A world soils agenda: Discussing international actions for the sustainable use of soils

Promoting sustainable forms of natural resource management is a challenge land users are unable to tackle solely on their own initiative. Soil and land degradation remains an unresolved problem of global environmental change. There is a need for concerted international action that directly addresses this issue at the global level. A discussion of action to promote the sustainable use of soils and land took place in a working group established by the International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS) in 1998. The present publication reports on the results of this discussion and proposes that the international community establish a ‘world soils agenda’ that will enable the scientific community, international institutions and their national partners to work together towards the common goal of safeguarding soils and land as resources central to our own survival as well as the Earth’s biological wealth.

Desertification mitigation and water harvesting based on sustainable land management

Traditionally, desertification research has focused on degradation assessments, whereas prevention and mitigation strategies have not sufficiently been emphasised, although the concept of sustainable land management (SLM) is increasingly being acknowledged. SLM strategies are interventions at the local to regional scale aiming at increasing productivity, protecting the natural resource base, and improving livelihoods. The global WOCAT initiative and its partners have developed harmonized frameworks to compile, evaluate and analyse the impact of SLM practices around the globe. Recent studies within the EU research project DESIRE developed a methodological framework that combines a collective learning and decision-making approach with use of best practices from the WOCAT database. In-depth assessment of 30 technologies and 8 approaches from 17 desertification sites enabled an evaluation of how SLM addresses prevalent dryland threats such as water scarcity, soil and vegetation degradation, low production, climate change, resource use conflicts and migration. Among the impacts attributed to the documented technologies, those mentioned most were diversified and enhanced production and better management of water and soil degradation, whether through water harvesting, improving soil moisture, or reducing runoff. Water harvesting offers under-exploited opportunities for the drylands and the predominantly rainfed farming systems of the developing world. Recently compiled guidelines introduce the concepts behind water harvesting and propose a harmonised classification system, followed by an assessment of suitability, adoption and up-scaling of practices. Case studies go from large-scale floodwater spreading that make alluvial plains cultivable, to systems that boost cereal production in small farms, as well as practices that collect and store water from household compounds. Once contextualized and set in appropriate institutional frameworks, they can form part of an overall adaptation strategy for land users. More field research is needed to reinforce expert assessments of SLM impacts and provide the necessary evidence-based rationale for investing in SLM. This includes developing methods to quantify and value ecosystem services, both on-site and off-site, and assess the resilience of SLM practices, as currently aimed at within the new EU CASCADE project.

Where the land is greener - experiences contributing to sustainable land management

There are numerous positive experiences that contribute to sustainable land management – but this wealth of information is often not tapped, and commonly not even recognised. The World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT) is a network and a methodology with the aim of sharing this valuable knowledge to improve livelihoods and the environment. Forty-two promising case studies were recently documented and analysed in a global overview book entitled ‘where the land is greener’ (WOCAT 2007), from which a consolidated list of policy points were drawn. This paper highlights some of these conclusions and policy points.

Spatial and temporal variation in population genetic structure of wild Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) across Africa

Background: Reconstructing the evolutionary history of a species is challenging. It often depends not only on the past biogeographic and climatic events but also the contemporary and ecological factors, such as current connectivity and habitat heterogeneity. In fact, these factors might interact with each other and shape the current species distribution. However, to what extent the current population genetic structure reflects the past and the contemporary factors is largely unknown. Here we investigated spatio-temporal genetic structures of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) populations, across their natural distribution in Africa. While its large biogeographic distribution can cause genetic differentiation at the paleo-biogeographic scales, its restricted dispersal capacity might induce a strong genetic structure at micro-geographic scales. Results: Using nine microsatellite loci and 350 samples from ten natural populations, we found the highest genetic differentiation among the three ichthyofaunal provinces and regions (Ethiopian, Nilotic and Sudano-Sahelian) (R(ST) = 0.38 - 0.69). This result suggests the predominant effect of paleo-geographic events at macro-geographic scale. In addition, intermediate divergences were found between rivers and lakes within the regions, presumably reflecting relatively recent interruptions of gene flow between hydrographic basins (R(ST) = 0.24 - 0.32). The lowest differentiations were observed among connected populations within a basin (R(ST) = 0.015 in the Volta basin). Comparison of temporal sample series revealed subtle changes in the gene pools in a few generations (F = 0 - 0.053). The estimated effective population sizes were 23 - 143 and the estimated migration rate was moderate (m similar to 0.094 - 0.097) in the Volta populations. Conclusions: This study revealed clear hierarchical patterns of the population genetic structuring of O. niloticus in Africa. The effects of paleo-geographic and climatic events were predominant at macro-geographic scale, and the significant effect of geographic connectivity was detected at micro-geographic scale. The estimated effective population size, the moderate level of dispersal and the rapid temporal change in genetic composition might reflect a potential effect of life history strategy on population dynamics. This hypothesis deserves further investigation. The dynamic pattern revealed at micro-geographic and temporal scales appears important from a genetic resource management as well as from a biodiversity conservation point of view.

