Creeping Environmental Changes today is not much different than yesterday

1
Creeping Environmental Changestoday is not much
different than yesterday

• Creeping rate of change
• Incremental
• Slow onset
• Low grade
• But Cumulative
• Major changes apparent only over time
• Demographics are also changing
• Governments have poor track record in dealing
  with creeping changes

2
Creeping environmental problems

• Air pollution
• Acid Rain, Global warming
• Ozone depletion
• Tropical deforestation
• Soil erosion
• Water quality quantity
• Glacier retreat
• Waste disposal/landfills
• Nuclear waste
• Marine pollution, etc.

3
Where do they occur?

• In rich as well as poor countries
• In industrial and agrarian societies
• On all inhabited continents
• Wherever humans and ecosystems meet
• Especially in vulnerable or fragile ecosystems

4
Why focus on Creeping Environmental Problems?

• To reduce uncertainty about rates and processes
  of change and especially societal responses to
  them
• To underscore the importance of the human aspects
  of local to global environmental changes
• To generate heightened concern about the
  importance of early warning systems for societal
  stability

5
A Societal Perspective

• Rates and Processes are often as important as the
  Magnitude of change

• High rates
• Cause alarm
• Less time to plan act
• Slow rates
• Generate laissez-faire attitude

6
When are rates of change seen as a crisis?

• When there is a ...
• High level of vulnerability
• Low level of societal resilience
• Perceived high stakes at risk
• Perceived threat
• Perceived short time to act
• Concern about impacts reversibility

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Little Agreement on Rates Because ...

• Poor information/data
• Honest scientific disagreements
• Varying perceptions (by factors of X)
• Political Aspects associated with the various
  rates (and processes)

8
CEPs example Drylands

• Overgrazing
• Wood cutting
• Salinization
• Groundwater changes
• Population increases
• Using increasingly marginal land
• Pesticide use
• Need for more water to flush soils
• Use of lands increasingly marginal for
  agriculture
• Soil fertility

9
Challenges of CEPs

• Making what ought to be sustainable use of
  resources the actual use
• Convincing governments to limit exploitation of
  the natural environment
• Convincing governments to plan beyond
• time in power
• Convincing governments to value nature and future
  generations
• Identifying thresholds of change before they are
  crossed
• Learning from countries, cultures, sectors, eras
• AND
• Applying lessons that have already been
  identified

10
Hotspots

• Lots of attention to hotspots
• Hotspots can be found along a continuum, from
  transformation to firepoint
• Hotspots capture attention but areas of concern
  (AOCs) are where actions should be taken

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Hotspots definition (mine)

• A location or activity of interest to a group or
  organization
• where the trend of human interactions with the
  environment is considered adverse
• to the sustainability of an ecosystem or the
  human activities dependent upon it.

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Hotspots contd

• As a hotspot intensifies, it becomes
• More costly to address
• More difficult to control
• More threatening, because there is less time to
  act effectively

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Too costly, too late. Move on.
The proverbial 11th hour little time to act
This level captures attention
Changes become critical
Human induced not all changes are bad
Natural changes different timescales
What one generation leaves for the next generation
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Hotspots

• Why an interest in hotspots?
• Provide early warning for environmental changes
• Political and economic stability ( in the short
  term)
• Environmental protection
• Sustainable development
• Foresee and avert potential conflicts
• For education of decision makers
• For prompting appropriate action
• Whats climate got to do with hotspots?

15
What about climate and water-related
hotspots?

• These would involve the usual list of climate
  anomalies and extremes of regional concern
• Seasonal anomalies that affect human activities
  and ecological processes
• Frequency, magnitude and duration of
• Drought
• Floods
• Fires
• Shifting locations of vectors locust, others
• Severe weather (rain, snow, wind, heat, etc.)
• Dust storms

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Does the hotspots notion apply to water?
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Hotspots identification is early warning of
adverse environmental changes

• Early warning of a hotspot as an event
• Early warning of a hotspot as process
• Introduction to the notion of
• foreseeability

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Foreseeability defined

• "a concept used in various areas of the law to
  limit the liability of a
• party for the consequences of his/her acts to
  consequences that are within the scope of a
  FORESEEABLE RISK,
• i.e., risks whose consequences a person of
  ordinary prudence would reasonably expect might
  occur
• (Gifis, 1991)

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Déjà vu, again and again

• The future results of the interactions between
  human activities and the environment (including
  water) for many places under business as usual
  scenarios are already present but in other
  locations on the globe or had taken place at
  other times.