Chapter Two

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Goal

The overall goal of the Integrated Study is to describe, understand, integrate and predict environmental changes, the natural and socio-economic factors that drive them, and their consequences for the sustainable development and management of the humid tropical marine, coastal and terrestrial ecosystems of Southeast Asia, with the primary focus on the coastal zones and continental shelf seas. This goal encompasses the full range of processes which impact on the coastal zone, including those which occur in terrestrial ecosystems higher up the catchments. The Integrated Study is also aimed at contributing to an understanding of the role of Southeast Asia in the Earth system.

Specific Questions

To achieve this overall goal, there are a number of more specific, key questions which must be addressed, with respect to the drivers of regional change, the biophysical and human implications of environmental change, and the consequences for sustainable regional development and the Earth system:

1) What are the major demographic, socio-economic and institutional driving forces for environmental change in the region and how do they interact?  For example,

· What is the role of industrialisation and urbanisation in concentrating and amplifying the human driving forces of environmental change?
· What is the relationship between changing consumption patterns, for example in diets and energy use, and environmental change?
· What effect do institutions concerned with trade, investment and property rights have on the protection and management of marine and terrestrial ecosystems and their resources?

2) How might regional climate variability change?

· To what extent does the lack of predictability of natural climatic variability impact on the capacity to manage environmental change?
· How will natural climate variability be impacted by global warming in terms of key features of the climate system such as tropical cyclones, ENSO, and Asian monsoon precipitation?

4) What are the implications of these environmental changes for biophysical processes on land, atmosphere and the coastal zone, and how do they interact?

· What are the consequences of land-use and -cover changes along the catchment cascade1  to the long-term productivity of coastal zones and continental shelf seas?
· What are the consequences of changes in land use and cover coupled with potential changes in the variability of the Asian monsoon to agricultural productivity and regional food security?
· What are the impacts of biomass burning and industrial emissions on regional atmospheric chemistry and air quality?

5) What are the consequences of these environmental changes and biophysical responses for human welfare and sustainable regional development?

· What are the implications of various development strategies for the future behaviour of human driving forces and further environmental change?
· Are current strategies moving nations and the region towards sustainable development trajectories?

6) What are the consequences of regional environmental change in Southeast Asia to the Earth system?

· What are the effects of land clearing and subsequent land use and transformation including industrialization and urbanization on quantities, pathways and processes of carbon and nutrient loss (or gain)?
· What relative roles do the physical characteristics of the Southeast Asian region, i.e., external climate forcing (monsoon, ENSO phenomenon), its maritime nature but with high topographic relief, high precipitation, and dense population, play in determining the effects of changes in land use and land cover?

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Innovative Features

In developing a research framework to achieve this goal, two innovative features have been adopted:

1. Human Dimensions and Biophysical Research. The Integrated Study represents one of the first attempts in global change research to fully integrate the human dimensions, both drivers and responses, and the biophysical components in a single effort.  A strong focus of the Integrated Study is an effort to understand the major human drivers of change, especially industrialisation and urbanisation.  These are then linked closely to the biophysical consequences, with emphases on coastal zones and rural hinterland, and on the linkages between the two via horizontal transport of mass and energy.  A third major component, focussed on the human dimensions, takes the improved understanding of the biophysical responses to change and translates them into policy options for managing the region’s development in a more sustainable way. The policy options also have implications for feedbacks from the region to global change (e.g., greenhouse gas emissions, land cover change, biodiversity loss, etc.).

As shown in the conceptual framework of the study introduced in the first chapter (Figure 1.1), these three components - human drivers of change, biophysical consequences, and policy responses - are a cyclic system rather than a linear sequence.  By addressing all three of these components and the linkages between them, this Integrated Study aims to ‘close the loop’ and build a capability to simulate the effects of various management options as they propagate around the cycle.

2. Sustainable Development and Global Change. The second innovative feature of the Integrated Study is that it addresses sustainable development and global change issues simultaneously and in a coordinated, resource-effective way. Development issues are given high priority because of the significant impact they have on environmental realities. For instance, the factors considered in the management of ecosystems in an ecologically sustainable (and profitable) way - maintenance of high primary production levels, stabilisation of nutrient stocks and fluxes, conservation of biodiversity - are often non-complementary. The most appropriate way to handle this challenge is by tackling the underlying socio-economic forces and natural processes together, and then with a thorough understanding of the relationships, make recommendations to the resource management and policy sectors.