Opportunities and risks in reconciling conservation and development in a post-Soviet setting: The example of the Tajik National Park

In the Tajik National Park (TNP) - a high-altitude area of nearly 26,000 km2 in Central Asia - past and present human activities visibly contrast with standard conservation requirements for protected areas worldwide. This paper focuses on resource management, and highlights three major processes that threaten both the sustainable use of natural resources and the preservation of nature per se: (i) intensified use of biomass as a fuel resource, (ii) inappropriate pasture management, and (iii) increased pressure on endangered wildlife. From analysis of these processes - their historical background, root causes, trends and interrelationships - options and needs to improve park management are proposed and discussed.

Fog-water collection for community use

Fog is a potential source of water that could be exploited using the innovative technology of fog collection. Naturally, the potential of fog has proven its significance in cloud forests that are thriving from fog interception. Historically, the remains of artificial structures in different countries prove that fog has been collected as an alternative and/or supplementary water source. In the beginning of the 19th century, fog collection was investigated as a potential natural resource. After the mid-1980s, following success in Chile, fog-water collection commenced in a number of developing countries. Most of these countries are located in arid and semi-arid regions with topographic and climatic conditions that favour fog-water collection. This paper reviews the technology of fog collection with initial background information on natural fog collection and its historical development. It reviews the climatic and topographic features that dictate fog formation (mainly advection and orographic) and the innovative technology to collect it, focusing on the amount collected, the quality of fog water, and the impact of the technology on the livelihoods of beneficiary communities. By and large, the technology described is simple, cost-effective, and energy-free. However, fog-water collection has disadvantages in that it is seasonal, localised, and the technology needs continual maintenance. Based on the experience in several countries, the sustainability of the technology could be guaranteed if technical, economic, social, and management factors are addressed during its planning and implementation.

Adapting agricultural land management to climate change: a regional multi-objective optimization approach

In several regions of the world, climate change is expected to have severe impacts on agricultural systems. Changes in land management are one way to adapt to future climatic conditions, including land-use changes and local adjustments of agricultural practices. In previous studies, options for adaptation have mostly been explored by testing alternative scenarios. Systematic explorations of land management possibilities using optimization approaches were so far mainly restricted to studies of land and resource management under constant climatic conditions. In this study, we bridge this gap and exploit the benefits of multi-objective regional optimization for identifying optimum land management adaptations to climate change. We design a multi-objective optimization routine that integrates a generic crop model and considers two climate scenarios for 2050 in a meso-scale catchment on the Swiss Central Plateau with already limited water resources. The results indicate that adaptation will be necessary in the study area to cope with a decrease in productivity by 0–10 %, an increase in soil loss by 25–35 %, and an increase in N-leaching by 30–45 %. Adaptation options identified here exhibit conflicts between productivity and environmental goals, but compromises are possible. Necessary management changes include (i) adjustments of crop shares, i.e. increasing the proportion of early harvested winter cereals at the expense of irrigated spring crops, (ii) widespread use of reduced tillage, (iii) allocation of irrigated areas to soils with low water-retention capacity at lower elevations, and (iv) conversion of some pre-alpine grasslands to croplands.

Natural Resources in 2025 - Implications for Development : Opportunity of a trunaround: An expert reassessment

In recent years developing countries have faced highly dynamic changes affecting their natural resource base and their potential for development. Taking into account these changes in the development context, InfoResources initiated a critical reassessment of the results of InfoResources Trends 2005 and again invited experts from around the world to assess trends that least developed countries are likely to be facing by 2025. The unanimous signal conveyed by the international experts for this assessment is alarming: The degradation of natural resources is progressing. By 2025 it will reach a point where livelihoods in least developing countries will be significantly threatened and an increasing number of agro-ecosystems will lose their capacity to deliver important services. Expected positive social trends will not suffice as leverage to reverse the degradation of natural resources and thus alleviate poverty and hunger. However, the present reassessment clearly reveals that a change in thinking and a shift in paradigms have begun to take place. However, a turnaround can only succeed if the emerging awareness of the need to reorient policy-making and the economy is followed by concrete action. It will be crucial that policies and institutions regain regulating power over greedy economic forces. This reassessment does not claim to be comprehensive. However, the present publication, which synthesises the experts’ inputs, aims at providing food for thought and initiating discussions.

