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1IHDP Update 1.2009

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Magazine of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change

March 2009 · Issue 1 ISSN 1727-155X

www.ihdp.org

Social Challengesof Global Change

2 IHDP Update 1.2009

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Imprint

IHDP Update is published by the Secretariat of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change, United Nations Campus, Hermann-Ehlers-Str. 10, D-53113 Bonn, Germany The IHDP Update magazine features the activities of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change and its research community.

ISSN 1727-155X Editor-in-Chief: Andreas Rechkemmer (V.i.s.d.P.) Executive Editor: Gabriela LitreCopy Editor: Sarah MekjianLayout: Carolyn Louise Smith and Tande Chilenge

IHDP Update is published triannually. Sections of the Update may be reproduced with acknowledgement to IHDP. Please send a copy of any reproduced material to the IHDP Secretariat. This magazine is published using funds by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the United States National Science Foundation.

The views and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily represent the position of IHDP nor those of its sponsoring organizations.

Cover photo: Children playing on an overflown football ground in Sao Pau-lo/CARF Brazil

Table of ContentsIHDP Update Issue 1, March 2009

Introduction

3 The Social Challenges of Global ChangeOran R. Young, IHDP Scientific Commitee Chair

Editorial

4 An Inclusive Meeting in a Unique Settingby Andreas Rechkemmer, IHDP Executive Director

5 The Open Meeting - Background and PerspectivesFalk Schmidt and Shalini Kanwar

7 The IHDP Open Meeting 2009 in Numbers

8 Open Meeting Preliminary Programme

Reflections From Two Regional Global Change Research Networks

Sponsoring the OM 09

10 A Privileged Platform for Establishing Long-Term Professional RelationshipsTetsuro Fujitsuka, Director, Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN)

11 The Challenge of Becoming Policy-RelevantHolm Tiessen, Director, Inter American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) and Gerhard Breulmann, Assistant Director Science Programs, IAI.

Selected Articles from Participants

13 Environmentally Induced Population DisplacementsSusana B. Adamo

22 Identifying the Poor in Cities: How Can Remote Sens-ing Help to Profile Slums in Fast Growing Cities and Megacities?Maik Netzband, Ellen Banzhaf, René Höfer, Katrin Hannemann

29 Environmental Inequality in São Paulo City: An Anal-ysis of the Differential Exposures of Socio-Demo-graphic Groups to Environmental RiskHumberto Prates da Fonseca Alves

35 Characterising the Mis-Linkages in the Transition to Sustainability in AsiaXuemei Bai and Anna J. Wieczorek

The Open Meeting - a Platform to present the Synthesis Process

of GECHS and IT

42 Human Security in an Era of Global Change – The GECHS Synthesis ProcessLinda Sygna, Kirsten Ulsrud and Karen O’Brien

45 Moving Societies in a Sustainable Direction - Indus-trial Transformation Synthesis ProcessAnna J. Wieczorek and Frans Berkhout

New IHDP Projects and Initiatives – From Planning to Practice

47 Looking toward the Future - The Earth System Gover-nance ProjectRuben Zondervan, Executive Officer, Earth System Governance Project

3IHDP Update 1.2009

Introduction • The Social Challenges of Global Change

Introduction

The Social Chal-lenges of Global ChangeOran R. Young, IHDP Scientific Commitee Chair

and their families? Under what conditions might large num-bers of people find satisfaction in ways of life featuring sharp reductions in the consumption of material goods?

There is a tendency to juxtapose two distinct ways of addressing such questions. One approach – call it the top-down perspective - focuses on revising the prevail-ing rules of the game in societies so as to alter incentive structures. The other view – call it the bottom-up perspec-tive - directs attention to the spread of social movements that can alter values and shift discourses so as to produce large changes in individual behaviour.

The top-down approach looks to policymaking at the national and even the international level, focusing on efforts to adjust institutional arrangements in ways that will affect individual behaviour. Introducing limited entry arrange-ments to protect fisheries and establishing cap-and-trade mechanisms to control pollutants like sulphur dioxide emis-sions are cases in point. Current debates about a variety of policy instruments intended to make GHGs emitters pay for the use of the Earth’s atmosphere as a repository for wastes also constitute examples of such an approach. Those who adopt this perspective look to the operation of the political system as a critical locus for efforts to effect change. They are apt to pay attention to the role of political leadership in do-mestic legislative processes as well as in international level institutional bargaining.

The bottom-up approach, by contrast, directs atten-tion to sources of behaviour that lie outside ordinary calcu-lations of benefits and costs. The emphasis here is on social

Human actions lie at the heart of every effort to come to grips with global environmental change. Whether we are interested in reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), sequestering carbon dioxide already in the Earth’s atmo-sphere, or adapting to the impacts of climate change, we must find ways to influence the actions of humans all the way from the behaviour of the individual energy consumer to collective choices about GHG emissions control policies. Much the same applies to issues of land degradation and the destruction of habitat vital to endangered species as well as to the depletion of marine life arising from overfishing and the spread of dead zones in the oceans. More often than not, we know what human actions or combinations of actions are implicated in these large-scale environmental problems. In some cases, we even have a reasonably good grasp of the driving forces that give rise to the human actions in ques-tion.

What does this imply for the development of research strategies and the allocation of scarce resources available to support global environmental change research? It goes with-out saying that we need to improve our understanding of the biophysical processes involved. A better understanding of the likelihood and character of abrupt changes in the Earth’s climate system, for example, would be immensely valuable. Nevertheless, the top priority now must go to strengthening our understanding of the sources of those human actions that are relevant to global environmental change. What would it take to alter current lifestyles in such a way as to make major changes in the carbon footprints of individuals

Migrants from degraded agricultural land living in a slum in Mexico City. Photo: Mark Edwards / Still

Pictures


Introduction and Editoral • The Social Challenges of Global Change

movements and the processes through which large numbers of individuals become engaged in collective efforts to fulfill broad social goals for reasons that have little to do with cal-culations of benefits and costs. Could we imagine the devel-opment of a social movement in the 21st century focused on the right to a benign climate on a scale similar to the anti-slavery and suffrage movements of the 19th century or the women’s rights, civil rights and animal rights movements of the 20th century? As these examples suggest, social move-ments often have more to do with restructuring ideas and ideals than with shifting calculations about the benefits and costs associated with different choices.

We often treat the top-down and bottom-up ap-proaches as divergent, possibly even conflicting ways to think about coming to grips with big issues like global environ-mental change. That need not be the case. More often than not, real changes occur when social movements energise policymaking and restructured policies guide behaviour. In the United States, for example, the anti-slavery movement led to the 13th amendment to the Constitution, the suffrage movement resulted in the 19th amendment to the Constitu-tion, and the civil rights movement motivated efforts to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Much the same may hold true for efforts to come to terms with large-scale environmental problems like climate change. We can expect real change when aroused publics demand action as a matter of priority and effective leaders emerge to push through major policy initiatives at both domestic and international levels.

What is needed from the scientific community is a collaborative effort on the part analysts who come from a variety of disciplines to improve our understanding of the conditions governing the intersection of these top-down and bottom-up processes. There is no better place to make prog-ress in meeting this challenge than at the triennial Open Meetings of the worldwide research community interested in the human dimensions of global environmental change. So do plan to come to Bonn in April.

Editorial

An Inclusive Meeting in a Unique Settingby Andreas Rechkemmer, IHDP Executive Director

Dear Readers,This issue of UPDATE introduces the set-up, the pro-

gramme and the overarching goals for the 7th International Sci-ence Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environ-mental Change, also known as the IHDP Open Meeting 2009.

The 7th Open Meeting focuses on “Social Chal-lenges of Global Change”. In an era of unprecedented, rapid and large-scale environmental, economic and demographic changes, the International Scientific Planning Committee wisely decided to envisage the set of threats, challenges and opportunities that these changes pose to human society at various levels.

While addressing social challenges we will endeavor to highlight the findings generated in our core and joint re-search projects and our new science initiatives, e.g. those on Earth System Governance, Integrated Risk Governance, Knowledge, Learning and Societal Changes, and Vulner-ability, Resilience, and Adaptation. Two of IHDP’s original science projects, Industrial Transformation and Global En-vironmental Change and Human Security, will launch their synthesis processes at the Open Meeting and thus contribute significantly to new and cutting edge findings in the realm of sustainable development and global change research.

The Open Meeting will not only be the venue for the communication and exchange of new and integrated knowl-edge on the manifold social challenges of global change. It will as well provide an excellent platform for collective learning, stake-holder engagement, science-policy interaction and working meet-ings. An impressive array of special sessions, on site workshops and side events have registered for the conference. I should also mention the large exhibition space that will allow for very lively interaction across disciplinary and professional borders.

Finally, I should stress the importance of the location of the Open Meeting 2009. The United Nations Campus and Bonn as a city both stand for their active engagement for sustainable develop-ment, both in terms of science and practice. Bonn hosts almost 20 UN agencies, among them the Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Thus the political and scientific relevance of the OM 2009 and its contribution to the agenda of global environmental change research and policy for the next years and decades is evident.

I am welcoming you all to Bonn in April and wish us all an exciting and excellent Open Meeting 2009.

Yours sincerely,Andreas RechkemmerIHDP Executive Director

5IHDP Update 1.2009

The Open Meeting Background and Perspectives

The Open Meeting Background and PerspectivesFalk Schmidt and Shalini Kanwar

Over the course of 14 years the Open Meetings have established themselves as the major activity within the Hu-man Dimensions of Global Environmental Change commu-nity to stimulate the exchange of information on research from the global to the national level. Again this year, the Open Meeting will take place as the 7th International Sci-ence Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global En-vironmental Change. And as before the meeting is set to be a vehicle to integrate researchers into the community and provide the unique networking opportunity for scholars from a wide range of disciplines who are working in areas of common substantive interest. The 7th Open Meeting 26-30 April 2009, Bonn, Germany, will be the first one under the overall guidance of IHDP’s Strategic Plan 2007-2015 and will showcase the wealth of research being done on the human dimensions of global environmental change.

Under the overall theme “Social Challenges of Global Change”, set by the International Scientific Planning Com-mittee for the Conference, participants will discuss the role of human beings as actors in global environmental change.

By focusing on social challenges, the conference puts people into the centre of analysis. Scholars from all over the world have submitted abstracts for the four major conference themes concerning demographic challenges, limitations of resources and ecosystem services, establishing social cohe-sion while increasing equity at various levels and adapting institutions to address global change. Furthermore, impor-tant issue areas such as transitions and technological inno-vations, adaptation to climate change, human security, risk governance, human health and urbanisation, among oth-ers, will be highlighted during the conference, since these themes have proven to be of particular interest to those par-ticipating in and presenting at the event.

By addressing “global change” in its title, the 7th Open Meeting widens the perspective toward other impor-tant change phenomena that are either affected by or further contribute to the challenges of global environmental change. While resource and governance challenges represent very well established research streams within IHDP – and indeed most of the contributions were submitted for one of the two

Lexington Arboretum, Lexington, KY. Photo: Code Poet


The Open Meeting Background and Perspectives

themes –, the two calls have also generated brilliant submis-sions to address demographic challenges and the hurdles re-lated to equity and social cohesion. Particularly in relation to the latter, and in conjunction with the issues surrounding adaptation, a clear move toward the “development agenda” is apparent. This new direction will enrich the human di-mensions research agenda and will shed a different light on shared challenges.

The increased understanding of the challenges we are currently facing has shifted the focus in yet another way, from understanding the dynamics of global environmental change to using that understanding to devise ways to meet the challenges that we see emerge. This has pushed the sci-entific community to pay more attention to the relationship between science and policy, to include more use-inspired and policy-relevant research, and to improve communica-tion with government, business, NGO’s and the civil society at large. As a UN conference at the UN Campus in Bonn, the IHDP Open Meeting 2009 will attract policy-makers and other practitioners from various backgrounds to attend the conference and to confront scientific research with societal demands even more so than past meetings have. Each of the identified social challenges is both paramount for future liv-ing conditions of human beings and a good entry point to demonstrate IHDP’s preparedness to contribute useful in-sights from its research to address and solve the problems.

The first call for submissions for the Open Meeting started in end of August 2007 and closed at the end of the same year. A second call was open from August to October 2008. There was an overwhelming response to both calls and altogether about 1,250 submissions were received. In addi-tion, this Open Meeting will witness both the synthesis and

the launch of new IHDP core projects and will therefore dem-onstrate the vital nature of human dimensions research.

Around 65 % of the submissions made for the IHDP Open Meeting 2009 were accepted. About 40% of the total submissions are from the developing and the least developed countries and the maximum submissions came from Asia and Europe. Of the total accepted submissions almost 50% of the submitters were 40 years of age or younger, proving that the human dimensions research community represents a new generation of scientists and science.

About 120 sessions and more than 60 posters are be-ing planned. They include delegates from more than 380 uni-versities and research institutes from all over the world who will come together to discuss the social challenges of global change. Different session formats will be used (plenary, par-allel, poster, special sessions, and round tables) to explore different options for presenting the insights addressed and led by scientists from all existing disciplines.

We are very pleased that several donors have com-mitted funding to support this event, especially to support the participation of scholars who would otherwise not have had the chance to attend this meeting. IHDP is very grateful for that and is fully convinced that the Open Meeting can only perform its role as a milestone event taking place trien-nially and develop its potential to stimulate excellent new research, if participants from around the world are present and contribute to the discussions about the Social Challeng-es of Global Change.

AuthorsFalk Schmidt, IHDP Academic Officer, Leader Open Meeting Task Force Shalini Kanwar, Associate Programme Officer

Sponsors and Partners of the IHDP Open Meeting 2009

7IHDP Update 1.2009

The IHDP Open Meeting 2009 in Numbers

The IHDP Open Meeting 2009 in Numbers

Some 1142 abstracts were submitted and reviewed for the IHDP Open Meeting 2009. Those accepted will be presented orally at one of the conferences numerous parallel sessions.

The body of presenters is dominated by scientists from 30 to 39 years of age, followed by scientists from 40 to 49 years of age. This proves that the International Scientific Review Committee has succeeded in selecting both the young and the experienced, so as to best provoke global discourses on social challenges of global environmental change following modern scientific methodologies.

This year’s Open Meeting will provide an arena for scien-tists from 53 countries to present their work. Of these scientists, 38 percent are female and a remarkable 43 percent come from developing countries and countries in transition. A great num-ber of these researchers will receive stipends, partially securing their participation costs.

The 7th Open Meeting’s presenters are affiliated with more than 380 universities and institutions. Many of them are among the world’s most respected institutions conducting and supporting research on the social aspects of global environmen-tal change. The Research Institute for Humanity and Nature in Japan, Arizona State University in the United States and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands will be among the universities with the strongest representation. With extremely geographically and professionally varied backgrounds, the mix of researchers presenting at the IHDP Open Meeting 2009 will undoubtedly assure a motivating and rewarding dialogue.

39Age 29and younger

211Age30-39

166Age40-49

71Age50-59

19OverAge60

Age Groups ofParticipants Based on acceptedsubmissions from the first and second calls.(excluding 13% whodid not provide theirbirthdate)

42.5%Female Participants (31 total)

38%Countries inTransition

5%LeastDevelopedCountries

57%IndustrializedCountries

Developed andDeveloping CountriesRepresentedBased on acceptedsubmissions from the first and second calls.Development statusdefined accordingto UN sources.

252MaleParticipants

156Female Participants

Gender Ratioof ParticipantsBased on the accepted presentations from the first and second calls,excluding co-authors

24%Requestingpartial support

33%Requestingfull support

43%No needfor support

Need forFinancial SupportBased on acceptedsubmissions from the first and second calls.

304Europe

138NorthAmerica

58Central and SouthAmerica

4MiddleEast

94Africa

252Asia

Regional Distributionof ParticipantsBased on the accepted presentations from the first and second calls,excluding co-authors

17Australia and NewZealand

Text by Barbara Solich / IHDP Communications AssociateGraphs prepared by Tande Chilenge / IHDP


IHDP Open Meeting 2009 Programme

April 27Grand Opening & Demographic Challenges

8:30 - Registration

9:00 - Opening CeremonyProf Frieder Meyer-KrahmerState Secretary BMBF

Prof Liu YanhuaVice-Minister for Science & Technology, China

Prof Hebe VessuriChair of Council UNU

Prof Wolfgang Her-mannTechnical University of Munich President

Prof Hans Joachim SchellnhuberPIK Director

10:30 - Refreshment Break

11:00 - Plenary Session - Social Chal-lenges & DemographicsProf Xizhe PengFudan University, Institute Di-rector

Dr Gernot ErlerMinister of State at the Federal Foreign Office

Prof. Marcus Feldman (TBC)Stanford University

Flavia PansieriExecutive Coordinator UNV

Prof. Wolfgang LutzLeader, World Population Pro-gram, IIASA

12:30 - Lunch

14:00 - Parallel Sessions



17:30 - Break

18:00 - Round-tablesScience for the 21st Century

Poster Session

April 28Resources & Technological Innovation

8:30 - Registration

9:00 - Plenary Session - Resources & Technological InnovationProf Anthony GiddensLondon School of Economics

Prof Ernst von Weizsäck-er IHDP Scientific Committee Member

Michael MuellerParliamentary State Secretary BMU

Prof Ortwin Renn, Director

of DIALOGIK and Christo-pher Bunting,Secratary General IRGC


11:00 - Special SessionsVulnerability, Resilience and Adaptation IHDP and UNU-EHS

Global Change and Hu-man Health: Prepared-ness and SurveillanceGECHH, IHDP GECHH Advisory Group and IGU Commission on Health and the Environment.

