration and analysis of existing
  datasets and cases
• At regional or national level
• Syntheses will inform contemporary studies
• Identifying new research priorities

18
New case studies

• Essential where existing long term perspectives
  are critical or not available
• Following best practice frame works form
  flagship sites

19
Case studies

• Severely impacted human landscapes
• Human landscapes projected to be sensitive to
  human activities or climate change
• Valued ecosystems

20
Environmental Issues

• Case studies may address some of the following
  environmental issues
• Improved management of wilderness
• Biodiversity and hotspots
• Land cover feedbacks to climate change
• Ecological restoration
• Agricultural sustainability
• Identification of ecological thresholds and big
  surprises

21
(No Transcript)
22
Case Study Lac dAnnecy.

• Human impact over the last 5000y but substantial
  over the last 1000y
• Range of impacts driven by a range of forcings
  over a range of spatial and temporal scales

23
Lac dAnnecy, France

• The research programme was designed to improve
  understanding of controls on flooding and slope
  processes over long timescales in the pre-alpine
  landscape
• use of a multi-proxy approach to reconstruct the
  interactions between climate, meterological
  events and land use on the history of water and
  sediment discharge

24
Lake sediment flood proxy record historical
change at Montmin
25
Methods and Techniques

• Improve quantifies calibration of sediment
  proxies
• New methods for ranking sensitive modern
  ecosystems
• Improved modelling of whole of partial ecosystem
  responses based on long term histories

26
Obtaining Information

• Methodological perspectives
• Historical analogues of impact
• Methodological frameworks
• Methodological approaches
• Forcings, responses, proxy calibration
• Organisation and sampling
• Case studies, single/multiple work, global
  representivity

27
Science Outcomes

• Substantial improvements in..
• Understanding global ecosystems and response to
  impacts
• Communication of the results, importance
  opportunities of long term perspectives.
• Integration of natural and social sciences
• Out reach to social scientists, policy makers and
  governments
• Formulation of sustainable management plans

28
Anticipated Outputs

• For local sites
• For specific ecosystems and biomes
• Global synthesis
• For policymakers users
• Methodological/ technique development

29
Success Through

• HITE-related publications in internationally
  peer-reviewed journals
• Input of HITE science into strategies for
  conservation and sustainable management
• Successful integration with other international
  organisations, especially IGBP core projects.

30
Contact

• HITE Leader
• John Dearing
• Department of Geography
• Roxby Building
• University of Liverpool
• L69 7ZT, United Kingdom
• fax [phone]
• tel [phone]
• email j.dearing_at_liv.ac.uk