Constitutionality: Conditions for Crafting Local Ownership of Institution-Building Processes

This article presents constitutionality as a new approach for analyzing bottom-up institution-building processes emphasizing local perceptions and local agency in common pool resource management. Using four case studies—fisheries in Zambia; pasture and forestry in Mali; fisheries in Indonesia; forestry in Bolivia—this approach analyzes examples of local institution building differing from top-down imposed participation. Our analysis highlights six components of constitutionality: emic perceptions of the need for new institutions, participatory processes of negotiation, preexisting institutions as a basis for institution building, outside catalyzing agents, recognition of local knowledge, and higher level acknowledgment of the new institutions.

Service level agreements-driven management of distributed applications in cloud computing environments

Advancements in cloud computing have enabled the proliferation of distributed applications, which require management and control of multiple services. However, without an efficient mechanism for scaling services in response to changing workload conditions, such as number of connected users, application performance might suffer, leading to violations of Service Level Agreements (SLA) and possible inefficient use of hardware resources. Combining dynamic application requirements with the increased use of virtualised computing resources creates a challenging resource Management context for application and cloud-infrastructure owners. In such complex environments, business entities use SLAs as a means for specifying quantitative and qualitative requirements of services. There are several challenges in running distributed enterprise applications in cloud environments, ranging from the instantiation of service VMs in the correct order using an adequate quantity of computing resources, to adapting the number of running services in response to varying external loads, such as number of users. The application owner is interested in finding the optimum amount of computing and network resources to use for ensuring that the performance requirements of all her/his applications are met. She/he is also interested in appropriately scaling the distributed services so that application performance guarantees are maintained even under dynamic workload conditions. Similarly, the infrastructure Providers are interested in optimally provisioning the virtual resources onto the available physical infrastructure so that her/his operational costs are minimized, while maximizing the performance of tenants’ applications. Motivated by the complexities associated with the management and scaling of distributed applications, while satisfying multiple objectives (related to both consumers and providers of cloud resources), this thesis proposes a cloud resource management platform able to dynamically provision and coordinate the various lifecycle actions on both virtual and physical cloud resources using semantically enriched SLAs. The system focuses on dynamic sizing (scaling) of virtual infrastructures composed of virtual machines (VM) bounded application services. We describe several algorithms for adapting the number of VMs allocated to the distributed application in response to changing workload conditions, based on SLA-defined performance guarantees. We also present a framework for dynamic composition of scaling rules for distributed service, which used benchmark-generated application Monitoring traces. We show how these scaling rules can be combined and included into semantic SLAs for controlling allocation of services. We also provide a detailed description of the multi-objective infrastructure resource allocation problem and various approaches to satisfying this problem. We present a resource management system based on a genetic algorithm, which performs allocation of virtual resources, while considering the optimization of multiple criteria. We prove that our approach significantly outperforms reactive VM-scaling algorithms as well as heuristic-based VM-allocation approaches.

Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats: A SWOT analysis of the ecosystem services framework

The ecosystem services concept (ES) is becoming a cornerstone of contemporary sustainability thought. Challenges with this concept and its applications are well documented, but have not yet been systematically assessed alongside strengths and external factors that influence uptake. Such an assessment could form the basis for improving ES thinking, further embedding it into environmental decisions and management. The Young Ecosystem Services Specialists (YESS) completed a Strengths–Weaknesses–Opportunities–Threats (SWOT) analysis of ES through YESS member surveys. Strengths include the approach being interdisciplinary, and a useful communication tool. Weaknesses include an incomplete scientific basis, frameworks being inconsistently applied, and accounting for nature's intrinsic value. Opportunities include alignment with existing policies and established methodologies, and increasing environmental awareness. Threats include resistance to change, and difficulty with interdisciplinary collaboration. Consideration of SWOT themes suggested five strategic areas for developing and implementing ES. The ES concept could improve decision-making related to natural resource use, and interpretation of the complexities of human-nature interactions. It is contradictory – valued as a simple means of communicating the importance of conservation, whilst also considered an oversimplification characterised by ambiguous language. Nonetheless, given sufficient funding and political will, the ES framework could facilitate interdisciplinary research, ensuring decision-making that supports sustainable development.