Industrial Transforma-tions Synthesis Industrial Transformation Proj-ect (IT)

Risk Governance Under Global ChangeIRG Pilot Project, IHDP Chinese National Committee (CNC-IHDP)

12:30 - Lunch




17:30 - Break

18:00 - RoundtablesTechnological Innovation

Media Roundtable “Catastrophe Sells”

Global Change and Human Health: The Role of E-Health and Telemedicine

Integrative Approaches in Global Change Research – The Experi-ence with Different Integration Methods

The new IHDP research projects and initiatives, ESG, IRG, KLSC

Poster Session

Open Meeting Preliminary Programme 5 March 2009

9IHDP Update 1.2009

IHDP Open Meeting 2009 Programme

April 29Social Equity, Cohesion & Sustainable Adaptation

8:30 - Registration

9:00 - Plenary Session - Social Equity, Co-hesion & Sustainable AdaptationRobin MearnsWorld Bank, Team Leader Social Dimensions of Global Change

High Level Representa-tive from Small Island States

Marina Silva (TBC)Senator and former Environ-ment Minister, Brazil

Dr Walter AmmannPresident, Global Risk Forum (GRF) Davos

Dr Poul Engberg-Peder-sen (TBC)Director General Norad


11:00 - Special SessionsPro-Poor Climate Change Adaptation: Engaging Local Institu-tions and Local Voices across Different ScalesWorld Bank

Human Security in the 21st CenturyGlobal Environmental Change and Human Security Project (GECHS)

Sustainable Water Man-agement - the key for adaptationBMU

Synthesizing Knowledge of the Natural, Social Sciences and Humani-tiesResearch Institute for Human-ity and Nature (RIHN)

12:30 - Lunch




17:30 - Break

18:00 - RoundtablesGlobal Equity, Local Needs

Adaptive Governance: The Case of Small Island States

Poster Session

April 30Adaptive Institutions & Governance

8:30 - Registration

9:00 - Plenary Session - Adaptive Institu-tions & GovernanceDr Kirit ParikhChairman, Integrated Re-search & Action for Develop-ment, India

Prof Michael ZürnDean, Hertie School of Gover-nance

Dr Laurence TubianaDirector of IDDRI

Prof Jan PronkInstitute of Social Studies, The Hague

Mark FultonManaging Director, Global Head of Climate change In-vestment Research, Deutsche Bank

Prof Oran YoungChair of Scientific Committee IHDP


11:00 - Special SessionsThe Contribution of So-cial Sciences to Climate Change Research IHDP, WCRP

Financing Adaptation to Climate Change: What’s the Role for Eu-rope? EADI, EDC2020

12:30 - Lunch




17:30 - Break

18:00 - Closing CeremonySpeakers to be announced shortly


Reflections From Two Regional Global Change Research Networks Sponsoring the OM 09

The Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN) is proud to be a sponsor of the 7th International Sci-ence Conference on Human Dimensions of Global Environ-mental Change (GEC): the International Human Dimen-sions Programme (IHDP) Open Meeting (OM) to be held on 26-30 April 2009 in Bonn, Germany.

One of the major goals of the APN is to improve the scientific technical capabilities of nations in the region and by supporting the IHDP OM 2009, the APN is making an-other step forward towards achieving its goal. The APN be-lieves that by providing a platform where scholars, including early career and developing-country researchers/scientists can exchange information, the networking opportunities are also strengthened leading to long-tem professional rela-tionship which will be of great benefit for the region in terms of scientific excellence.

As APN supports activities that generate and transfer knowledge in the physical and human dimensions of global change in five main themes under its Science Agenda, it is worth noting that the OM is structured to stimulate the ex-change of information on a transnational and regional basis on the human dimensions of GEC. The APN recognises the relevance of bringing together leading social and natural sci-entists, practitioners, policy-makers and stakeholders from various fields and geographical locations, particularly in the Asia-Pacific (AP) region whose work are interconnected with the human dimensions of GEC.

Another area of mutual interest between the APN and IHDP OM is the capacity building/enhancement com-ponent. When the APN Scientific Capacity Building and Enhancement for Sustainable Development in Developing Countries (CAPaBLE) Programme was launched in April 2003, the following were identified as major activities of

interest: scientific capacity development for sustainable development; science-policy interfacing, awareness raising and dissemination activities. Under CAPaBLE, young, early career scientists are provided with opportunities to develop their knowledge and capabilities in GEC research through the enhanced sharing of knowledge, experience and scien-tific information. With the regional scope of the OM invit-ing all countries in the AP region, the APN believes that it will pose strong scientific and political relevance for all the APN member countries and the whole AP region at large, enabling participation of younger and developing country researchers.

The OM will include around 650 papers and poster presentations. With the OM’s established scientific frame-work, the APN is eager to learn how the questions posing profound challenges in the area of GEC will be answered during the course of the meeting. The APN also considers the significance of raising the four main questions under the ‘social challenge’ of the scientific framework. These four questions [1) How do we deal with demographic challenges? 2) How do we deal with limitations of resources and ecosys-tem services? 3) How do we establish social cohesion while increasing equity at various levels? 4) How do we adapt in-stitutions to address global change?] will be addressed in the OM with a wider perspective, looking both on the current and future trends to ensure sustainable development.

Fully supportive of the OM, the APN trusts that the activity will extend beyond showcasing IHDP’s contributions to the international processes but also highlight science-policy dialogues through parallel sessions and side events at a significant level and provide a forum for the exchange of latest/emerging scientific research and trends in the global change community.

A Privileged Plat-form for Establishing Long-Term Profes-sional RelationshipsTetsuro Fujitsuka, Director, Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change

Research (APN)

Fisherman in Bali, Indonesia. Photo: Jon Rawlinson

11IHDP Update 1.2009

Reflections From Two Regional Global Change Research Networks Sponsoring the OM 09

Open meetings: hundreds of participants from around the world, a tight agenda, parallel sessions, large poster ses-sions, 6:00am working breakfasts, lunch and dinner meet-ings, long talks with old colleagues, abounding opportuni-ties to meet new ones and a tremendous challenge to make the best of it all. In times of easy long distance communica-tion and concerns about the carbon footprint of travel, are open large meetings still appropriate?

Yes, it helps to put a face to an idea, develop personal contacts and understanding and build collaboration on "ex-perienced" mutual interests. But no, there must be a better way. Commonly key people are too busy with side meetings to provide sound guidance to larger fora. Younger partici-pants who would benefit most from interactions but are not part of networks often lose out. Sometimes this can be ad-dressed by having workshop and training activities back-to-back with such events, allowing for interaction with at least some of the key players.

One of the key challenges for global environmental change (GEC) science is that of becoming more policy rel-evant and assisting governments, non-governmental bod-ies and civil society organisations with the identification, assessment and implementation of solutions. Solutions are rarely discipline-bound, they are task oriented.

Increasing interdisciplinarity strains the open meet-ing model even more. Perhaps it is time to integrate such task orientation as a part of the meeting’s planning process.

Models for successful output-oriented meetings distribute themes, tasks and even contributions well in advance, of-ten for mutual peer-review. The time spent together is thus spent more productively and gives opportunities to develop the unexpected next development and explore ideas in inter-active activities, rather than in show-and-tell settings.

Solutions are rarely discipline-bound, they are task oriented.

The IAI has sponsored the participation of young sci-entists to open meetings in the past. Rather than just fund-ing IAI regional participation, starting with the 2006 ESSP OM in Beijing, the institute is aiming further with its fund-ing support. This time we will combine our sponsorship with a commitment to a focused session on linking GEC science to governance, asking participants not only to present their science but to take the next step and provide critical im-pluses for future directions, strategies and activities. What can IHDP and IAI (and others) do to link science and gov-ernance? Are there existing projects and programmes that could join forces and ideas? Big ideas linking natural science, social science and decision making must take small steps to learn how to satisfy societies' increasing demand to provide a return on GEC science investments in tangible ways.

The Challenge of Becoming Policy-RelevantHolm Tiessen, Director, Inter American Institute for

Global Change Research (IAI) and Gerhard Breul-

mann, Assistant Director Science Programs, IAI.

International Conference. Photo: Mr. Topf


Page-header

The IHDP Communications Team went through the paper proposals accepted for the IHDP Open Meeting 2009 and invited four of the authors who recieved the highest scores to provide a sneek preview to their articles with the UPDATE magazine. The authors, scientists from Asia, Eu-rope, and the Americas, also explained why they decided to participate in the IHDP Open Meeting 2009 and what they expect of the conference. The four all agreed on the same point: attending the IHDP Open Meeting 2009 is not a goal in itself, but represents a new step towards the creation of policy relevant, cutting-edge and borderless science pre-pared to address the challenges of a rapidly changing world.

Selected Articles from Participants

Antalya City. Photo: Melissa Maples

Social Challenges of Global Change - Selected Articles from Participants


Environmentally Induced Population Displacements

Environmentally Induced Population DisplacementsSusana B. Adamo

This article examines population displacements related to environmental events, addressing conceptual, methodologi-cal and security and policy issues. It also explores poten-tial future population displacements as a result of climate change.

Photos: Damien du Toit

Keywords: population mobility; migration; environment; cli-mate change

Environmentally induced population displacement is a hot topic. Concerns about the consequences of climate change for human populations, the recognition that migra-tion may be one of the most viable adaptation strategies, and the view that such population movements would present se-curity challenges fuel this increasing interest, which has ma-terialised in a number of recent conferences (IoM & uNFPA 2008; uNu-Ehs, IoM & uNEP 2008; EFMsV 2008; PErN 2008; rsC & IMI 2009).

Still, the debate on what constitutes an environmen-tally induced move continues, and the general agreement that environmental factors contribute to population mo-bility translates into a modest consensus about the mecha-

nisms, character and extent of that contribution (IoM 1992; suhrkE 1993; LIttLE 1994; uNhCr/IoM 1996; rIChMoNd 1995; hugo 1996; swAIN 1996; LoNErgAN 1998; wood 2001; BLACk 2001; CAstLEs 2002; BILsBorrow 2002; uNruh, kroL & kIot 2004; huNtEr 2005, 2007; IoM 2007; rENAud Et AL. 2007; kNIVEtoN Et AL. 2008A; wArNEr Et AL. 2008; AdAMo 2008A).

There has been progress, however,. The International Organisation for Migration has proposed a new working def-inition of environmental migrants, which identifies trigger events, types of movement and also hints at the mechanisms linking environmental change and population mobility.

To capture the several possible combinations, par-ticularly for policymaking and development planning, the IOM (2007) has also suggested different scenarios (tABLE 1).

Antalya City. Photo: Melissa Maples



1. The propensity to

migrate in relation to

environmental change

2. The impact of migra-

tion on the environment

3. Interactions between

migration, environ-

mental change, human

security and conflict

A. Migration at less ad-

vanced stages of gradual


E. Migration’s impact on

the environment in areas

of destination

G. Human security chal-

lenges of environmental

change and migration

B. Migration at advanced

stages of gradual envi-

ronmental change

F. Migration’s impact on

the environment in areas

of origin

H. Conflict potential of


and migration

C. Migration due to

extreme environmental

events

D. Migration due to large-

scale development and

land conservation

Table 1: IOM’s Migration-Environment Scenarios. Source: IOM 2007

Figure 1: The continuum of environmentally induced population displacements

Source: Based on Hugo 1996; Bates 2002 ; Renaud et al. 2007

Migrant-like situa-

tions:

greater control over

the process and less

vulnerability, even if

people are moving in

response to deterio-

rating conditions.

Environmentally driven

displacement:

compelled but voluntary;

more control over timing and

direction and less vulner-

ability than refugees; but

less control and more vulner-

ability than migrants.

Refugee-like

situations:

very low level of

control over the

whole process and

very high degree

of vulnerability

Of interest here are columns 1 and 3. Column 1 highlights the heterogeneity of trigger events in terms of intensity, pre-dictability, and scale or magnitude, which results in critical differences in terms of people displaced, area affected and duration of the event (IoM/rPg 1992; IoM/uNhCr 1996; LoN-ErgAN 1998; wood 2001; BAtEs 2002; BIErMANN & BoAs 2007; rENAud Et AL. 2007). Column 3 characterises the in-teractions of environmentally induced displacement with human security and conflict, topics that have also been on the rise.

The movements

Depending on the intensity of the hazard, the vulner-ability of the exposed population, and the availability of as-sistance, environmentally induced mobility may be arranged in a continuum ranging from forced to compelled to volun-tary (hugo 1996; rENAud Et AL. 2007; BAtEs 2002). Overall, a certain amount of coercion is implicit in the fact that push factors in the origin area are more important than pull fac-tors in destinations (suhrkE 1993; hugo 1996; rIChMoNd 1995; stILEs 1997; BAtEs 2002). Frequently, environmental ‘push’ factors are intertwined with economic issues, but they may also be linked to concerns about the deterioration of lo-cal environmental conditions and of quality of life in general (IzAzoLA, MArtíNEz & MArquEttE 1998; huNtEr 2005).

By far, most of the environmentally induced mobility has been internal and short-term (hugo 1996; MyErs 2002; hugo 2006; MAssEy, AxINN & ghIMIrE 2007). Some evidence shows that the spatial distribution of pre-existing migrant networks and other forms of social capital are relevant to es-timate the probability of local or long-distance moves as well

as the probability of return (hugo 1996; MCLEMAN & sMIt 2006). In the case of natural disasters, the most common and fastest response is evacuation (huNtEr 2005, P.283), gener-ally occurring over a short distance and only temporary in duration, although some evacuees may choose to relocate, as happened with evacuees from New Orleans following Hur-ricane Katrina. In the aftermath, an option is the permanent relocation of entire communities to less dangerous places. In developing regions, permanent environmentally induced displacement tends to occur in a less organised way, and is usually local, consisting of simply moving to less danger-ous places nearby, for example, to higher ground if available (huNtEr 2005). However, local, spontaneous relocation may not be possible if the surrounding area is densely populated or if land owners refuse to allow resettlement (AdAMo & dE shErBININ ForthCoMINg).

The movers

Environmentally induced flows may differ from ‘nor-mal’ flows. Research on migration and drought in the Sahel found a diversification of migration patterns during drought periods. Although the flows did not intensify, their compo-sition changed, including a higher number of women and children likely to reduce household consumption. Shifts to circular and short-cycle labour migration as well as changes in destinations and in the number of moves were also veri-fied. Remittances from long-term migrants were still essen-tial to their families, but households also put more workers in the local labour market, which included the temporary migration of young male members to increase income and



reduce consumption (FINdLEy 1994; hENry, sChou-MAkEr ANd BEAuChEMIN 2004; BrowN 2007).

Selectivity by socioeconomic status of individ-uals and households, a key determinant of the degree of vulnerability, has been also registered. Research in Nepal (MAssEy, AxINN & ghIMIrE. 2007) found that local environmental deterioration was associated with short-distance movements of males and females, but that this only applied to lower castes and that the ef-fect on long-distance moves was weaker . In the Sa-hel, good or bad harvests, an indicator of wealth, de-termine household choice of long or short-distance moves of workers (BrowN 2007). Studies in the US found that lower socioeconomic status was linked to a higher probability of relocation after a hazard event (huNtEr 2005), suggesting that better-off households had more resources to afford rebuilding, had insur-ance, or suffered less damage because of their ability to meet the expense of mitigation measures. Yet, Izazola, Martínez & Marquette (1998, P.114) found that middle and upper-class households in Mexico City were more likely to leave the city because of air quality concerns.

Data issues

In general, data on environmentally induced migration are scarce, and ‘creative’ calculation meth-ods for the magnitude of past, current and future environ-mentally induced displacement are generally controversial (LoNErgAN 1998; BLACk 2001; CAstLEs 2002, P.2; BIErMAN & BoAs 2007, P.9; BLACk Et AL. 2008). This lack of adequate data, particularly in terms of time series of environment and demographic variables, is still a constraint for methodologi-cal innovation, and conclusive results are still absent (PErCh-NILsEN 2004; kNIVEtoN Et AL. 2008B).