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Core Theme Framework

It is essential that there is a clear and rational overall framework in place for the Integrated Study so that the large number of individual contributing studies can be designed and implemented in a coordinated way to provide a coherent regional understanding.  The study design should, in addition, facilitate the integration across scales, disciplines,  projects and sites.
The Integrated Study has been designed with a modular structure to facilitate contributions from focussed, disciplinary based component studies and to help match research with particular funding agency interests.  There are nine modules, or Core Themes, each based on a major thematic area.  As shown in Table 2.1, each Core Theme is comprised of two or more specific Activities, around which the contributing research projects can be organised.

Table 2.1:

Core Theme Structure of the Integrated Study. The titles of Activities under each Core Theme are listed.

Figure 2.1
Relationship between the Core Themes of the Integrated Study illustrating the links between human and resource systems and environmental conditions.

The relationship of the nine Core Themes is summarised in Figure 2.1. The outer circle represents the  “human driving forces” or processes of change and the inner circle changes in environmental conditions and resources. Thus, Core Themes 1, 2 and 3 deal with three key processes of change dominated by human activities. Core Theme 4 deals with changes in the climate system as both a driver of chance and as a physical response to other land-surface changes.  Core Themes 5, 6, and 7 deal with biophysical system responses to these drivers, which involves interactions between the land surface, water and the atmosphere.  The processes in the outer ring both drive and respond to environmental changes in the inner circle.  Core Themes 8 and 9 synthesize and integrate the overall effort and translate it into policy options for sustainable development. The latter two Core Themes are essential for the success of the Integrated Study; they are in essence the ‘pay-off’ for the work. For a quick overview of the individual Core Themes please refer to the Executive Summary (page v).

Although the modular approach clarifies the organisation of the Study and facilitates the contributions of individual projects, it is important to recognise that there are many interactions among Core Themes and their Activities. For example, there is necessary overlap and interaction between Core Themes 1 and 2, reflecting the complexity of human driving forces. The processes of urbanisation and land-use and -cover change in the hinterlands are closely linked by competing factors, whereas land degradation in upland areas has direct implications for pollution of regional seas. In terms of biophysical consequences, the intensive, site-specific process studies of Core Theme 5 must be fully integrated with the extensive observations of Core Theme 6.

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Geographical boundaries

The geographic boundaries of the Integrated Study will be determined by its scientific requirements, and not by either political boundaries or by regional START network groupings.  However, it is recognised that the bulk of the Integrated Study will be carried out within the Southeast Asian region so it is appropriate for SARCS to take the lead in co-ordinating the Integrated Study, and collaborate with other START regions as appropriate.  Very roughly, the geographic boundaries of the Integrated Study should be insular New Guinea in the east, northern Australia in the south, Thailand in the west, and Taiwan and southern China in the north (see Figure 1.2).  The ASEAN countries (Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) plus Cambodia, and Myanmar, form the core geographical area. Australia and Taiwan/southern China are included because, biogeographically, they form the southern and northern boundaries, respectively, of the Asian monsoon region.  Southern China is also important because the headwaters of the Mekong River begin there, and Chinese activities in the upland catchments could have significant effects on resource management in countries downstream.

Co-location and nesting to facilitate integration

Nested spatial hierarchy
Sustainability issues are inherently scale dependent. The analyses carried out in the Integrated Study will have to be conducted at a wide range of spatial and temporal scales.  To cope investigators will often have to employ a nested spatial hierarchy in their analyses.

For analyses of horizontal fluxes these might range, from small catchment, through to major river basins, bioregions up to the whole Southeast Asian region.  For exploring the implications of property rights or regulatory systems on land-use, these might range from the production unit, the community through to the agricultural region and nation.  The most appropriate of levels in the hierarchy will depend on the analysis.

In either case, co-locating investigations by research teams working on different aspects of the human - physical environment system will be strongly encouraged as a key tool for facilitating integration.

