Environmental Science

Deltas are coastal Social Political Environmental Systems (SPES) characterised by the interplay between rivers, lands and oceans, influenced by a combination of riverine and oceanic processes, shaped by human interventions under strong state water control management policies. Deltas provide numerous resources such as fertile land and water for irrigated and intensive agriculture, fisheries, abundant biodiversity as well as non-farm activities. Thanks to their location at the interface of lower valleys and the sea, and their fluvial connections, trade and exchange have flourished and led to the development and expansion of some of the world’s largest metropolises. Asia is home to the largest and most populated deltas in the world. However, deltas are recognised as one of the most vulnerable coastal environments. They face a range of threats operating at multiple scales, from global climate change (CC) and sea-level rise (SLR) to various hazards (floods, erosion, salinization, subsidence), local anthropogenic activities and land use changes. Deltas are relevant sites for adaptation to CC studies, given they are dynamic systems where communities have a long record of adapting to natural hazards and are accustomed to being highly exposed to environmental risks. Local populations whose livelihoods depend on natural resources have adapted in different ways to live with floods. Objectives The MOVINDELTAS project intends to understand the challenges for deltaic populations when their livelihoods are at risk due to environmental/climatic and global economic changes, and their adaptive capacity sustainability through the current scenarios in the Ganges-Brahmapoutra-Meghna and Mekong deltas. The project approach isinterdisciplinary, multi-scale and long term(past history experiences and forecasting) from four perspectives: i) a physical and environmental assessment of risks posed by multi-hazards linked to adaptive strategies, ii) a socio-economic vulnerability assessment of the population exposed to these hazards, iii) an assessment of the population and local stakeholders’ perception of risk in the risk hotspots, and iv) a projection of how the risk is expected to evolve in the coming decades, with climate changes in the GBM and Mekong deltas. Through its various components, MOVINDELTAS aims to meet several specific objectives: Enhance the understanding of the dynamics of deltaic Social Political Environmental Systems (SPES), and the level of sustainability of deltaic population livelihoods under multi-hazard environmental change. Define the complexity of new patterns of mobility and immobility/migration and non-migration, (involuntary) displacement and translocal livelihoods (across multiple locations, gender, cultures and social classes) in delta regions defined as risk hotspots. Assess the various adaptive strategies and community responses to multi-hazards under expected environmental change in risk hotspots, through model-scenarios/CC in a new context of global CC. Conduct an in-depth and evidence-based analysis of the differentiated perceptions, sensitivity and experiences of men and women in their strategies for coping with environmental, global and climate changes. Include stakeholders in an iterative consultative process throughout the project in order to better understand their perspectives, develop informed models and maximise the potential impact of policy response. Under this specific objective, experience sharing between deltas and the use of local knowledge on adaptation strategies in vulnerable flood deltas will allow future learning, and contribute to the sustainability of the proposed methodology. In fact, the Nile delta is the perfect environmental configuration for a test case as it has several converging and divergent parameters characteristic of South-East-Asia. Partnerships : 27 partners from 4 European countries (France, UK, Germany and Netherland), 4 Asian countries (Vietnam, Cambodia, India, Bangladesh) and Egypt.

The direct dependence of humans on ecosystem services is by far strongest in developing regions where poverty restricts access to resources. This dependency also makes people in developing countries more sensitive to climate change than their developed counterparts. Increasing human populations deteriorates natural habitat, biodiversity and ecosystems services which spiral into poverty and low human welfare. This calls for innovative solutions that encompass the entire socio-ecological-economic system, as recognized on a global scale in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. However, innovative and practical solutions require downscaling to regional levels for identifying concrete sets of drivers of change. For Africa specifically, the interplay of human population growth, land use change, climate change and human well-being is a major challenge. This project focuses on the Serengeti-Maasai Mara Ecosystem and associated agricultural areas, a region in East Africa that encompasses parts of Kenya and Tanzania. The ecosystem is world-famous for key aspects of its biodiversity, such as the migration of 1.3 million wildebeest. This ‘flagship ecosystem’ role will enhance the international interest in the project. In this project, internationally leading researchers from Norway, the Netherlands, Scotland, Denmark and Germany are teaming up with strong local partners in Tanzania and Kenya. The research will be organised in seven interlinked work packages: 1) assemble and integrate the so far separate Kenyan and Tanzanian relevant data on the region; 2) quantify the connections between human population growth, land use change, climate change and biodiversity change; 3) test how biodiversity change leads to changes in key ecosystem services; 4) quantify the dependence of human livelihoods on these ecosystem services. We will implement innovative ways for communication and dissemination of the results of ‘continuous engagement’ by local stakeholders.

The direct dependence of humans on ecosystem services is by far strongest in developing regions where poverty restricts access to resources. This dependency also makes people in developing countries more sensitive to climate change than their developed counterparts. Increasing human populations deteriorates natural habitat, biodiversity and ecosystems services which spiral into poverty and low human welfare. This calls for innovative solutions that encompass the entire socio-ecological-economic system, as recognized on a global scale in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. However, innovative and practical solutions require downscaling to regional levels for identifying concrete sets of drivers of change. For Africa specifically, the interplay of human population growth, land use change, climate change and human well-being is a major challenge. This project focuses on the Serengeti-Maasai Mara Ecosystem and associated agricultural areas, a region in East Africa that encompasses parts of Kenya and Tanzania. The ecosystem is world-famous for key aspects of its biodiversity, such as the migration of 1.3 million wildebeest. This ‘flagship ecosystem’ role will enhance the international interest in the project. In this project, internationally leading researchers from Norway, the Netherlands, Scotland, Denmark and Germany are teaming up with strong local partners in Tanzania and Kenya. The research will be organised in seven interlinked work packages: 1) assemble and integrate the so far separate Kenyan and Tanzanian relevant data on the region; 2) quantify the connections between human population growth, land use change, climate change and biodiversity change; 3) test how biodiversity change leads to changes in key ecosystem services; 4) quantify the dependence of human livelihoods on these ecosystem services. We will implement innovative ways for communication and dissemination of the results of ‘continuous engagement’ by local stakeholders.