Some authors have suggested the use of popula-tion censuses (LE BLANC 2008, P.42; sEE ALso PostINgs to PErN 2008), relying on base-area information and focusing on flows of migrants from areas of environmental change and degradation. While it could be enough for a number of policy needs, this could not be adequate for understanding how and why environmental change can trigger population mobility.

The linking mechanisms

A more precise measurement and potential forecast-ing of environmentally induced displacement would require a better understanding of the mechanisms linking environ-mental stressors and demographic behaviour. The identifi-cation of these mechanisms entails considering different factors and levels of determination, as well as temporal and spatial scales.

A critical understanding is that (a) multiple factors in-fluence migration decisions, (b) environmental factors rarely act alone and they cannot be easily disentangled from the rest of the factors and processes leading to migration; and (c) cause-effect relationships are hard to quantify and tied to the rest of these factors (LoNErgAN 1998, PP. 10; wood 2001, P.44; MEyErsoN, MErINo ANd durANd 2007; kNIVEtoN Et AL., 2008A, P. 37). It is also important to remember that, ex-cept in cases of sudden environmental disasters, mobility is just one among several possible responses and adaptations to environmental change (BILsBorrow 1992; BLACk 2001; tACoLI 2007; AdgEr Et AL. 2007, P.736).

Internally displaced refugees outside of Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo.

Photo: Endre Vestvik



Patterns of vulnerability and their determinants, for example, individual demographic characteristics and house-hold livelihood composition (BLAIkIE Et AL. 1994; kAsPEr-soN Et AL. 1995; MACíAs 1992; CArdoNA 2001; dE shEr-BININ, sChILLEr & PuLsIPhEr 2007; AdgEr Et AL. 2007), are key factors for understanding population mobility as a response to environmental risks, or the absence thereof. People’s subjective view and perception of the hazard and of their own vulnerability, based on past personal experience as well as present and past individual, household and com-munity characteristics and the socio-economic, political and historical context in which they are embedded, are also relevant factors (IzAzoLA 1997; huNtEr 2005; hEAthCotE 1980; dAy 1995; hogAN 1995; MEzE-hAuskEN 2000, 2008).

Finally, population mobility as a response to environ-mental impacts is embedded in socio-economic, cultural and institutional contexts, and influenced by the historical local development of the interactions between a population and its environment (BLAIkIE & BrookFIELd 1987; LIttLE 1994; sChMINk 1994; gutMANN Et AL. 1996). Consequently, it is spatially differentiated, as environmental hazards, pop-ulation exposure and vulnerabilities and risks, including se-curity risks, are not uniformly distributed across the globe. Levels of development, living conditions, livelihoods, insti-tutional capacities and the strength of States can be quite di-verse, and regional diversity is the rule in migration patterns and systems. This uneven distribution would require region-al, national and sub-national approaches to understanding and addressing environmentally-induced displacements.

Agent-based models (ABMs) appear well-suited to modeling the links between environmental change and mi-gration (ENtwIsLE Et AL. 2008; kNIVEtoN Et AL. 2008A) by simulating responses from individuals, households or com-munities to environmental events. These models are based on the assumption that the results of individual actions may differ from the sum of their parts in a system characterised by interacting agents or autonomous decision-making enti-ties, emergent properties arising from agents’ interactions with each other and a set of rules that govern these interac-tions that take into account people’s perceptions and experi-ences (kNIVEtoN Et AL. 2008A, P.47).

Methodological developments in migration research can also be applied to the study of environmental displace-ment, including multilevel models (BILsBorrow Et AL. 1987; zhu 1998; EzrA 2001); even history analysis techniques (MuLdEr 1993; LIANg & whItE 1996; PArrAdo & CErruttI 2003); the combination of both techniques (EzrA & kIros 2001; hENry, sChouMAkEr & BEAuChENtIN 2004; kuLu & BILLArI 2004); and the use of network analysis (korINEk Et

AL. 2005). Statistical analysis can be combined with Geo-graphic Information System techniques to determine spatial patterns of environmental change impacts and migration, also integrating data from a variety of sources (kNIVEtoN Et AL. 2008A; ALso sEE MCgrANAhAN, BALk & ANdErsoN 2007).

Potential effects of climate change

The IPCC’s First Assessment Report warned that the greatest effect of climate change on society could be human migration, i.e. involuntary forms of displacement and reloca-tion (osCE 2005). This seems to point to population mobility as a less desirable form of adapting to climate change- a last resort coping strategy when other adaptation possibilities are unavailable or have failed. Later, it was recognised that there are situations in which population mobility constitutes a powerful adaptive strategy. The IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report stressed the significance of established migrant net-works and patterns as part of the inventory of the adaptation practices, options and capacities available to face climate change impacts (AdgEr Et AL. 2007, P.736).

The effects of climate change are likely to present regional variations in their potential to trigger population displacements depending on the place and time of the im-pact, the affected population’s degree of vulnerability, and the availability of alternative responses. In terms of inter-national displacements, the percentage of the population affected may be a better predictor than the absolute num-bers. The reasoning is that the higher the percentage af-fected, the more likely the national coping capacities will be overwhelmed. Some combination of relocation in advance of events and short-term displacements in the aftermath is likely (AdAMo & dE shErBININ ForthCoMINg).

Socioeconomic status may become an important predictor since population mobility as response requires resources. Overall, in situ adaptation may be more likely in developed regions while displacement may be more likely in developing areas. However, it could be the case that a house-hold or individual is too poor to “invest” in migration, being obligated to stay put and hope that the situation to improves. The poorest populations, often living in the most vulnerable locations (BLAIkIE Et AL. 1994), are likely to be those with the fewest resources to permanently relocate. On the other hand, relatively better off land owners are those with greater incentives to remain on their land, so it is not easy to predict who will move (AdAMo & dE shErBININ ForthCoMINg).



Sea-level rise appears to be the impact most certain result in displacement and resettlement (hugo 1996; BLACk 2001; MCgrANAhAN, BALk & ANdErsoN 2007; dE shErBININ, sChILLEr & PuLsIPhEr 2007) as a relatively gradual, slow on-set event leading to relocation to higher ground nearby if land resources are available. Coastal areas and Small Island States (SIS) are particularly threatened by sea-level rise and extreme weather events (BIjLsMA 1996; hugo 2006; NursE, MCLEAN & suArEz 1997). Migration may be the only adaptive response, particularly if sea-levels rise faster than predicted. In the case of SIS in particular, relocation and resettlement policies have been discussed (AdgEr Et AL. 2007). However, the need for avoiding simplistic assumptions remains (Mor-trEux & BArNEtt 2008).

Coastal flooding from storm surges and excess pre-cipitation, by contrast, is generally a less predictable and sudden onset event. Extreme weather events are likely to trigger local sudden and massive displacements from af-fected areas. The key factors here are the predictability of the event and the government and civil capacity to face it. This type of movement will probably occur over short dis-tances and be temporary in nature (AdAMo & dE shErBININ ForthCoMINg).

Climate change impacts on freshwater resources such as droughts, water scarcity and glacial melting are typi-cally slow onset events. Worsening dry conditions in semi-arid and sub-humid areas may render such areas unfit for rain-fed agriculture and led to their abandonment unless irrigation infrastructure is available. Population numbers and densities in these regions, however, are already low, and numbers of the displaced would thus be low. Environmen-tal changes related to large-scale adaptation works such as water transfer schemes and flood defenses could be another source of population displacement (AdAMo & dE shErBI-NIN ForthCoMINg). Migration as an adaptive response to declining freshwater resources is likely to rest on already established patterns of population mobility (hugo 1996; AdAMo 2003), and labour related circular migration of some household members, generally young adults, may be expect-ed (BrowN 2007). Depending on the severity of the impact, however, these long-time adaptations may not be enough (tACoLI 2007) and more permanent migrations would then be possible.

The determination of the magnitude of climate change-related displacement is a contentious matter (sEE BIErMAN & BoAs 2007 ANd CAstLEs 2002 For A dEtAILEd dIsCussIoN) and available estimates show a large diversity of possibilities, as illustrated in Box 1. Environmental im-pacts have been calculated from climate change projections assuming a linear and causal relationship between the envi-ronmental event and population displacement and location specific socio-economic responses have been generalised. General numbers tend to reflect populations at risk “a long way from predicting mass flight of a ‘refugee’ nature” (BLACk 2001, P.9).

Security concerns

Potential climate change-related displacement has triggered different security concerns, which IOM (2007) groups into two scenarios:

Scenario (G) relates to concerns about human secu-rity challenges, including the security of individuals, house-holds and communities, and about their coping and adapta-tion capabilities (BogArdI 2004; rENAud Et AL. 2007; IoM 2007). The more sudden, involuntary or forced the displace-ment, the more likely it is to disrupt livelihoods and to de-teriorate quality of life, in many cases leading to the further impoverishment of already vulnerable people (VINE 2005). This approach to human security rests on human agency, rights and sustainable livelihoods as means to face vulner-Seeking for dringing water in Rajasthan, India. Photo: Marcus Fornell



ability (BohLE 2007; wArNEr Et AL. 2008). It favors the con-cept of adaptation in- situ, including risk management and vulnerability reduction through poverty reduction and good governance (IuCN Et AL. 2004). The aim is to increase the resilience of households, communities, and nations, thereby reducing vulnerability, livelihood disruption, involuntary displacements, and relocation.

Scenario (H) relates to concerns about the conflict po-tential of environmentally induced displacements. Climate change, environmental degradation, and growing resource scarcity have been identified as triggers or concomitant fac-tors in the emergence or aggravation of conflict situations, although the evidence also shows that these are usually non-violent (CAstLEs 2002, P.6; stErN 2006; gLEdItsCh Et AL. 2007; woodrow wILsoN CENtEr ENVIroNMENtAL ChANgE ANd sECurIty ProgrAM). These situations pose potential threats to global and national security, and could eventu-ally increase in the presence of climate change. Scenarios describing massive environmentally induced displacements often accompany these scenarios, capturing some of the is-sues found in the literature on environmental refugees (I.E. MyErs 2001, 2002; rEuVENy 2005; CAstLEs 2002; wBgu 2007; CAMPBELL Et AL. 2007; urdAL 2005).

Policy issues

Policy issues related to environmentally induced displacement include their implications for the origin and receiving communities as well as the consequences for the displaced population, particularly in the cases of sudden displacement and displacements located toward the ‘forced’ end of the involuntary/voluntary continuum (oLIVEr-sMIth 2008).

The IOM (2007, P.5) has suggested tailoring policy in-terventions to the stage of environmental degradation, for example, by facilitating migration in the early stages of the deterioration process, and mitigating forced displacement at irreversible stages or anticipating the problem by promoting sustainable development. This tailoring would, of course, imply a clear understanding of the nexus between envi-ronmental change and population mobility, which in turn requires a “redirection of research toward clarifying con-ceptual approaches and answering basic questions” (oLIVEr-sMIth 2008, P.102).

Finally, although studies have shown that environ-mental displacements take place mostly within national boundaries and are consequently a national matter, the crossing of international boundaries would need to be an-

ticipated for both the nations most likely to be affected such as for Small Island States as well as for the less likely nations, since such displacement with require international coopera-tion (hugo 1996; BrowN 2007).

Final remarks

This brief article should be concluded with a note of caution and a call to action, restating some of the conclu-sions of PERN 2008 seminar (AdAMo 2008B). The attribution of population displacement to environmental stressors is a delicate task, as many and very diverse scientific disciplines are involved. Agreement in this field seems to be limited to the acknowledgement that a relationship exits. The topic of environmentally induced displacement still requires the careful weighing of theory, data and methods in the deter-mination and evaluation of magnitudes, flows, selectivity and even naming terms. Ideally, the understanding of how populations respond to climate-based uncertainty and di-

• People at risk of sea-level rise by 2050: 162

million (Myers 2002).

• People at risk of droughts and other climate

change events by 2050: 50 million (Myers

2002).

• People potentially at-risk of being displaced

because of desertification: 135 million (Alm-

ería Statement 1994)

• Number of people who have fled because

of floods, famine and other environmental

disasters: approximately 24 million (UNHCR

2002:12)

• Environmentally displaced people by 2010:

50 million (UNFCCC 2007).

• Refugees due to by climate change by 2050:

250 millions (Christian Aid cited in Bierman

and Boas 2007).

• People estimated to become permanently

displaced “climate refugees” by 2050: 200

millions (Stern 2006).

Selected estimates of environmental-ly-displaced population due to cli-mate change impacts



saster would be part of talks about ways to avoid exposure to or mitigate the effects of catastrophic events.

At the same time, the mounting policy issues and hu-man security concerns that emerge from accelerated global climate change demand attention. Interdisciplinary research and communication between researchers and policymak-ers must be enhanced. Scenarios of adaptive capacity and its multiple factors must consider both flows of movers and groups of stayers, lending greater attention to those contex-tual factors, including level and style of development, which could be most affected by climate change events.

AuthorSusana B. Adamo, Center for International Earth Science Information Net-work (CIESIN), Columbia University

[email protected]: 1-845-365-8966 fax: 1-845-365-892261 Route 9W Palisades, NY 10964, USA

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Indentifying the Poor in Cities

Identifying the Poor in Cities: How Can Remote Sensing Help to Profile Slums in Fast Growing Cities and Megacities?Maik Netzband, Ellen Banzhaf, René Höfer, Katrin Hannemann

Using Geospatial Technology to identify vulnerable groups and their physical environment could en-hance the search for equity in megacities.

Key words: Informal settlements, slums, marginal areas, re-mote sensing, GIS, vulnerability, urban pattern, urban struc-ture types (UST), Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), megacities

Identifying Spatial Patterns of Urban Poverty

Attempts to address the question of whether the worldwide urbanisation process is dealing with poverty have, thus far, been based on limited information. There is little scientific and operational knowledge about this pro-cess. Urban growth and land consumption patterns are only beginning to be recognised and regulating actions are still more than limited. Thus, the available information is very often inadequate for policy and planning. Due to the micro-structure and irregularity of fast growing urban agglomera-tions as well as their direct adaptation to local conditions

and terrain, a generically applicable and operational map-ping of these settlements has proven difficult.

Sophisticated data and methods of image analysis are thus necessary. High resolution, remotely sensed data sets allow for the interactive documentation of the growth in ur-ban areas, both quantitatively and, in combination with an-cillary data sets, qualitatively. In order to analyse and evalu-ate intra-urban patterns as well as trends in slums across cities, such data must be taken throughout the various lev-els of planning processes and must incorporate all existing and documented socio-economic information. This article will focus on the identification of the poor in the context of slums, informal settlements, marginal areas and low in-come neighbourhoods, as well as their spatial embedment in a number of fast growing cities and megacities across the globe. The examples given are gathered from the Indian sub-continent and Latin America. The spatial profile that traces poverty in complex cluttered, and hard to control fast grow-ing urbanised regions is elaborated by means of very high



resolution (VHR) remote sensing data and the appropriate associated techniques.

The major methodological objective of this research is to delineate specific social groups in their respective urban environment and structure with VHR and GIS. When ex-ploiting remotely sensed data in terms of spectra, the Norma-lised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) explains the urban green areas, their density, location and connectivity. There-fore, NDVI analysis, based on the different reflection charac-teristics of the vegetation in the red and near infrared spectral bands, enables differentiation within and between the areas of interest. In analysing the urban structure, Urban Structure Types (UST) support social strata information. UST are spa-tial indicators that help to divide and differentiate the urban fabric into open and green spaces, infrastructure, and build-ing complexes so that typical characteristics such as physical, functional and energetic factors can be identified. After the classification of such single objects, the structural composi-tion in terms of the amount and connectivity of the single

objects is aggregated on a neighbourhood scale to generate a UST (BANzhAF & höFEr 2008). The resulting UST layer forms the basis for socio-environmental studies on topics such as socio-spatial differentiation or for socio-ecological investiga-tions on neighbourhoods exposed to natural hazards (flood-ing, landslides, etc.) and also supports socio-economical re-search on inclusion and exclusion.

Beyond the presented case study in Santiago, this ap-proach comprises a segmentation procedure, a classification scheme and a structural aggregation which approximates a baseline when organising the urban pattern, and is therefore transferable to other urban systems.

Mapping Slums and Informal Settlements – State of the Art

UN-HABITAT established the Global Urban Obser-vatory (GUO) (uN-hABItAt 2009) in response to a decision of the United Nations Commission on Human Settlements, which called for a mechanism to monitor global progress in implementing the Habitat Agenda as well as to monitor and evaluate global urban conditions and trends. The Glob-al Urban Observatory (GUO) addresses the urgent need to improve the worldwide base of urban knowledge by helping governments, local authorities and civil society organisa-tions develop and apply policy-oriented urban indicators, statistics and other urban information The GUO has suc-ceeded in installing an important network and databases.