Catchment Cascades
A powerful conceptual tool for organising research on horizontal fluxes is the ‘catchment cascade’ (see Figure 3.8.1, page 92). The use of the catchment approach places a strong emphasis on the role of horizontal transport processes in understanding the consequences of land-use and -cover changes.

This approach provides an excellent way to link the effects of changes in upland catchments through lower lying plains and coastal zones and eventually out to the continental shelf seas. Mass and energy cascade through this chain, with the output from one serving as the input for another. It is possible to organise a variety of observations for analysis by relating estimates of fluxes and storage to explicitly defined subsystems in the catchment. Observations and models of both vertical and horizontal fluxes can then be related to driving forces in such a conceptual framework.

Thus, establishing a regional network of catchment-based case studies will be one of the key strategies, especially for the biophysical components of the Integrated Study.

Site selection
The site sampling strategy for the biophysical studies should be based on recognition of the land-use types, size and nature of the catchment and continental shelf. Unlike the Amazon Basin, the Southeast Asian region has multiple river catchments and is, in parts, made up of many small islands (see Figure 1.2). Apart from biophysical considerations, selection of sites and scales of analyses should also consider the feasibility of obtaining quantitative and qualitative data on the human driving forces of change and the scales of operation of relevant institutions. Thus, a diversity of characteristics should be considered in determining a sampling strategy to ensure a rational structure for the overall project and facilitate the scaling up of smaller scale studies to give a regional perspective.

The Integrated Study will therefore focus on one large river system, and a number of small catchments and islands chosen to reflect the variety of socio-economic and biophysical conditions throughout the region. The Mekong River basin is favoured for the large river.  There are already a large number of relevant studies underway in several smaller catchments; these will be noted at appropriate points in the descriptions of the Core Themes themselves.

Thematic Research Networks
The formation of research networks working in a particular catchments or islands will be an important foundation for synthesis and integration activities.  In addition, the Integrated Study should promote the formation of thematic research networks that link subject matter experts across individual case studies. The Core Theme Framework in this Science Plan provides a logical structure for the creation or expansion of such networks.

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Output: Strategies for Living with Global Change

The purpose of the Integrated Study is to assist the governments and regional organisations of Southeast Asia to make informed choices concerning Sustainable Development.
Achieving sustainable development under rapid global environmental change - ‘living with global change’ - requires a fundamental understanding of the interaction between terrestrial, coastal and marine ecosystems (from pristine to intensively managed) and the forces of change.  For the developing countries of the Southeast Asian region, which are being asked by the international community to modify their development strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, mitigate land degradation, and conserve their biodiversity, the importance and application of this knowledge becomes paramount. The fundamental understanding of system responses to global change thus provides the key scientific underpinning required to develop appropriate resource management strategies for sustainable development.
A major product of the Integrated Study should therefore be a set of regional assessments that will contribute directly to the development strategies of the countries in the region.

The regional assessments would be in the form of professionally prepared reports written in clear and concise language.  Teams of experts would write the reports, but the drafts of the report would be extensively reviewed and criticised by scientific peers and members of the policy community through workshops, electronic conferences and one-on-one briefings.  The focus of these regional assessments would be to synthesise current understanding of the drivers and implications of regional environmental change, and to extract the most salient implications for policy.
As these regional assessments would largely be based on a network of more detailed national and catchment-based studies there will also be opportunities for more local-level assessments to be prepared for national governments or sub-regions. In addition, the Integrated Study will produce a number of secondary outputs of interest to national governments, for example, land-cover and socio-economic datasets.

Potential scope and topics for assessment would follow the framework set out in Core Theme 9. For example, individual countries are now required to prepare inventories on their net greenhouse gas emissions and sequestration. Since land-use and -cover change is an important factor in the carbon budgets of most Southeast Asian countries, it is essential that a much better understanding of the role of terrestrial and coastal systems in the carbon cycle be gained. The science proposed for the Integrated Study is therefore well placed to help the Southeast Asian nations prepare for and meet their commitments under the Climate Change Convention.

The regional and national assessments should, in turn, lead to the formulation of novel and improved strategies for sustainable regional development that should then become part of the wider public discourse on appropriate development strategies for the ASEAN region.
 

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