WEGO (Well-being, Ecology, Gender and cOmmunity) is a trans-national network aims to develop a shared research and training agenda to educate the next generation of interdisciplinary social-environmental scientists on feminist political ecology in Europe. WeGO’s research examines gender relations in community organizing from a feminist-informed political ecology (FPE) framework. From an international and interdisciplinary perspective, WEGO looks at gender and power relations in community responses to the current climate, economic and environmental crises in different socio-ecological contexts. WEGO aims to provide insightful and compelling analysis about the importance of gendered community response to climate, economic and environmental change as well as more detailed knowledge about what changes are required for greater resilience and sustainability. Gender is understood as a critical variable in shaping resource access and control, interacting with class, caste, race, culture, and ethnicity to shape processes of ecological change and the prospects of any community for sustainable development. WEGO research will look at resilience and sustainability by examining the gendered role of women in care work for the community and for the environment. The cases chosen – from in and outside of Europe are sites that can feed into innovative European Policy on sustainable development.

This project seeks to improve research capacity and develop collaboration amongst researchers in Europe and East Africa, and by doing so to contribute to the larger objective of regional integration. The project will enhance integration in the research community in both Europe and East Africa through bringing researchers together in a series of training activities. These activities will focus on two kinds of transborder environment: mountains and Lake Tanganyika. Through this focus on resources which span the borders of the multiple political units of East Africa, the project will contribute directly to public understanding of some of the challenges to regional integration in East African context. The project is organized around four themes, all of which relate to human use and management of these cross border resources: resource management and livelihood sustainability, environmental and climate change, migration and identity and the role of small and medium cities. At the core of the project, five institutions – four European, and one East African – will be brought together; the project will also draw on the skills and knowledge of four university research institutions in Europe, whose staff will take the role of leaders for each of the four themes. All the individuals and institutions involved have substantial experience of work in Africa, and have commitment both to the enhancement of an integrated European research capacity and to the building of research capacity and regional integration in East Africa.

Responding to climate change has profound implications for behaviour; yet policies to achieve this change have met with limited success. A key challenge for environmental social scientists is the need to move forward in understanding how to bring about change in consumption, community and political behaviours, which is commensurate to the scale of the climate change challenge. One promising area is ‘behavioural spillover’, the notion that taking up a new behaviour (e.g., recycling) may lead to adoption of other, more environmentally beneficial, behaviours. Such a notion appears to hold the promise of changing a suite of behaviours in a cost-effective way. Yet despite robust theoretical principles (e.g., self-perception theory) underpinning behavioural spillover, there is little empirical research. The proposed research intends to produce a step-change in behavioural and sustainability science by undertaking a mixed-method, cross-cultural study of pro-environmental behavioural spillover in order to open up new ways of promoting sustainable lifestyle change and significantly broadening our understanding of behaviour within individuals and cultures. There are three objectives for the research: 1. To examine ways in which pro-environmental behaviour, lifestyles and spillover are understood and develop within different cultures; 2. To understand drivers of behavioural consistency and spillover effects across contexts, including home and work, and cultures; and 3. To develop a theoretical framework for behavioural spillover and test interventions to promote spillover across different contexts and cultures. Three Work Packages will address these objectives: 1. Defining and understanding spillover: Focus groups with biographical questions and card sorts [Years 1-2] 2. Examining drivers of spillover: Cross-national survey with factor, correlation and regression analyses [Years 2-3] 3. Developing theory and testing interventions: Laboratory and field experiments [Years 3-5]

The last two decades have seen the demographic transformation of Europe, driven primarily by international migration. The current historical moment is defined by economic crisis, by a changing relationship between Europe and its neighbours, and the unprecedented scale of mobility within, into and now once again out of the continent. This transformation has manifested primarily in Europe’s cities. As the world becomes more connected and concentrated in the cities of the 21st century, populations, cultures, economies and values in any one metropolis become more diverse. The European city is marked by the “metropolitan paradox”: the most brutal forms of exclusion and conflict alongside the most profound forms of conviviality and co-existence. It is in cities where diversity is experienced most intensely, to which the majority of migrants move, and where mobilisations against diversity are symbolically rooted. And it is also at local level where the possibility for new forms of identification and belonging emerge. A challenge for the European future is consequently not only the classical moral imperative to generate the good city but also to generate a sense of metropolitan cohesion and to govern diversity justly. The challenge we are taking up here is this: How can Europe’s cities manage diversity dynamics for urban liveability and urban sustainability under the force of massive economic, social, cultural and political change? How can we learn to build inclusive cities and inclusive urban citizenship? More specifically, as cities become more diverse and more unequal, municipalities face the challenge of how to ensure that all citizens feel they have a stake in a common civic culture. Local authorities increasingly recognise their “place-making” role alongside their statutory service delivery functions. A city in which all residents feel they are valued increases residents’ wellbeing and satisfaction, and creates a climate in which municipal measures are more effective. This background paper sets out some of the key issues around building a common civic culture in Europe’s cities. The first section sets out the field which the paper addresses and discusses some of the key terms and concepts. The second section explores some of the evidence around the issues. The third section introduces the areas of intervention where cities can make a difference, illustrated by examples of promising or functioning practices.