The Global Urban Observatory Network (GUONet) is a worldwide information and capacity-building network established by the United Nations Human Settlement Pro-gramme (UN-HABITAT) to help implement the Habitat Agenda at the national and local levels. In the Global Urban Observatory databases, a multitude of information is stored on urban indicators, statistics and city profiles. It is now es-sential to work further on UN-HABITAT agenda goals, for example, to provide security of tenure, using durable struc-tures and overcrowding as indicators as well as to promote access to basic services, using access to safe water and access to improved sanitation as indicators.

In this light, an international expert group on remote sensing, slum identification and mapping met at the Inter-national Institute for Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation (ITC) (CENtEr For INtErNAtIoNAL EArth sCIENCE INForMAtIoN NEtwork (CIEsIN) 2009). The goal of the workshop was to document methods for the identifi-cation and delineation of slum areas based on VHR remote

Figure 1: Karail Bastee (part), Mahakhali, Dhaka Photograph by: Dr. Peter Kim Streat-

field, ICDDR,B. In: Centre of Urban Studies (CUS) and National Institute of Population

Research and Training (NIPORT) and MEASURE Evaluation (ed.) 2006: Slums of Urban

Bangladesh: Mapping and Census, 2005. Dhaka



sensing and supplementary data sets including census and related GIS data on infrastructure and services.

A number of general conclusions were drawn regard-ing the diversity of poor urban areas:

• Standardmethod:nouniversalmodelofaslumina physical sense exists and so no standard method for all slum identification and mapping has been developed. A local adjustment of certain param-eters is always required.

• Intra-urbancoexistence:manydifferentmanifes-tations of slums, informal settlements, or other marginal areas may be found within one city, each requiring specific methodological adjustments to be identified and mapped.

• Human life indicators: it is necessary to under-stand both the nature of building construction (size,materials, shape), the nature of other objects (roads, health and social service facilities, open space), the characteristics of the site conditions (lo-

cation in urban area, slope, natural vegetation, haz-ards), as well as the slum development process itself.

• Distinctive characterisation: slums and infor-mal settlements develop differently, for example, through the gradual degradation of formal hous-ing and social filtering processes or through a vari-ety of informal housing development processes.

• Stageofa slumarea (infancy,consolidation,ma-turity): knowledge about slum characteristics and changes are essential to properly identify and map these areas from VHR images.

Ebert et al. (2009) have developed a new method based on the contextual analysis of VHR image and GIS data. An approach based on proxy variables derived from high-resolution optical and laser scanning data is applied, in combination with elevation information and existing hazard data. With respect to social vulnerability indicators, an ob-ject-oriented image analysis is applied to define and estimate variables such as buildings, road access (paved/unpaved) and green spaces with associated physical characteristics. Sliuzas and Kuffer (2008) analyse the spatial heterogeneity of poverty using selected remote sensing based spatial indica-tors such as roof coverage densities and a lack of proper road network characterised by the irregular layout of settlements. Based on these indicators, the heterogeneity of several de-prived neighbourhoods were identified and different types of poverty areas were deliniated. Other approaches, such as that taken by Gamba et al. (2007), analyse VHR images of disaster events to develop efficient methods for building de-tection. These methods also estimate damages on the basis of pre and post event images in order to map the presence, location and status of buildings in order to provide a statisti-cal basis for planning instruments.

Such approaches exemplify the possibilities of VHR images for poverty mapping and demonstrate the scale of VHR needed to gain detailed information. In other words, data aggregation may hide the spatial variation of the urban structure, and thus, of poverty.

The Contribution of Remote Sensing in Deter-mining Spatial Configuration and in deriving spatial information on Living Conditions

How remote sensing can help access the spatial con-figuration of informal settlements and the living conditions of urban dwellers is a central research question consisting of several issues. To examine whether a spatial correlation exists between the results of the different thematic land-use/

“Our research team learnt about the IHDP

Open Meeting 2009 at the end of 2007. This is

our first Open Meeting. We received the news

through the newsletter of the IHDP core project

Urbanization and Global Environmental Change

(UGEC). We expect that this Open Meeting will

be assembling scholars interested in the inter-

face of natural and social sciences for exchang-

ing and for discussing new ideas, concepts and

research efforts to foster further interdiciplinary

studies, especially on urban monitoring towards

sustainable cities. By organizing a session on

'Urban Remote Sensing (URS) and Social Sci-

ences' we seek to explore the potential of URS

for an integrated interdisciplinary social science

with a focus on urban sustainability. We trace

how URS can best fill the gaps in scientific infor-

mation to meet the needs of integrated spatial

social science”.

Maik Netzband on sharing research in an interdisci-plinary platform



land-cover analyses, to identify land-use pat-terns combined with a vegetation index analysis (NDVI) and UST, to estimate spatial indicators for quality of life and vulnerability to natural hazards such as flooding The concept of classi-fying UST by remote sensing and GIS has been proved increasingly important as a baseline for urban spatial research (BANzhAF ANd höFEr 2008; PuIssANt ANd wEBEr 2002; NIEBErgALL Et AL. 2007; tAuBENBöCk Et AL. 2006). The UST are characterised as follows. First, they can identify different classes such as types of build-ings (different types of housing, industrial and commercial sites, infrastructure), other classes of impervious surfaces (road and rail infra-structure, parking lots, etc.), and classes of open spaces (woodland, allotments, parks). Second, they can typify structures as per their individual compositions, as it takes the composition of two to three of the aforementioned classes to form an urban structure type. Therefore, the amount, connectivity, and distribution of impervious surfaces, green spaces, and other open spaces on an aggregated neighbourhood scale are the goal of the quantitative spatial characterisation.

In terms of the urban vegetation pattern analysed with the NDVI, existing vegetation and other open areas are considered as positive urban structure elements in terms of their ecological functions of biodiversity and production of oxygen, for example, as well as their social functions for individual recreational purposes and as social meeting points. Water bodies as potential carriers of disease and the road system as a potential air polluter are considered as negative urban structures in the sense that their proximity can cause respiratory and infectious diseases. Due to the rapid population growth of megacities lacking appro-priate infrastructure measures, multiple health complaints result for their inhabitants.

As a baseline for these research objectives, the chal-lenge is to develop rule sets which consist of a class hierarchy and a process tree suitable to represent all existing UST rep-resented in each study area. A very large scale is warranted when monitoring and analysing the land-use information of a city using single features and UST. Multispectral and panchromatic Quickbird data are used to identify and refine even small features such as single bushes and tree crowns and building size, as well as to delineate road networks.

In a first step, the rule set has to be developed in rep-resentative areas of an urban agglomeration. In a second

Figure 2: Study area in central Dhaka, Bangladesh. Own study.

step, the rule set will then be transferred and adapted to the whole study area. The process tree is developed as the core of the classification scheme in which all processes are stored and managed. In this module, all rules for each feature char-acterisation are defined. Such feature characteristics can be transferred to other parts of the Quickbird image with the same acquisition date, for example, the same atmospheric conditions and phenological phase.

Case Studies

Dhaka, BangladeshWith its population density of 990 people per km²,

Bangladesh is known as the country with the highest pop-ulation density in the world (dEMogrAPhIC ANd hEALth surVEys 2004) and with over eight million inhabitants, Ban-gladesh' s capital Dhaka is called one of the most densely populated and fastest increasing megacities of the world (BurkArt Et AL. 2008).



There is an uncontrolled influx of people from rural regions to the megacity of Dhaka (BEguM 1999), yet this in-flux or city in-migration, is not accompanied by growth of urban infrastructure and supply. Thus, many migrants move into marginal areas already in critical situations, and result in the persistent and increasing resource pressure in these settlements. Insufficient water supply, waste disposal and waste water treatment as well as traumatic hygienic condi-tions and lack of access to basic services mark the living con-ditions in these slums. Slum dwellers, on average, have poor-er health and are more vulnerable to disasters such as floods (uN MILLENNIuM ProjECt 2005). At present, about one third of Dhaka’s population lives in marginal settlements or slums (BurkArt Et AL. 2008).

A further problem is that of environmental pollution as a result of poorly developed infrastructure. Soil, air and water pollution occurs through the burning of wastes such as plastics and through a lack of sanitation. A ru-dimentary suburban traffic system does not offer alternatives and people thus use small motorcy-cles and cars for mobility. The constantly growing traffic that results with its associated emissions adds to the contamination of urban air.

The three large rivers systems, the Gangha, Brahmaputra and Meghna, flood each year, since the artificially installed drainage systems can-not handle the water masses sufficiently. The re-sult is an amplified surface discharge during the monsoon season in particular, which lasts from March until October. The slums, with all their shanties, are thus seasonally threatened by such floods, exacerbating the already precarious situ-ation faced by the inhabitants (CALdwELL 2004; khAN 2007).

In the current investigation on the struc-ture of slum settlements in Dhaka, Bangladesh, the goal is to prepare a vegetation-index (NDVI) based analysis exploiting Quickbird VHR satellite data in an object oriented classification scheme and further GIS analysis to investigate the living conditions and health endangerment for the in-habitants in the slums of Karail and Badda. The informal settlement of Karail has been choosen due to its prominent status as largest marginal quarter in Dhaka. (sEE FIg. 1). The vast majority of Karail was mapped as slum area, and on closer inspection of the original Quickbird data, an ex-tremely high building density was uncovered. The land-use/land-cover classification and the NDVI

mapping shown in Figure 2 highlight the tremendous differ-ences in land-use patterns which can be found in Dhaka on a very large scale, showing an extreme lack of vegetation in poor areas and dispersed green spaces for middle and upper class areas. The slum area of Karail is located in the west of the map shown and identified as the one with the smallest NDVI-values. On the island in between the water bodies, there are upper middle to upper class residential neighbour-hoods, including some residents with diplomatic status. These neighbourhoods show dispersed, multi-storey apart-ment buildings and a high proportion of green and open spaces. Again, this area contrasts with the urban area in the east of this study, where one can find a land-use mosaic of different building densities with a mix of rapidly changing apartment blocks and shanties.

Figure 3: Santiago de Chile, District Lo Barnechea: Social housing building complex. Courtesy of

Juliane Welz, Risk Habitat Megacity, Field of Application “Socio-spatial Differentiation”

Figure 4: Santiago de Chile, District Lo Barnechea: Marginal area at river. Courtesy of Juliane Welz,

Risk Habitat Megacity, Field of Application “Socio-spatial Differentiation”



Santiago de ChileIn the newly industrialising country of Chile, South

America, the highly dynamic capital, Santiago de Chile, with its surrounding region, represents the dominant metropolis. According to the national census, 5,392,804 inhabitants oc-cupied the Santiago urban region (SUR) in 2002, with 35.7 % of all Chilean people living in this metropolitan area, a density of almost 10,000 inhabitants per square kilome-tre, and a regional in-migration of 14.8 % (1992-2002) (INE CENso 2002). As Santiago de Chile is located in the Central Valley between the Andeas and the coastal cordillera, it is simultaneously exposed to several natural hazards such as urban flooding, landslides and earthquakes. Of great impor-tance is the change in the urban pattern, a process which includes suburbanisation processes as well as the urban built structures. Until the beginning of the 1980s, Santiago was characterised by a high level of geographic segregation of social groups. In fact, all high income households were con-centrated in the eastern sector of the city, while a consider-able agglomeration of poor families inhabited the south and west (sABAtINI, 2000). This picture has now become more diverse, influenced by a strong social housing programme.

Currently, social segregation still exists as does a strongly regressive distribution of income, but richer and poorer households live in neighbourhoods close to one another. Both the state and the private sector have strongly influenced the evolution of Santiago’s urban pattern through intensive social housing programmes on the one side and a vigorous private real estate sector on the other.

The present study focuses on some adjacent neighbourhoods in the local district or comuna, Lo Barnechea, which is located in the north-east of SUR towards the Andes, and through which the Mapocho River runs. It is one of the local districts with the larg-est contrasts in social dispersion, ranging from upper class residential areas to social housing (FIg. 3), and is one of the few informal settlements of Santiago (FIg. 4). It is the upper class that covers individual parcels from 500 to 6,000 square metres in area and residential buildings with surfaces covering 117 to 881 square me-tres (gudIño & rEyEs PAECkE 2005, P. 92). In contrast to these building types, the social housing complexes cover a parcel size of approximately 70 to 120 square metres, and are typified by row-to-row houses with four storeys on poorer ground (gudIño & rEyEs PAECkE 2005, P.104). The informal settlement is characterised by shanties with a complete lack of open spaces.

With the remote sensing techniques at hand, it was feasible to analyse this urban structure based on the surface characteristics described, which give an indication of social status. As the urban structure is an important spa-tial indicator for urban quality of life, VHR images from Quickbird were analysed. In a first step, an object-oriented classification approach was taken so as to identify the built and natural environment. The proportion of single features then form a UST for each neighbourhood (sEE FIgurE 5). The study area comprises parts of the Mapocho River with informal settlements next to the floodplain, social housing neighbourhoods at a greater distance from the river bed, and middle class residential areas with surrounding green vegetation and individual swimming pools. As the Mapo-cho River tends toward sudden flooding during the winter season due to the Mediterranean climate in Santiago, the aforementioned marginal area is extremely carries a high level of flooding risk. Rapid and expansive watercourses, in turn, lead to large areas of potential flood risk that occur at sudden events of heavy rainfall (roMEro & ordENEs 2004). The increase of flooding turns into disaster risk with human lives being at stake by the construction of buildings and in-frastructure, because it negatively impacts the urban water

Figure 5: Study area in Lo Barnechea – Santiago de Chile. Own study.



cycle. The ground’s infiltration capacity is greatly reduced with the loss of pervious surfaces, and their value is lowest in such exposed areas. That implies that the probability of be-ing affected by a flood is influenced by the building activities in the catchment, especially those alongside the river bank. Housing on river banks, and, more generally, in areas affect-ed by flooding, magnifies the risk for such inhabitants.

This study was implemented by the Helmholtz-fund-ed project Risk Habitat Megacity (rIsk hABItAt MEgACIty 2009) and part of the Field of Application “Land Use Man-agement”.

Conclusions

Studies concentrating on the challenge of world ur-banisation and its links to global environmental change still claim an unmet need for combined spatial, physical and so-cio-demographic information. Using Geospatial Technology to identify vulnerable groups and their spatial urban envi-ronment could thus enhance the search for equity in mega-cities. This contribution shows potential benefits of bridg-ing the gap between spatial analysis and remote sensing in social science by characterising the deprivation of quality of live for the urban poor, who are strongly influenced by their physical environment.

ACkNowLEdgEMENts:A special thanks to the DHAKA-INNOVATE research network (DFG Pri-ority Programme 1233 Megacities: Informal Dynamics of Global Change, in this case the Berlin-Bielefeld Consortium), which was so kind as to of-fer raster and vector data for further exploitation and which made the case study of Dhaka feasible.

Authors1 University of Leipzig, Institute of Geography, Johannisallee 19a, 04104 Leipzig, Tel. +49-341-90980052 UFZ - Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research, Department of Urban Ecology, Environmental Planning and Transport, Permoserstr. 15, 04318 Leipzig, Tel. +49-341-235-1738

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UN Millenium Project (2005) A home in a city. Task force report on improving the lives of slum dwellers. London: Earthscan.


Environmental Inequality in São Paulo City

Favela in Sao Paulo. Photo by Aaron Michael Brown

Environmental Inequal-ity in São Paulo City: An Analysis of the Differen-tial Exposures of Socio-Demographic Groups to Environmental RiskHumberto Prates da Fonseca Alves

The paper’s objective is to operationalise the concept of environmental inequality, measuring the associa-tion between disadvantaged socioeconomic conditions and greater exposure to environmental risks through the use of geoprocessing methodologies.

Keywords: Environmental Inequality. Environ-mental Risk. Environmental Justice. São Paulo City. Populations at Risk. Geoprocessing Meth-odologies.

Introduction

Environmental inequality can be de-fined as the differential exposure of individuals and social groups to environmental security and risk. This implies that individuals are nei-ther equal from the perspective of the access to environmental security and benefits such as pure air, green areas and clean water, nor re-garding their exposure to environmental risks such as floods, landslides and pollution. In this way, factors such as residence location, dwell-ing quality and transport availability can limit the access to environmental benefits and in-crease exposure to environmental risks (ALVEs, 2007; PAstor Et AL., 2001).

The argument of environmental in-equality emerges from the hypothesis that a number of social groups, including some minorities and low income populations, are more prone to certain types of environmental risks such as floods and landslides. Areas with heightened environmental risk, often close to landfills or subjected to floods and collapses, are often the only places accessible to low in-come populations. These populations, in turn, end up building their dwellings in hazardous conditions while simultaneously tackling other environmental, sanitation and health problems (torrEs, 2000; jACoBI, 1995).



Figure 1: Spatial distribution of the environmental risk areas (near to watercourses and with high slopes) and of the three groups

of regions (poor, middle class and high class) in the city of São Paulo Sources: CEM-Cebrap, environmental risk areas cartogra-

phies; Marques (2005).

equality in order to identify and characterise situations of environmental inequal-ity in the metropolis of São Paulo, Brazil at the present time. To achieve this, social and environmental indica-tors as well as geoprocessing methodologies were utilised to pinpoint and measure the existence of a link between disadvantaged socioeco-nomic conditions and great-er exposure to environmen-tal risk. Further, an attempt was made to verify whether the current trend of environ-mental inequality is increas-ing in São Paulo city.

To accomplish this objective we analysed the exposure level of different social groups to situations of environmental risk in São Paulo city, conducting a comparative study of the de-

mographic and socioeconomic dynamics between the popu-lations living in areas of environmental risk and those living elsewhere. The hypothesis was that environmental risks are unevenly distributed among different social groups.

By gathering the analyses, it was possible to put forth some geoprocessing methodologies to operationalise the concept of environmental inequality. We believe that the de-velopment of empirical analyses, in particular the quantita-tive and spatial ones, is an important part of the endeavour to advance environmental inequality and environmental justice research in the scientific and academic milieu (ALVEs, 2007; ACsELrAd Et AL., 2004).

Environmental inequality in São Paulo city

Initially, the evolution of the population living in ar-eas of environmental risk between 1991 and 2000 was analy-sed to verify whether environmental inequality has been in-creasing in recent times within São Paulo city. For 1991 and 2000, the population living in areas of environmental risk, defined for the purposes of this study as either very close to watercourses (less than 50 meters) and/or on steep slopes

The expressions "environmental inequality" and “en-vironmental (in)justice" are often used interchangeably, a fact that clearly propounds the closeness of these two con-cepts. Environmental injustice can be defined, in a very broad way, as an iniquity that is apparent or a real resultant of the uneven distribution of environmental externalities linked disproportionately to communities of minorities and low income groups. Consequently, environmental justice or environmental equity can be defined as the a reduction of or release from environmental injustices (Most Et AL., 2004; hoLIFIELd, 2001).

The concept of environmental justice emerged at the end of the 1970s in the United States along with the social movements prompted by Blacks, Native Americans, Latinos and low income populations living close to landfills, radio-active dumps and highly polluting industries. In that coun-try, the scope of research concerning environmental justice is very extensive and has shown increasing scrutiny in the past 30 years. This has had the effect of positively influencing current environmental policies in North America (BuLLArd, 1990; CuttEr, 1995).

In view of these elements, the general objective of this article is to operationalise the concept of environmental in-



(more than 30% grade), was assessed using the "overlayer" approach.

The estimates obtained for 1991 reveal a population of 1.6 million living in areas of environmental risk in São Paulo, corresponding to 16.5% of the total 1991 population of the city, which totalled 9.6 million. In 2000, while the population of the city reached 10.4 million, the number of people living in areas of environmental risk rose to almost 2 million, accounting for 19.1% of its inhabitants (tABLE 1).

Therefore, the results reveal that 1 out of 5 inhabit-ants of São Paulo city live in areas of environmental risk, as constituted by localities in close proximity to watercourses that suffer from flood riskand exposure to water bourne dis-ease and/or in localities positioned on steep slopes that carry high mudflow risk.

The increase in the proportion of people in areas at environmental risk within the total population results from the fact that while these risky areas had a population growth rate of 2.5% a year between 1991 and 2000, growth in the remaining areas barely reached 0.5% a year (tABLE 2).

Despite their significance, however, these results are distorted because most of the areas carrying high environ-mental risk are concentrated in the poor and peripheral regions of the city. Therefore, by observing the population growth in the set of at risk areas, it is not possible to discern whether such growth is a direct result of the environmental characteristics of the areas or a result of the fact that this type of area is concentrated in poor and peripheral regions of the city.

Taking this into consideration and in order to prevent the effect of peripheral population growth on population growth data in areas of environmental risk, as aggregated for the city as a whole, comparative analyses between areas of risk and non-risk were performed for each of the three groups of regions: "poor regions", with a predominantly low income population; "middle class regions", with a predomi-nantly middle class population; and "high class regions", with a predominantly high income population (MArquEs, 2005).

For each region, population size estimates within the areas of risk and non-risk in both census dates were assessed. Afterward, the population growth rates for 1991 and 2000 were measured (tABLEs 1 ANd 2). Figure 1 shows the spatial distribution of the environmental risk areas and of the three groups of regions (poor, middle class and high class) for São Paulo city.

In the set of "poor regions" where a low income popu-lation predominates, the proportion of people living in areas of environmental risk reached an impressive 28.3% for 2000, which represents a population contingent of 1.1 million peo-

The methodology is based on the construction

of a Geographical Information System (GIS),

through which the digital cartographies (layers)

of the environmental risk areas (near to wa-

tercourses and with high declivities) are over-

lapped with a digital mesh of the census sectors

of the 1991 and 2000 IBGE (Brazilian Institute

of Statistics and Geography) demographic cen-

suses of São Paulo city. The environmental risk

areas were selected based on their proximity

to watercourses (less than 50 meters) and/or

because they have high slopes (more than 30%)

which predispose them to floods and mudflows.

The population size, the demographic growth

and the socioeconomic characteristics of the

residents inside and outside of the environmen-

tal risk areas were assessed for both census

dates. These estimates were done for the city

as a whole and for each region delimited by the

spatial distribution of the social groups of São

Paulo city (poor, middle class and high class).

To achieve these estimates, a geoprocessing

method known as "overlayer" was used. The

regions corresponding to the three large social

groups in the metropolis of São Paulo were de-

fined by Marques (2005), based on factorial and

cluster multivariate analyses and a broad set

of socioeconomic and demographic variables of

the 2000 demographic census.

The methodology performed in this paper

benefits from a GIS database developed at the

Centre for Metropolitan Studies (CEM-Cebrap).

Articles, research results and socio-demograph-

ic and environmental data for São Paulo Metro-

politan Area can be downloaded at the Centre´s

website. For more information, see http://www.

centrodametropole.org.br

Methodology



ple living in areas with a cumulative overlap of poverty and environmental risk. As for the "middle class regions" and "high class regions", the proportions of the population living in areas of environmental risk were much lower, at 14.8 and 9.9% respectively (tABLE 1).

The results also show that in all the three groups of regions, the population grew more rapidly in the areas of en-vironmental risk between 1991 and 2000. Likewise, in the peripheral and poor regions, the population in areas of risk grew 4.8% a year, while the population outside these areas recorded a much lower growth rate of 3.3% a year. In the middle class regions, the number of residents in areas of en-vironmental risk increased 0.6% a year, while in the non-risk areas, the population decreased 0.4% a year in the period from 1991 to 2000. In the high class regions, the population diminished at rates very similar to those in the areas of risk and non-risk (tABLE 2).

As the high class regions, including areas at risk, had negative population growth and the environmental risk ar-eas in the middle class regions increased nearly 0.6% a year, the largest part of the population rise in the environmental risk areas of São Paulo occurred in peripheral and poor re-gions.

Therefore, while the population of the poor and pe-ripheral regions grew at a moderate to high pace, the popu-lation rose extremely rapidly in the environmental risk ar-eas within these suburbs. Additionally, the environmental risk areas in the suburbs are, in general, less urbanised than the areas of risk located in central and wealthy regions. This means that the peripheral localities close to watercourses and/or with steep slopes are very often situated in less ur-banised areas and are consequently more prone to environ-

mental risks. Such areas presented explosive growth rates in São Paulo city throughout the 1990s.

Discussion of the results and final considerations

The results show that the areas where the population of São Paulo grew significantly between 1991 and 2000 were both areas of environmental risk and peripheral and poor areas. This phenomenon reveals a recent increase in envi-ronmental inequality in the city. There are several decisive factors that could explain the elevated growth rate of the São Paulo population living in areas of environmental risk as defined in this study, and in particular, in peripheral and poor regions.

The first factor that explains the growth of the city and of the metropolitan region of São Paulo continues to be its horizontal expansion and urban sprawl. The suburbs of the city and metropolitan region, especially in south, east and north extremes, encompass a very dense watercourse network due to the topographical and hydrological emplace-ment of the city’s river basins. Furthermore, the peripheral areas also cover mountainous regions such as the Cantar-eira Mountain Range in the north of the city. This basically means that the higher population growth rates in these ar-eas translate into a larger population increase in areas of en-vironmental risk (torrEs Et AL., 2007).

The second aspect has to do with the dynamics of urban land occupation. As the urban mesh of the city, in-cluding the more consolidated peripheral regions, is already occupied to a great extent, it is reasonable to assume that the continuity of the horizontal growth implies the occupation

Areas

1991 2000

Total of the city

Poor re-gions

Middle class regions

High class regions

Total of the city

Poor re-gions

Middle class regions

High class regions

Population

Total 9,644,122 2,799,606 5,198,973 1,644,240 10,434,252 3,873,362 5,074,262 1,486,628

Areas of risk 1,593,591 717,645 712,089 163,855 1,991,716 1,095,621 749,052 147,043

Non-risk areas 8,050,531 2,081,961 4,486,884 1,480,385 8,442,536 2,777,741 4,325,210 1,339,585

Participation (%)

Total 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00

Areas of risk 16.52 25.63 13.70 9.97 19.09 28.29 14.76 9.89

Non-risk areas 83.48 74.37 86.30 90.03 80.91 71.71 85.24 90.11

Table 1: Size and participation of the population, by regions, in relation to areas of environmental risk and non-risk. City of São Paulo – 1991-2000. Source: IBGE. Demographic

censuses of 1991 and 2000; CEM-Cebrap, cartographies of environmental risk areas; Marques (2005).



Areas

Tota

l of

the

city

Po

or r

egio

ns

Mid

dle

cla

ss

reg

ion

s

Hig

h c

lass

re

gio

ns

Areas of envi-ronmental risk

2.51 4.81 0.56 -1.20

Areas of environmental non-risk

0.53 3.26 -0.41 -1.10

Total 0.88 3.67 -0.27 -1.11

Table 2: Geometrical rates of annual population growth, by regions, in

relation to areas of environmental risk and non-risk. City of São Paulo –

1991/2000

Source: IBGE. Demographic censuses of 1991 and 2000; CEM-Cebrap, cartog-

raphies of environmental risk areas; Marques (2005).

of less appropriate areas for human settle-ment, such as the ones near watercourses and those with high declivities. These ar-eas of environmental risk, very frequent-ly, are the only ones accessible to the low income population because they are pub-lic and/or preserved areas (invaded) or because they have been very devaluated in the market due to their risk levels and lack of urban infrastructure (ALVEs, 2006; 2007).

A third factor is related to the sig-nificant growth of the population living in shanty towns. The association between shanty towns and areas of environmental risk, especially those on the edge of wa-tercourses but also those with high de-clivities, is very apparent in the literature concerning the subject (tAsChNEr, 2000) (sEE FIgurE 2).

In a few words, the natural con-ditions of the areas where population growth has occurred, the exhaustion of the available areas for horizontal urban growth and the increase in shanty town populations are some decisive factors that explain the signif-icant population rise in areas of environmental risk, recently seen in the city of São Paulo.

The results also reveal that the population living in environmental risk areas presents socioeconomic condi-tions that leave these groups significantly disadvantaged when compared with populations in non-risk areas. All in-dicators considered point to the existence of disadvantaged socioeconomic conditions in areas of environmental risk.

Figure 2: Shanty towns located on the edge of watercourses: a typical example of environmental risk area in the

city of São Paulo

Copyright: Luciana Travassos, researcher at Laboratório de Urbanismo da Metrópole (LUME-FAU-USP).

Among these indicators, there exists significant differences between risk and non-risk areas in terms of access to public sanitation and the proportion of people inhabiting shanty towns.

The results of the analyses thus confirm the hypoth-esis of a positive correlation between greater exposure to en-vironmental risk and disadvantaged socioeconomic condi-tions. Beyond the validation of this hypothesis, the analysis made here allows us to evaluate the environmental inequality phenomenon in São Paulo in quantitative and spatial terms, identifying the social groups most exposed to environmen-tal risk, their location and the number of people involved.

The identification and the characterisation of some specific patterns of spatial coexistence as well as the over-lap of poverty and environmental risk situations existing in metropolitan areas like the city of São Paulo demand the development of detailed analyses. Those allowed by the geo-graphical information systems, which make use of extremely disaggregated spatial units of analysis such as demographic census sectors, are particularly well suited to this type of study and can yield meaningful results. This work provides insight into situations of environmental inequality in São Paulo city and other metropolitan areas, potentially lending strong support for the planning of social and environmental public policies such as housing and sanitation.


“In 2005, I had a paper accepted for the 6th IHDP Open

Meeting, but was unfortunately not able to attend

because of a lack of funding. This time, since learning

of the 7th Open Meeting through the IHDP website in

January 2008, I have been looking forward to partici-

pating in the meeting. My background is economics,

and I hold a master's degree in Sociology and a Ph.D.

in social sciences, all from the State University of

Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil. From 2004 to 2008, I was

a post-doctoral researcher at the Centre for Metropoli-

tan Studies (CEM-Cebrap) and at the National Institute

for Space Research (INPE) in Brazil. My main research

themes include population and the environment, socio-

environmental vulnerability and inequality in metropol-

itan areas, the socioeconomic and demographic drivers

of deforestation, urban sprawl and peri-urbanisation,

and social and environmental indicators. I am currently

an associate professor at the Federal University of São

Paulo (Unifesp), Brazil. I have been working on issues

regarding the population and its environmental rela-

tionships for quite some time. In my doctoral studies,

I studied the socioeconomic and demographic drivers

of deforestation in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. In my

post-doctorate, I worked with indicators of environmen-

tal inequality and socio-environmental vulnerability

in the São Paulo Metropolitan Area. As one of the four

major social challenges of the IHDP Open Meeting 2009

is How do we deal with demographic challenges?, this

will be an exceptional opportunity to divulge my work.

I am therefore looking forward to taking part in the

IHDP Open Meeting 2009 both to show my work and to

learn more about the work of scientists and researchers

from all over the world in the field of the human dimen-

sions of global environmental change. It will be a unique

chance to meet colleagues and friends and make new

research contacts with scientists from other countries.

In sum, participating in the IHDP Open Meeting 2009

will be an extraordinary occasion, and one that cannot

be missed”.


Author: Humberto Prates da Fonseca Alves, Associate Professor at Fed-eral University of São Paulo (UNIFESP), BrazilHumberto Prates da Fonseca AlvesRua Hermantino Coelho, 841 - Apto B33 – Mansões Sto Antônio13087-500 – Campinas, SP – BrazilTelephone: 5519-32560399Email: [email protected]

rEFErENCEsAcselrad, H., Herculano, S. & Pádua, J. A. eds. (2004)

Justiça ambiental e cidadania. Rio de Janeiro, Ed. Relume-Dumará.

Alves, H. P. F. (2007) Desigualdade ambiental no município de São Paulo: análise da exposição diferenciada de grupos sociais a situações de risco ambiental através do uso de metodologias de geoprocessamento. Revista Brasileira de Estudos de População, 24 (2) jul./dez., pp. 301-316.

Alves, H. P. F. (2006) Vulnerabilidade socioambiental na metrópole paulistana: uma análise sociodemográfica das situações de sobreposição espacial de problemas e riscos sociais e ambientais. Revista Brasileira de Estudos de População, 23 (1) jan./jun., p. 43-59.

Bullard, R. (1990) Dumping in Dixie: race, class, and envi-ronmental quality. San Francisco, Westview Press.

Cutter, S. (1995) Race, class and environmental justice. Progress in Human Geography, No. 19, pp. 107–118.

Holifield, R. (2001) Defining environmental justice and environmental racism. Urban Geography, 22 (1), pp. 78–90.

Jacobi, P. R. (1995) Moradores e meio ambiente na cidade de São Paulo. Cadernos CEDEC, No. 43, pp. 12–40.

Marques, E. (2005) Espaço e grupos sociais na virada do século XXI. In: Marques, E. & Torres, H. eds. São Paulo: segregação, pobreza e desigualdades sociais. São Paulo, Editora Senac, pp. 57-80.

Most, M., Sengupta, R. & Burgener, M. (2004) Spatial scale and population assignment choices in environmental justice analyses. The Professional Geographer, 56 (4), pp. 574–586.

Pastor, M., Sadd, J & Hipp, J. (2001) Which came first? Toxic facilities, minority move-in, and environmental justice. Journal of Urban Affairs, No. 23, pp. 1–21.

Taschner, S. P. (2000) Degradação ambiental em favelas de São Paulo. In: Torres, H. & Costa, H. eds. População e meio ambiente: debates e desafios. São Paulo, Editora Senac, pp. 271-297.

Torres, H. (2000) A demografia do risco ambiental. In: Torres, H. & Costa, H. eds. População e meio ambi-ente: debates e desafios. São Paulo, Editora Senac, pp. 53-73.

Torres, H., Alves, H. P. F. & Oliveira, M. A. (2007) São Paulo peri-urban dynamics: some social causes and environmental consequences. Environment & Urban-ization, 19 (1), April, pp. 207-223.

Humberto Alves on the Open Meeting 2009


Characterising the Mislinkages in the Transition to Sustainability

Characterising the Mis-Linkages in the Transi-tion to Sustainability in Asia*

Xuemei Bai and Anna J. Wieczorek

Introduction

Many countries in Asia have been going through an unprecedented process of economic development, indus-trialisation and urbanisation during the past decades [1, 2]. These processes, multiplied by the speed of change and the size of the populations involved, have resulted in the region playing a pivotal role in global sustainability (Fig.1). In Asia, the importance of sustainable development has been widely recognised, evident in the many national councils for sus-tainable development established and the term’s appearance in high-level governmental documents. Many countries also claim to have policies aimed at achieving sustainable devel-opment [3]. Furthermore, numerous successful local sus-tainability experiments are widely documented [4], which we refer to as planned initiatives to embody a highly-novel socio-technical configuration likely to lead to substantial sustainability gains.

There is little evidence, however, that these national policies and local practices are bringing about a sustainabil-ity transition. Here we define a transition as a radical change towards meeting the needs of a stabilising future world pop-ulation, while reducing hunger and poverty and maintaining the planet’s life support systems [5, 6]. The question would be: why the systems change towards sustainability is not happening? What is preventing government policy from in-fluencing the environmental sustainability of development and what is preventing the good local practices from being upscaled to influence overall trends?

In this article, we examine the sustainability of Asian development pathways by applying the aspects of the multi-level perspective (MLP) on system innovation. Based on em-pirical evidence from the region, we argue that the missing mechanisms providing linkages among various levels in so-cio-technical systems, both in terms of upscaling successful practices and downscaling good policy intentions, are a pri-

*This paper presents some initial results of an ongoing study on Urbanization and Sustainability Transition in Asia, and is based on a recently published paper Bai, X.M., A.J. Wieczorek, S. Kaneko, S. Lisson, A. Contreras: (2009) Enabling Sustainability Transition in Asia: The importance of vertical and hori-zontal linkages. Technological Forecasting and Social Change 76: 255-266.

Traffic Jam in the Ratchaburi Floating Market. Photo: Stuck in Customs



mary factor obstructing the sustainability of economic and political transitions in Asia.

System Innovation Stud-ies

Socio-technical tran-sitions have gained increas-ing attention both in recent research [7-10] and in policy discourses about sustainabil-ity in industrialised countries. While many local and region-al environmental problems have been addressed through regulation and adaptation of existing systems, new envi-ronmental problems, such as climate change, appear to re-quire a radical reorientation of production and consumption systems.

In innovation stud-ies, sustainability transitions have been conceptualised as socio-technical system changes involving major and mutu-ally-reinforcing alterations to the economic, technological, institutional and socio-cultural domains of systems fulfill-ing basic societal functions [10, 11]. System innovations have a number of specific attributes. They are radical, long term [12, 13], multi-actor [14] and multi-level [8, 15]. Given their complexity, system innovations are still not well understood and are difficult to induce. To grasp this complexity and the dynamics of transition processes, a multilevel perspective on system innovations (MLP) has been proposed [16, 17, 8, 15] as a conceptual framework to help understand and analyse the way in which transitions unfold.

In this framework, the meso-level comprises a socio-technical regime, a concept that builds upon that of tech-nological regime [18], but which is significantly widened to include actors, skills, product characteristics, rule sets, etc. [17]. The socio-technical regime, for instance, a regional transportation system, accounts for the stability of the so-cio-technical system through the coordinated and aligned activities of its actors. The regimes are set in a macro-level context called the socio-technical landscape describing broad, slow-changing factors that influence a variety of re-gimes. The landscape includes government and internation-

al policies, institutional frameworks, power relationships between important societal groups, cultural values, and shared understandings about societal problems and visions of the future. Nested within the socio-technical regimes is a micro-level structure of technological niches in which more radical configurations of technology, institutions and behav-iour emerge under conditions of temporary protection from full-scale market selection [16].

The key feature of the MLP is that transitions occur through the interplay between the dynamics at these three levels. The framework is a nested hierarchy [15, 8], which can account for the stability in a regime, as well as for instabili-ties that can eventually lead to the growth of more radical alternative regimes precipitating a transition. Conditions within the incumbent regime1 and disruptive developments at the landscape level create windows of opportunity leading to a search for more radical alternatives and novel solutions to problems [19, 20]. The novelties emerging in technologi-cal niches may, under these conditions, attract support and break through to either re-stabilise or disrupt the incum-bent regime. Over the longer term, the emerging regime may come to complement or substitute the incumbent one [21].

1 When e.g. existing technologies and behaviours are no longer suf-ficient to deal with arising problems.

0

5 0

1 0 0

1 5 0

2 0 0

2 5 0

1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

( 1 9 9 4 = 1 0 0 )

C r u d e S te e l P r o d u c tio n

# o f c a r s in u s e

T o ta l P r im a r y E n e r g y S u p p ly ( m il l io n T O E )

E le c tr ic i ty p r o d u c tio n

C O 2 e m is s io n

A s ia

0

5 0

1 0 0

1 5 0

2 0 0

2 5 0

1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

( 1 9 9 4 = 1 0 0 )

C r u d e S te e l P r o d u c tio n

# o f c a r s in u s e

T o ta l P r im a r y E n e r g y S u p p ly ( m il l io n T O E )

E le c tr ic ity p r o d u c tio n

C O 2 e m is s io n

R O W

Figure 1. A comparison of production, consumption and environmental impact indicators between Asia and the rest of the

world (ROW). (Bai et al, 2009)



Analytical Framework

Analogously to the insights from the system innova-tion literature, we propose a three dimensional framework to examine what specific factors facilitate or obstruct transi-tions to sustainability in Asia. Levels here correspond with the analytical levels of the MLP, in particular, the landscape and regime concepts. The micro level comprises sustainabil-ity experiments (see Fig. 2).

The first dimension emphasises the vertical linkages between various levels, for example, between local level prac-tice (micro) and national level policies (meso), and between national level policies (meso) and international governance regimes (macro). These vertical linkages are well document-ed by existing studies mentioned in previous section.

The second dimension consists of horizontal linkages, for example, linkages between experiments or between re-gimes, in particular different governmental sectors and poli-cies. These horizontal dynamics have not yet received as much attention in the system innovation literature as the first di-mension [22, 23], although we show that they are important.

The third dimension shows how the vertical and hori-zontal linkages change over time, or with economic devel-opment, and how changes in turn affect the transition. The relationships of the vertical and horizontal linkages are not static but subject to change over time.

We argue that these linkages between and within lev-els are critical for substantial change to happen. Lack thereof hampers change despite numerous efforts made at specific levels. Among these dimensions, vertical linkages seem the most important in converting successful experiments into regime changes, or in translating a good policy intention into practical success. However, the horizontal dimension appears equally relevant, as it seems to be responsible for conditions within which ‘a translation’ between experiments and regimes takes place.

Characterising the Vertical Mis-Linkages

In this section we characterise the factors causing vertical mis-linkages. We focus on the dynamics between meso (regimes) and micro (experiments) levels, with par-ticular attention to institutional dimension, which in Asia seems crucial to sustainability transition.

Two groups of factors can be identified: one comprises factors and reasons that obstruct the upscaling of success-ful experiments leading to regime change while the other concerns factors and reasons that obstruct downscaling and

translating good policy intentions into practical successes at the local level.

The factors that obstruct upscaling include externali-ties, failure in governance and the burden of scale.

Externalities:Some success stories at a local level might be achieved

through externalities, a fact that constrains duplication of such successes at larger scales. For example, the environ-mental improvements seen in some Chinese cities have been achieved by relocating polluting industries to other cities or to outer suburbs, which means the improvement entails ex-ternal costs beyond the system boundaries [24]. This type of success is perhaps achievable by a front-runner, but is not replicable in all other locations and especially not achievable on a wider scale due to the externality.

Failure in governance at an upper or lower level: Successful examples are often the result of vision and

knowledge, strong political will, good policy and manage-ment measures, and painstaking efforts at implementation by government agencies. The success example of Rizhao city in promoting solar energy use, described below, illustrates the importance of these factors. Upscaling such successful practices often requires equally effective governance at a higher level. The Bangladesh rural electrification case shows that the lack of such elements at higher-level governance not only hampers the upscaling of locally successful experi-ments, but may even hamper successful practices at the local level. The Bangladesh case is also a good example of a regime not creating windows of opportunity for successful local ex-periments. Despite the fact that the government recognises the problem and is committed to solving it, little coordinat-ed action is taken to facilitate change, partly due to failures in institutional design as well as a lack of capacity.

Burden of scale: Success at a smaller scale requires a smaller scale of

funding availability, human capacity, as well as relatively simple institutional arrangements, which might be relatively easier to obtain. The institutional and political demands necessary to mobilise resources along with the governance capabilities and organisational arrangements to achieve the same success at a higher level are much greater. The Bangla-desh electrification case, presented below, is a good example of this factor.

Factors that contribute to difficulties in down-scaling good policy intention include state simplification



versus local particularity, conflicts of interest and imple-mentation capacity.

State simplification versus local particularity: There is evidence that policy at the national level of-

ten fails to attend to the particular local situation, and that goals and targets set by national governments do not reflect the reality of local situations. For example, one of the major factors that contributed to the failure of Huai River Basin pollution control efforts led by the Chinese government was that the national pollution control policy and target setting did not correspond to the local situation [25]. A good policy needs to be in tune with the local level reality.

Conflict of interest: National policies sometimes are challenged by conflicts

of interest between whole and parts, where whole is national level success outcome and parts can be a particular sector or local entity. Local interests often get in the way of the effec-tive implementation of national policy at the local level, and competing interests or a lack of coordination among different governmental sectors jeopardizes effective implementation [26, 27]. The central government’s lack of control over actions at the local level is regarded as one of the biggest governance problems in Chinese environmental policy. Conflicting inter-ests also can be found between private and public interests

and often lead to the undermining of a public good such as the environment, in favour of private goods, such as income or employment. This often constrains the development of ef-fective sustainability policy experiments.

Implementation capacity: Good policies in Asia are often challenged by the lo-

cal implementation capacity, due partly to the nature of de-centralisation processes in Asian countries, where power is given without accompanying financial capacity. The lack of knowledge and skills can result in the national policy inten-tion being misinterpreted at the local level, which causes the intention to get lost in translation. This suggests that local readiness for a policy is necessary in order for that policy to be successful. The extent to which this readiness is a mat-ter of time remains unclear, but it is a dimension that needs further exploration.

Case Studies From Asia

The aforementioned analytical framework and factors are based on the examination of much empirical evidence, both in terms of cases of success and failure. In this section, we present three case studies, highlighting how different as-pects of the six factors discussed above influence linkages between sustainability experiments and governmental poli-cies in Asia over time. A detailed description of the cases can be found in Bai et al. [28].

Case Study 1: Cattle Production in Eastern Indo-nesia

The demand in Indonesia for both meat and live beef cattle for resettlement areas currently exceeds the local sup-ply capacity, with the deficit largely met by imports from Australia. A new approach was developed and implemented among a small number of farmers to promote a wider adop-tion of livestock improvement technologies. This approach involves introducing new grass and legume forage species and associated optimum management strategies to the local farm-ers. The pilot phase of the approach was proven successful, resulting in increased farm area for forage production as well as improved cattle production or voluntary adoption of the technology 'package' (or its parts) by farmers in the respective and neighbouring villages. Most of the farmers involved in-tend to continue and expand the use of such best practice.

“I have been a member of IHDP community

since 1998, and have participated in many of

its open meetings and various workshops. I

look forward to participating in the IHDP Open

Meetings as they provide an excellent platform

for exchanging ideas, meeting old friends, and

building up new research networks. I will be

presenting two co-authored papers at the 2009

Open Meeting, and as a Science Steering Com-

mittee Member of IHDP Industrial Transforma-

tion Core Project, I am also participating in IT

related forums and meetings”.

Xuemai Bai on the Open Meeting 2009



Despite the apparent success of such a strategy at the village level, there are a number of challenges associated with upscaling to the regional level. Widespread adoption requires a significant operational shift by Indonesian ex-tension agencies and one of the challenges is to convince farmers of the significant benefits of new forage to their livestock enterprises. This emphasis on working with in-dividual farmers is different from the current approach in which ‘proven’ technologies are typically extended to large groups of farmers in a one size fits all, top-down approach. The new approach requires tailor made solutions and a farm specific, farmer driven systems approach as well as a mul-tidisciplinary, skilled team able to cope with the complex, interdependent nature of particular farming systems. The team needs to gain the respect of participating farmers and maintain regular contact with them. Once there is evidence of commitment and upscaleing to neighbouring farms, the extension team may move on. This reliance on farmer-to-farmer technology extension is complex, elevating the risk that broader populations of farmers may find it difficult to effectively adapt the approach to their own situations.

This case study shows various vertical mis-linkage factors associated with the adoption of new livestock and forage technologies in mixed crop/livestock smallholder en-terprises of eastern Indonesia. In particular, it highlights the mis-linkages relating to the burden of scale, state simplifica-tion and implementation capacity.

Case Study 2: Solar Energy Use in Rizhao, China

Rizhao is, by Chinese standards, a relatively small coastal city on the Shandong Peninsula in northern China. Since the early 1990s, the city has achieved widespread suc-cess in adopting renewable energy [29]. About 99% of house-holds in the central districts use solar water heaters, and most traffic signals, streetlights and park lights are powered by photovoltaic solar cells. In the suburbs and villages, many households are generating mash gas from sewage and using an array of solar energy devices such as solar water heat-ers, solar cooking facilities and solar heated greenhouses. It is estimated that the use of clean energy has reduced CO2 emissions by 3,340,000 tons and SO2 by 12,500 tons annu-ally [30]. In 2007, the Transatlantic 21 Association awarded the Rizhao initiative the World Clean Energy Award.

The success of Rizhao demonstrates the importance of positive vertical and horizontal linkages through positive synergies among multiple actors, and illustrates the posi-tive impact of a successful experiment to other regimes. The

Shandong provincial government has provided policy mea-sures to encourage the development and adoption of solar energy use in the form of subsidies to industrial R&D on so-lar energy. The panels were made easy to install and the cost of solar water heaters was brought down to the level of their electric counterparts, creating large financial savings per household (120 USD per year [29, 31]). Under this favourable policy environment at the upper governmental level, Rizhao city government has played a pivotal role in the popularisa-tion of solar water heaters. The city mandates all new build-ings to incorporate solar panels, overseeing the construction process to ensure proper installation. Government buildings and the homes of city leaders were the first to have the pan-els installed. The city also launched a widespread public edu-cation campaign, both advertising on television and holding public seminars.

While contributing significantly to an improved ener-gy profile and reduced peak energy demand, the merit of pop-ularising solar energy has had profound impacts beyond the energy sector. It has reduced coal burning in the city and im-proved air quality, allowing the city to attract increasing levels of foreign investment and tourism, as well as highly educated people, wishing to become the residents of the city [29]

This case is a positive example of how well-function-ing vertical and horizontal linkages can induce a positive sustainability outcome at the city level. With national or city government policies to encourage renewable energy use, ef-fective governance to implement policy, and low cost solar water heaters readily available, upscaling the experiment to city level was successful.

Case Study 3: Rural electrification in Bangladesh

The Rural Electrification Program (REP) in Bangladesh was started in 1978 as an important element of poverty allevi-ation in Bangladesh. Its aim was to expand on-grid electrifica-tion in rural areas through the establishment of community-based cooperatives called Palli Bidyut Samities (PBSs). Under the REP, the number of electrified villages (and the related electricity consumption) has greatly increased in rural Ban-gladesh, as have the agricultural production and employment rates. The programme has been recognised as an example of a best practice in international development assistance and attracted the attention of other developing countries.

The PBS system has worked well and raised rural electrification from near zero in 1978 to over 20% in 2001. With the growing electricity demand, however, the system began to face serious and frequent load shedding and black-



outs due to power supply shortages from the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB), which, until 1978, was the only agency responsible for generation, transmission and distribution of electricity. The problem has escalated during irrigation seasons and has currently reached a serious stage, highlighted by an incident in early 2006 in which 17 farmers were killed amid violence between the police and protesters demanding access to electricity. A state monopoly under the BPDB, power generation in Bangladesh is also exposed to the political interferences. Since 1991, the ruling party has been changed alternately every 5 years, causing political tur-bulence, conflicts and adversely affecting the continuity and implementation of power development projects. This has re-stricted the expansion of electricity generation capacity while the demand for electricity in rural areas has been growing. With the expansion of the REP over the entire country, the REP has attracted more attention from politicians and gov-ernment officers, thereby undergoing the politicisation of its autonomous and democratic decision making powers.

This case highlights vertical linkages and, in particular, how a governance failure can hamper successful local prac-tice and its upscaling. From the vertical linkage perspective, the case illustrates the tension between a top-down approach of power supply and a bottom-up approach of rural electrifi-cation. The case also illustrates the problems related to the burden of scale through the growing bureaucratic nature of the REP, as it was scaled up. It shows how the relationship between the experiment and socio-technical regime changes from favourable to conflict ridden, as experiments accumu-late and attempt to scale up. This highlights the importance of an evolutionary view in analysing such linkages.

Conclusion

The application of a system innovation perspective to the analysis of cases in Asia reveals the existence of conditions favourable for a transition to sustainability and there is a posi-tive momentum both at the national level and in the form of a number of small scale sustainability experiments. The MLP, however, does not pay enough attention to the horizontal link-ages and their dynamics. We developed a three-dimensional analytical framework encompassing vertical and horizontal linkages that changed over time, in order to further identify specific factors obstructing the upscaling of good practices and the downscaling of good policy intentions.

The analysis of cases suggests that disturbances at var-ious levels alone are not sufficient to generate systems chang-es. What is necessary is the existence of a robust mechanism

that captures the positive momentum of the disturbance at a certain level and then reflects and links it to the upper and lower levels of the system so as to create a synergic transfor-mation. The emphasis on linkage might have particular im-portance in the Asian context. Due to the historical context and the telescoped development pattern, the Asian situation is qualitatively different from that experienced by the OECD countries [32], as the regime actors in the Asian context are faced with many problems to solve simultaneously [2, 32-34]. This complexity adds to the difficulty of establishing link-ages between local level initiatives promoting sustainability and national level policies. It might also be that more time is necessary for positive effects to emerge, but we do not have sufficient evidence to draw any strong conclusions as to the effect of temporal factors in terms of the effect of the accu-mulation of successful experiments. How time and economic development influence vertical and horizontal relations is an important analytical dimension that is yet to be explored theoretically and empirically.

The innovation and experimentation does not only seem to be technology related, as the MLP suggests. Espe-cially in Asia, the importance of technology seems to be outweighed by other factors related to social, economic and political context. Most experiments have therefore been conducted in the field of policy modernisation and institu-tional reform.

NotE: This paper presents some initial results of an ongoing study on Urbanisation and Sustainability Transition in Asia, and is based on a recently published paper Bai, X.M., A.J. Wieczorek, S. Kaneko, S. Lisson, A. Contreras: (2009) Enabling Sustainability Transition in Asia: The importance of vertical and horizontal linkages. Technological Forecasting and Social Change 76: 255-266.

AuthorsXuemei Bai is Senior Science Leader at CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, leading research in the fields of urbanisation and environmental change, urban and industrial ecology, urban resource and environmental manage-ment, environmental policy in China and sustainability transitions in Asia and Australia.Anna J. Wieczorek is an executive officer of the Industrial Transformation project of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global En-vironmental Change (IHDP IT) hosted by the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. .

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Men watching television in rural Bangladesh

Photo: Jeevs Sinclair


Human Security in an Era of Global Change – The GECHS Synthesis ProcessLinda Sygna, Kirsten Ulsrud and Karen O’Brien

The Open Meeting - a Platform to present the Synthesis Process of GECHS and IT

The relationship between social processes and grow-ing environmental challenges is at the core of research with-in the Global Environmental Change and Human Security (GECHS) project. GECHS research places environmental changes within larger socioeconomic and political con-texts, and focuses on the way diverse social processes such as globalization, poverty, disease, and conflict, combine with global environmental change to affect human security. GECHS research recognizes the need to move human beings and societies to the center of global environmental change research—an approach that is closely related to the theme of the Open Meeting 2009, “The Social Challenges of Global Change.”

Human security can be interpreted as the freedom to take actions that promote well-being in response to changing environmental conditions. Key themes that have been inves-tigated by GECHS researchers include the effects of global environmental change on water resources; the role of gover-nance; linkages between environmental change and food se-curity; conflict and cooperation in transboundary resource management; linkages between environmental change and population displacement and migration; gender dimensions of environmental change; resource scarcity and conflict; multiple stressors, differential vulnerability and adaptive ca-pacity; the role of culture, values, and worldviews in under-standing and responding to environmental change; climate change and human security implications in cities and coast-al urban areas; linkages between environmental change and poverty; and many other themes. The Open Meeting 2009 will serve as an arena for stocktaking on research related to these themes, and for presenting GECHS perspectives and research on global environmental change and human secu-rity to the wider human dimensions community.

Below, we showcase some of the perspectives and themes that will be presented in 15 GECHS sessions at the Open Meeting, using three broad, interrelated streams of knowledge that have been emerging over the years within GECHS. The GECHS project is currently in a synthesis phase, whereby ten years of research findings are being con-solidated, synthesized and disseminated. Progress has been made in three areas. First, there have been important ad-vances on the conceptualization of human security, particu-larly in terms of framing and understanding the implications of environmental change for individuals and communities. Second, a large body of empirical research has been created on how various aspects of human security are influenced by environmental change, and how multiple processes of change threatens social, human and environmental rights. The third broad stream of research within the GECHS proj-Photo: UN Photo/Logan Abassi



ect is devoted to human capabilities to respond to social and environmental stress, and how to create positive social change and enhance human security in the context of global environmental change. In the sections below, we will go into more detail and give some empirical example to shed light on how human security research can help society frame, re-search and address environmental and social challenges in the coming decade.

The Conceptualization of Human Security

Since the GECHS project was established in 1999, there has been a considerable evolution in the ways that both human security and global environmental change research have been framed and discussed. In terms of human secu-rity, discussions have moved beyond a state-centered focus to include individual and collective security. The emphasis is increasingly on how individuals and communities can re-spond to an assortment of stresses and shocks that threatens their social, environmental and human rights. In emphasiz-ing the human context in which biophysical changes both occur and are created, the focus has been directed towards various dimensions of security, including food security, wa-ter security, livelihood security and environmental security.

In terms of global environmental change, perspec-tives from the social sciences and the humanities are in-creasingly seen as critical to understanding the causes and consequences of biophysical changes. What has emerged from GECHS research is the importance of framing envi-ronmental changes as social and ethical issues, rather than viewing them exclusively as environmental problems. Cul-ture, values, and worldviews are also brought into global en-vironmental change research as dimensions that influence both vulnerability and responses to environmental change. Understanding the human context of environmental change is important in order to ensure development paths that in-crease human security and promote sustainability. Despite growing attention to these diverse aspects in the research on global environmental change, much of this research is still in an early phase, and there are significant potentials for advancing it further. This implies bringing together and integrating new and different perspectives on global envi-ronmental change.

Climate change has been an important research theme within the GECHS network, and much of the research underscores the need to strengthen the social and human dimensions in current debates about climate change. To date, the issue of climate change has been widely discussed

and debated among scientists and policymakers as an envi-ronmental issue, rather than as a human security issue. Cur-rent discourses on climate change draw attention to grow-ing bodies of research on biophysical changes of the earth system, as well as on the economics and politics of climate change management. Although the climate change vulner-ability literature has emphasized differential exposure, sen-sitivities, and adaptive capacities, as well as the concept of social vulnerability, there has been less attention given to the implications of differential outcomes and changing vulner-abilities for human security. Furthermore, the consequences of adaptation and mitigation responses to climate change have not been widely considered. Climate change does not take place in isolation from other ongoing environmental and social changes, and the consequences of climate change are likely to exacerbate some of the already-urgent challeng-es to biodiversity, water management, coastal zone manage-ment, and many other environmental issues. A framework for the investigation of multiple stressors can, for example, shed light on interactions between globalization and global environmental change, including why many regions, sectors, and social groups may be “double exposed” to these global change processes.

Global Environmental Change and Implications for Human Security

Water stress, food insecurity, health insecurity and loss of livelihoods are currently the reality of many people and communities around the world. Interactions between environmental and social processes are likely to have wide-spread human consequences, thus GECHS research em-phasizes humanitarian consequences of environmental change. Research on how individuals and communities are influenced by global environmental change takes local needs and the central problems in people’s lives as starting points. This facilitates a deeper and more nuanced understanding of how people both are affected by and affect environmental changes. Such understandings form a necessary foundation for solutions to human insecurity around the world. Water scarcity, for example, has emerged as a serious issue for so-cial and economic development in many parts of the world. What is evident is that the water crisis does not emerge as a result of diminishing precipitation and limited water avail-ability alone, but it is also often a result of struggle over access to and control of water resources. Instead of view-ing water scarcity as something natural, GECHS research



argues that the scarcity in many cases is caused by socio-political processes.

A human security framing presents an alternative to the traditional analysis of for example the consequences of climate change. Whereas much of the attention, both within research and in policy, is given to the biophysical impacts as-sociated with climate change, less attention is given to the broader social consequences. Focusing on the social context and social vulnerability, may bring us closer to answering some of the following questions: Who are most affected by climate variability and change? And why? Who are the win-ners and losers? What makes some people more vulnerable than others? How does climate change interact with other processes to affect human security? What are the implications for equity and sustainability? How do different beliefs, values and worldviews influence processes, responses and outcomes? Whose values count in responding to climate change?

The Open Meeting serves as a forerunner to

the GECHS Synthesis Conference that will take

place June 22-24 at the University of Oslo in

Norway. The synthesis phase does not only

involve highlighting the achievements of ten

years of research, it also involves elaborating

on the new research questions that are likely to

drive future research on global environmental

change. Mobilization of a new and committed

group of researchers will be a goal of the syn-

thesis process, and the Open Meeting repre-

sents the first step in this direction. A side event

will take place both during the Open Meeting

and at the GECHS Synthesis Conference June

22-24 where a new generation of human secu-

rity researchers will be welcome to bring new

ideas to the table.

Mobilizing a New Genera-tion of Human Security Re-searchers

Increasing Human Security in the Context of Global Environmental Change

How to respond to environmental problems is be-coming an increasingly urgent question around the world, among not only politicians and practitioners, but also among the general public. GECHS research emphasize that the abil-ity to respond both individually and collectively forms the backbone of sustainable strategies to reduce the adverse ef-fects of environmental change. Strengthening the capacity to respond to global environmental change—including hav-ing the options to end, mitigate, or adapt to risks to people’s human, environmental and social rights—is central to re-search within the GECHS network. Having the capacity and freedom to exercise these options, and actively participate in pursuing these options is also fundamental, which raises important questions of voice and power. The human con-text and differential vulnerability serve as starting points for addressing environmental change. Rather than seeking and creating solutions that target environmental stress sepa-rately, GECHS research points towards solutions that seek not only to reduce risk, but also to reduce vulnerability and enhance adaptive capacity.

A human security approach opens up for a more posi-tive and visionary view on the future and what can be ac-complished. Developing human capabilities and promoting social transformations has the potential to enhance human well-being and security under change and uncertainty. This means addressing the social context in which the adverse impacts of environmental change is taking place. Some of the central questions in this field of human security research are: How do individuals, communities and societies adapt to rapid change? What are the limits to and potentials for adaptation? What will be lost? How can positive experiences and useful technologies spread? What are the barriers to social change? What are the opportunities for sustainable responses? How can we create rapid social transformations in a just and equitable manner?

These questions and many others will be addressed in the 15 GECHS sessions at the Open Meeting. Sessions on water security, sustainable adaptation, conflict, limits to ad-aptation, poverty and climate change, double exposure, and vulnerable cities will form an important arena for presenting and discussing how far we have come in understanding the relationship between human security and global environ-mental change.



After 9 years of its operation the Industrial Trans-formation project has entered its synthesis phase. As com-pared to a decade ago the urgency of global environmental change, including climate change, loss of biodiversity, ur-ban tsunami, global population growth, growing resources scarcity, becomes increasingly painful. The changes cause higher level of disruption and growing restlessness of vari-ous social groups, including individuals. The difficulty of the situation may be amplified in the very next years because of the on-going financial crisis and the yet-to-come crisis of the “real” economy. Incentives and capabilities to strong envi-ronmental (and social) actions may apparently weaken. The urgency also reveals a sort of a crisis because of the difficulty of meeting the challenges such as for instance reducing 20-30% till 2020 or 60-80% to 2050 of CO2 emissions in Europe. Furthermore we also face urgency in terms of time – we are in the ‘build up phase’, when action is still possible or, better say, the impact of acting now will be incomparably greater

Moving Societies in a Sustainable Di-rection - The Indus-trial Transformation Synthesis ProcessAnna J. Wieczorek and Frans Berkhout

Production lIne of electronic devices in China. Photo: Gualterio Pulvirenti



than later when e.g. new cities will have already been built. Action now can be seen as a prevention of many undesired lock-in’ and stimulation of alternative pathways instead of pushing the development off its established trajectory. That applies especially to the developing countries. The time span we have for a timely action is 20-30 years from now which is a tight schedule making radical system changes an inevi-table reality.

Within the Industrial Transformation research we have learned that such transformations towards sustainabil-ity are not easy for a number of reasons. Firstly there are many areas of human needs such as nutrition, health, hous-ing, mobility which are often met through complex, global and interlocking systems of provision, while being deeply embedded in the national socio-cultural contexts. Secondly, the spectrum of actors has broadened and numerous new forms of participation make the decision making extremely complex. The unstructured characters of the problems to solve, insufficiency of policy strategies and instruments fur-ther add to this complexity.

On the other hand we have already learned a great deal about the way in which such radical changes possibly take place and how to utilise this knowledge in policy mak-ing and governance of change (see: Berkhout, IHDP Update 09). Now is the time for deploying of what we know about sustainability transitions for the purpose of moving societ-ies in that direction.

The IT project of IHDP has, since its inception, al-ways been very much action oriented. Now, in the synthesis phase, we would like to keep this spirit. We take stock of the available knowledge about patterns in and governability of radical change and given the challenges - we consider the current position of societies with regards to sustainability transition (s). We observe that while there are hopeful signs, we are still far from being on the path that would lead us to what could be called a sustainable world. We therefore con-template what possible actions are yet necessary in order to move societies in a sustainable direction.

In doing so we reflect on the existence and the impact of the so-called sustainability experiments, which are grow-ing in number in various parts of the world. Sustainability experiments are planned initiatives to embody a highly nov-el socio-technical configuration likely to lead to substantial (environmental) sustainability gains. They are often local initiatives which presence makes it increasingly possible to envisage the emergence of new, more resource-efficient socio-technical systems as the basis of more sustainable de-velopment pathways (Berkhout et al., 2009). To better un-derstand the circumstances in which the experiments have

the power to transform exiting unsustainable incumbent systems of provision, we apply insights from the growing body of system innovation literature.

Single experiments however are not a sufficient pre-condition for a change to take place (Geels and Schot, 2007). They need to link up and reinforce each other and they need favourable conditions to up-scale and transform the incum-bent systems. And we all know that the current systems of provision (such as mobility or energy) are highly path depen-dent and deeply locked-in and for that matter extremely dif-ficult to change. What we do see however is that the growing urgency of global environmental change is putting signifi-cant pressure on these systems, opening up yet few ‘windows of opportunities’. Will societies recognise and utilise them? Under what conditions and in what circumstances?

We hope to discuss these very complex questions with the Global Environmental Change community during a plenary round table on Tuesday morning at the upcoming Open Meeting, which will take place in Bonn in April.

We also hope to be able to organise an IT side event. During this meeting we will open up the floor for all ideas that emerge from the current transition studies, which are important to study further and in which there is interest among the global change community. We particularly hope to see there people who have been with IT for the past years and who in various capacities contributed to the IT agenda. We look forward to seeing again participants of our recent very successful 2008 IHDP training on transitions that took place in October 2008 in Delhi during the International Hu-man Dimension Workshop - IHDW.

"Zero Energy Home" in Bainbridge Island, Washington. Photo lifebegreen



Looking toward the Future - The Earth System Governance ProjectRuben Zondervan, Executive Officer, Earth System Governance Project

The 7th Open Meeting of the International Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change, “The Social Challenges of Global Change” also known as the IHDP Open Meeting 2009, is the first large-scale meeting of the global scientific community for the Earth System Governance Proj-ect since its start as new, long-term research project. As the newest project in IHDP’s portfolio of cutting-edge research projects on the human dimensions of global environmen-tal change, the Earth System Governance Project (ESG) will be strongly represented at, and actively involved in the IHDP Open Meeting 2009. It will represented with its own research, in joint activities with the other IHDP core proj-ects and the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP) joint projects, and last but not least, with the new IHDP scientific initiatives that are currently in an advanced planning phase: Knowledge and Learning for Societal Change (KLSC), and Integrated Risk Governance (IRG).

A new IHDP Core Project

In October 2008, the IHDP Scientific Committee approved the Earth System Governance Science and Imple-mentation Plan and appointed the ESG Scientific Steering Committee, decisions marking the project’s formal start. The idea for a research project on earth system governance, though, is older and was given a strong impetus by the 2001 Amsterdam Declaration on Global Change1 in which the ESSP declared an ‘urgent need’ to develop ‘strategies for earth system management’.

The idea developed first into a concrete initiative and finally in a new project in a consultative process that started in 2004, when the IHDP Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change Project (IDGEC) entered its synthesis phase and mandated a New Directions initiative to develop proposals for a new research activity. A March 2007 report from the New Directions initiative resulted in the mandate from the IHDP Scientific Committee to draft a science plan and develop ESG which builds upon and further develops the legacy of the successful predecessor, the IDGEC project (for more details see Young 2008, Biermann 2008).

Setting a Research Agenda

The IHDP Open Meeting 2009 is the world’s largest international science conference dealing with social aspects

1 See http://www.sciconf.igbp.kva.se/fr.html

Peruvian men meet to discuss water issues and regulation. Photo Daniel Bachhuber



of global environmental change and as such, will determine the state-of-the-art of human dimensions research. In addi-tion, the theme of the 7th Open Meeting of the International Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change, “The Social Challenges of Global Change,” responds to important changes in the perspective of the scientific community on the current challenges that we are currently facing and out-lines the new research agenda for the next decade in terms of theoretical frameworks and methodologies as well as the science-practice nexus and the policy relevance of social science on global environmental change in general. IHDP scientific projects are at the forefront of human dimensions research and the new IHDP projects are also expected to set both long-term research agendas as well provide overarch-ing guidance in their respective research areas.

The Earth System Governance Project provides just such overarching guidance, as a common set of questions for the study of earth system governance in Earth System Governance: People, Places and the Planet. Science and Im-plementation Plan of the Earth System Governance Project (Biermann et al., forthcoming). This Science Plan was writ-ten over the course of a year by an international commit-tee of scientists with interest and experience in the field of governance. This scientific planning committee integrated a variety of disciplines in the social sciences, including po-litical science, sociology, policy studies, geography, law and economics, as well as expertise on all levels of governance, from local governance to global agreements.

The scientific planning committee had three intense drafting meetings and organised a variety of roundtables and conference side-events so as to solicit the views from the research community and from practitioners. Among other things, the 2007 Amsterdam Conference on the Human Di-mensions of Global Environmental Change was held under the theme of ‘Earth System Governance: Theories and Strate-gies for Sustainability’ and served as the launch of ESG’s plan-ning process.1 Draft versions of the Science Plan have been reviewed, in parts or in whole, by a large number of experts, from both academia and political practice. Since early Janu-ary 2009, an advance unedited version of the science plan has been online, available to the entire scientific community.2

Crosscutting the Community

Governance was a crosscutting theme in IHDP’s scientific portfolio long before this theme evolved and co-1 See http://www.2007amsterdamconference.org2 For more information and download: http://www.earthsystemgov-ernance.org

alesced with the idea of earth system governance to become an IHDP core project. As a project, governance will be main-tained and strengthened in its crosscutting character. The Earth System Governance Project explicitly attempts in its research activities to cut across the entire Earth System Sci-ence Partnership community. Most IHDP projects, as well as the ESSP joint projects, address questions of governance and institutions. ESG itself seeks to strengthen the knowledge base on governance issues in the other global change research programmes. Illustrative of this is an ESG presentation at the IHDP Open Meeting 2009, which will highlight how the ana-lytical problems examined by ESG could be relevant for gov-ernance in the coastal zone at a panel convened by the Land-Ocean Interaction in the Coastal Zones Project (LOICZ).

Practically, ESG has addressed the need to collabo-rate with and to cut across other global change programmes through extensive consultations with these projects during the drafting of its science plan. For example, the flagship ac-tivities outlined in the science plan have been developed and will be implemented in close consultation and collaboration with the ESSP joint projects, the Global Water System Proj-ect (GWSP), the Global Environmental Change and Food Systems Project (GECAFS) and the Global Carbon Project (GCP). The flagship activities illustrate the existing coop-

The Earth System Governance Project under-

stands the concept of earth system governance

as “the interrelated and increasingly integrated

system of formal and informal rules, rule-mak-

ing systems, and actor-networks at all levels of

human society (from local to global) that are

set up to steer societies towards preventing,

mitigating, and adapting to global and lo-cal

environmental change and, in particular, earth

system transformation, within the normative

context of sustainable development.” The notion

of governance refers here to forms of steer-

ing that are less hierarchical than traditional

governmental policy-making (even though

most modern governance arrangements will

also in-clude some degree of hierarchy), rather

decentralized, open to self-organization, and

inclusive of non-state actors that range from

industry and non-governmental organizations

to scientists, indigenous communities, city

governments and interna-tional organizations.

(cntd on next page)



eration and, at the same time, signal to all other projects a continuing commitment to maintain the crosscutting role of governance. Consultations have and will continue to take place with the initiative on Knowledge and Learning for So-cietal Change, which has a strong crosscutting character as well.

The IHDP Open Meeting 2009 will be attended by about 1,000 international scientists, journalists and repre-sentatives from the private sector, institutes, international organisations and NGOs, as well as by government officials and decision-makers from various fields. Among them will be many of those involved in the IHDP core projects and ESSP joint projects. The conference will therefore be an ex-cellent platform for interaction between the projects them-selves and between the projects and the global community of global environmental change and sustainable develop-ment researchers and practitioners. For the new projects, the IHDP Open Meeting 2009 will also provide numerous opportunities to explore long-term collaboration and activi-ties beyond the conference.

Towards a Global Community

The IHDP Open Meeting 2009 is a welcome oppor-tunity to further develop and extend existing networks as well as to create new ones. In particular, the new projects, addressing social challenges of global environmental change that are of relevance to many other researchers worldwide, will benefit from the presence of scientists who come from various disciplines and research institutions all over the world. Although the Earth System Governance Project, for example, is social science oriented, its themes are also relevant for natural scientists and the entire global change research community. Research on earth system governance will need to be an interdisciplinary effort that links all rel-evant social sciences, but that draws on findings from natu-ral science as well. Diversity within the research community together with strong networking is a prerequisite not only for studying earth system governance but for all global envi-ronmental change research.

For all its activities, the Earth System Governance Project will thus need to rely on a large and dynamic net-work that reflects the interdisciplinary, international, and multi-scalar challenge of developing integrated systems of governance to ensure the sustainable development of the coupled socio-ecological system that the Earth has become. To the end, it will spend substantial resources on building a network that is designed to be as open as possible and that

(cntd from last page) Based on this general

notion the Earth System Governance Science

Plan outlines a research programme orga-

nized around five analytical problems with four

crosscutting research themes and four flagship

activities.

1. Analytical Problems. The five analytical

problems are the problem of the overall archi-

tecture of earth system governance, of agency

beyond the state and of the state, of the adap-

tiveness of governance mechanisms and pro-

cesses and of their accountability and legiti-

macy, and of modes of allocation and access in

earth system governance—in short, the five A’s.

2. Crosscutting Themes. The Earth System

Governance Project will focus, in studying the

analytical problems of architecture, agency,

adaptiveness, accountability and legitimacy,

and allocation and access, on four crosscutting

research themes that are of crucial relevance

for the study of each analytical problem but

also for the integrated understanding of earth

system governance. These four crosscutting

research themes are the role of power; the role

of knowledge; the role of norms; and the role of

scale.

3. ‘Flagship Activities’ as Case Studies. The

Earth System Governance Project will advance

the integrated, focused analysis of case study

domains in which researchers combine research

on the analytical problems. At the same time,

integration of the findings from different issue

areas on each of the five analytical problems

will increase theoretical knowledge on the core

elements of earth system governance. Four

flagship activities of the Earth System Gover-

nance Project have been identified: research on

the global water system, on food systems, on

the global climate system, and on the global

economic system.



follows the motto “People, Places, and the Planet”. The Earth System Governance Network contains different categories of affiliation:

First of all, there is the Earth System Governance As-sociate Faculty. The Associate Faculty is a group of not more than 100 individual scientists of high international reputa-tion who will take responsibility for the development of re-search on particular elements of the Earth System Gover-nance Science and Implementation Plan. Although quality and reputation are priorities surpassing any considerations of quantity in terms of the Associate Faculty group, which is, in any case, limited to 100 individuals, ESG is proud that nearly 20 outstanding researchers from five continents have already accepted the invitation to become Associate Faculty members since the start of the project.

Secondly, the project recently launched the Earth Sys-tem Governance Research Fellows Network. Earth System Governance Fellows are early to mid-level in their careers and seek to link their own research projects with the broader themes and questions advanced by the Earth System Gover-nance Science and Implementation Plan. Through a bottom-up, dynamic and active network, Earth System Governance Fellows collaborate on research projects, debate ideas and disseminate information on relevant events and opportuni-ties in the field.

While the above affiliations constitute networks of people, the Earth System Governance Research Centres are a global alliance linking these and other people to places. The research centres support the implementation of specif-ic parts of the Earth System Governance Science Plan, for example, by sharing responsibility for the analysis of one particular analytical problem or one particular flagship ac-tivity. Currently, there is a research centre in Amsterdam, The Netherlands; in Chiang Mai, Thailand; in Colorado, the United States; and in Stockholm, Sweden. Two more re-search centres are in a planning phase.

In addition to the more formal affiliations to the Earth System Governance Project outlined above, many research-ers all around the planet have set sail under the banner of the relatively new concept of earth system governance. The fact that a number of researchers not (yet) involved in the proj-ect have submitted abstracts for the IHDP Open Meeting 2009 in which they already explicitly use the notion of earth system governance and the concept of the 5 A’s (analytical themes) is a joyous illustration hereof.

Activities at the IHDP Open Meeting 2009

The active involvement and strong representation of the new projects is encouraged and generously supported by the International Scientific Planning Committee of the IHDP Open Meeting 2009 and by the IHDP Scientific Committee. The new projects will have their own sessions in which they will present their research agenda and research findings. They will also hold both special events and meetings of their Scientific Steering Committees or Planning Committees back to back with the IHDP Open Meeting 2009.

To increase the visibility of the new projects and the level of awareness, a joint session of the three new projects is also planned. In this joint semi-plenary session, the ESG and the KCSL and IRG initiatives will present an overview of their projects including the respective scientific concepts, the rationale for starting such a project, their planning pro-cesses, and, in the case of the ESG, also a review of the first months of implementation. The presentations will alternate with short illustrative examples of how the overarching sci-entific concepts and broad fundamental research questions of the projects affect and guide individual researchers in their research efforts.

With its decision to approve the Earth System Gover-nance Project, and the initiatives on Knowledge and Learn-ing for Societal Change, and Integrated Risk Governance, the IHDP Scientific Committee has set the cardinal points for IHDP’s scientific agenda. Now it is up to the new proj-ects to chart their courses to navigate the anthropocene. The Earth System Governance Project science plan will serve as the project’s compass and the IHDP Open Meeting 2009 as the first beacon buoy on its scientific voyage of the coming 10 years.

rEFErENCEsBiermann, F. 2008. Earth system governance. A research agenda. In

Institutions and Environ-mental Change: Principal Findings, Ap-plications, and Research Frontiers, edited by O. R. Young, L. A. King and H. Schroeder, 277-302. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Biermann, Frank, Michele M. Betsill, Joyeeta Gupta, Norichika Kanie, Louis Lebel, Diana Liverman, Heike Schroeder, and Bernd Sieben-hüner, with contributions from Ken Conca, Leila da Costa Fer-reira, Bharat Desai, Simon Tay, and Ruben Zondervan. Forthcom-ing 2009. Earth System Governance: People, Places and the Planet. Science and Implementation Plan of the Earth System Governance Project. [online available at www.earthsystemgovernance.org]

Young, O. R. 2008. Institutions and environmental research. The scientific legacy of a decade of IDGEC research. In Institutions and Environmental Change: Principal Findings, Applications, and Research Frontiers, edited by O. R. Young, L. A. King and H.

Schroeder, 3-46. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.


7th International Science Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

26-30 April 2009World Conference Center BonnUN CampusBonn, Germany

Challengesof Global Change

IHDPOpen

Meeting2009

www.openmeeting2009.org


Contact AddressesIHDP SecretariatHermann-Ehlers-Str. 10, 53113 Bonn, Germanyph. +49 (0)228 815 0600fax +49 (0)228 815 [email protected]

IHDP Core Projects

ESG

Earth System Governancec/o Ruben Zondervan, Executive OfficerEarth System Governance Interna-tional Project Office (ESG IPO), Bonn, Germany.ipo@earthsystemgovernance.orgwww.earthsystemgovernance.org

GECHS

Global Environmental Change and Human Securityc/o Linda Sygna, Executive OfficerGECHS IPO, Oslo, [email protected]

GLP

Global Land Projectc/o Tobias Langanke, Executive OfficerGLP IPO, Copenhagen, [email protected]

IT

Industrial Transformationc/o Anna J. Wieczorek, Executive OfficerIT IPO, Amsterdam, [email protected]

LOICZ

Land-Ocean Interactions in Coastal Zonesc/o Hartwig Kremer, Executive OfficerLOICZ IPO, Geesthacht, [email protected]

UGEC

Urbanization and Global Envi-ronmental Changec/o Michail Fragkias, Executive OfficerUGEC IPO, Tempe, [email protected] http://www.ugec.org

Roberto GuimarãesSchool of Public Administration, Getulio Vargas [email protected]

Hebe VessuriDepartment of Science Studies, Instituto Venezolano de Investiaciones [email protected]

IHDP- SC Appointed Members

Katrina BrownUniversity of East Anglia, [email protected]

Ilan ChabayUniversity of Gothenburg, [email protected]

Patricia Kameri-MboteInternational Environmental Law Re-search Centre, [email protected]

Gernot KlepperKiel Institute of World Economics, [email protected]

Liu YanhuaChina's Vice-Minister for [email protected]

Elena NikitinaRussian Academy of Sciences, [email protected]

Balgis Osman-ElashaHigher Council for Environment and Natural Resources, Khartoum, [email protected]

Germán PalacioAmazon branch of the National Univer-sity of [email protected]

Henry ShueUniversity of Oxford, [email protected]

Leena SrivastavaThe Energy and Resources [email protected]

Ernst Ulrich von WeizsäckerUniversity of California, Santa Barbara, [email protected]

IHDP-SC Ex-Officio Members

ICSUThomas Rosswall, International Council for Science, Paris, [email protected]

ISSCHeide Hackmann, International Social Science Council, Paris, [email protected]

Joint ESSP Projects

GECAFS

Global Environmental Change and Food SystemsJohn Ingram, Executive OfficerGECAFS IPO, Oxford, [email protected]

GCP

Global Carbon ProjectJosep Canadell, Executive DirectorGCP IPO, Canberra, Australiapep.canadell@csiro.auwww.globalcarbonproject.orgShobhakar Dhakal, Executive DirectorGCP IPO, Tsukuba, [email protected]

GWSP

Global Water Systems ProjectLydia Dumenil Gates, Executive OfficerGWSP IPO, Bonn, [email protected]

GECHH

Global Environmental Change and Human HealthMark W. Rosenberg, Kingston, [email protected]

MAIRS

Monsoon Asia Integrated Re-gional StudyFrits Penning de Vries, Executive DirectorMAIRS-IPO, Beijing, PR [email protected]

IHDP Scientific Committee

Chair

Oran R. YoungUniversity of California, Santa Barbara, [email protected]

Treasurer

Sander van der LeeuwArizona State University, [email protected]

Vice Chairs

Geoffrey Dabelko Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, [email protected]

UNUKonrad Osterwalder, Rector, United Na-tions [email protected]

ESGFrank Biermann, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, [email protected]

GECHSKaren O'Brien, University of Oslo, [email protected]

GLPAnnette Reenberg, University of Copen-hagen, [email protected]

IHDPAndreas Rechkemmer, IHDP, Bonn, [email protected]

ITFrans Berkhout, Vrije Universiteit Am-stedam, [email protected]

LOICZJozef Pacyna, Norwegian Institute for Air Research, Kjeller, [email protected]

UGECRoberto Sanchez-Rodriguez, University of California, Riverside, [email protected]

DIVERSITASMichel Loreau, McGill University, Mon-treal, [email protected]

IGBPCarlos Nobre, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, Sao Paulo, [email protected]

IGBPJoao M.F. de Morais, International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, Stockholm, [email protected]

WCRPJohn Church, Antartic CRC and CSIRO Marine Research, Canberra, [email protected]

STARTRoland Fuchs, International Start Secre-tariat, Washington D.C., [email protected]

Documents

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