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ATEAM final report Section 5 and 6 (2001-2004) 50 and forest management. Nevertheless a recurring theme during the dialogue was to learn just how complex human-environment interactions are in a context of EU, national and regional policies and under socio-economic constraints. To give one example, the diversity of forest ownership and forest use in terms of area owned, financial relevance relative to other income sources of the stakeholder and management goals was even greater than anticipated. Forest owners can rely on forest ecosystem services for almost all or next to none of their income, sometimes independent of the area of forest owned. Forests are managed to optimise many outcomes, ranging from commercial use, over recreational to spiritual meaning. Here our choice of indicators (i.e. wood production, carbon stored in vegetation and soil, species turnover, tree species distribution) fall short of the information needs of all possible stakeholders. These complexities were discussed during stakeholder interactions and explored especially in the land use modelling work. Two detailed reports on forest policy have been produced (Kankaanpää and Carter 2004ab, see Annex 2). We conclude that our assessment was both valuable and useful for stakeholders and relevant in scientific terms. We also conclude that future analysis can be based on our concepts and results and for some sectors should especially target local scales and shorter time scales. Ecosystem modelling should continue to mature into human-environment-system modelling, by accounting for management and decision making in the socio-economic and policy context of the relevant stakeholders. This can be greatly facilitated by continued stakeholder interaction, making use of as well as advancing the tools and the stakeholder network developed in ATEAM. 6.2.5 Integrating potential impacts and adaptive capacity into maps of vulnerability (WP1, 5 and 6) Principal investigators: Marc J. Metzger, Dagmar Schröter, Rik Leemans, Wolfgang Cramer The term vulnerability stems from everyday language – the Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “the undesirable state of being open to attack or damage”. At the time the ATEAM proposal was submitted to the EU, researchers from different disciplines used the term ‘vulnerability’ intuitively as the risk of harm to something they, or somebody else values caused by global change. Since then, the concept of vulnerability has been debated in the scientific community, with considerable contributions by ATEAM researchers. By now a common definition of vulnerability, as well as an assessment concept have emerged (Turner et al. 2003, Schröter et al. 2004). ATEAM defines vulnerability as the degree to which an ecosystem service is sensitive to global environmental change and the degree to which the sector that relies on the service is unable to adapt to the changes (Metzger and Schröter 2004). Hence, potential impacts (the resultant of exposure and sensitivity) and adaptive capacity constitute a region’s vulnerability. Table 13 gives an overview of important terminology developed in ATEAM related to vulnerability, with examples for the sectors agriculture and carbon storage. In Figure 38 we illustrate how the terms presented in Table 13 fit into the ATEAM vulnerability assessment. The future scenarios (exposure) feed into the ecosystem models, which determine future ecosystem service supply, i.e. potential impacts. The change in potential impacts compared to baseline conditions will be expressed in a stratified potential impact index. The socio-economic scenarios are translated into a generic adaptive capacity index, which can be combined with the potential impact index to map vulnerability.
ATEAM final report Section 5 and 6 (2001-2004) 51 Table 13. Definitions of important terminology related to vulnerability, with two examples. Term ATEAM definitions based on IPCC Part of the assessment Agriculture example C-storage example Exposure (E) The nature and degree to which the human-environment system is exposed to environmental change. Scenarios Increased climatic stress, decreases in demand Increased demand, increased fire risk Sensitivity Adaptation (S) (A) The degree to which a humanenvironment system is affected, either adversely or beneficially, by environmental change. Adjustment in natural or human systems to a new or changing environment. Ecosystem Models, Land Use Change Models, Adaptive Capacity Index Agricultural ecosystems, communities and landscapes are affected by environmental change. Changes in local management, change crop Ecosystems that store carbon are affected by environmental change. Changes in local management, change in tree species Potential Impact (PI) All impacts that may occur given projected environmental change, without considering planned adaptation. Ecosystem Models Decrease in agricultural land area Increase in storage Planned Adaptation (PA) The result of a deliberate policy decision based on an awareness that conditions have changed or are about to change and that action is required to return to, maintain or achieve a desired state. Adaptive Capacity Index More suitable agricultural management, e.g. switch to high quality safe products More suitable fire management, e.g. change in land cover to less fire prone forests Adaptive Capacity (AC) The potential to implement planned adaptation measures. Adaptive Capacity Index Capacity of more suitable agricultural management Capacity of more suitable fire management Vulnerability (V) The degree to which an ecosystem service is sensitive to global change plus the degree to which the sector that relies on this service is unable to adapt to the changes. Vulnerability Assessment Increased probability of yield losses through losses of agricultural area combined with inability to switch to save cash and quality crops Increased probability of carbon losses through increased fire risk and inability to adapt to this by e.g. changing land cover to less fire prone forests (exchange Eucalyptus plantations with native forests) Residual Impact (RI) The impacts of global change that will occur after considering planned adaptation. The future will tell. Farms ‘giving up’ despite efforts to adapt. Carbon lost to forest fires despite adaptation strategy. 6.2.5.1 Stratification of potential impacts For a meaningful comparison of grid cells across Europe it is necessary to place changes in their regional environmental context, i.e. in a justified cluster of environmental conditions that is suited as a reference for the values in an individual grid cell. Simply comparing absolute changes in ecosystem services across Europe without the regional environmental context provides only a limited analysis of regional differences. For instance, Spain has high biodiversity (5048 vascular plant species (WCMC 1992)), but low grain yields (2.7 t ha -1 for 1998-2000 average (Ekboir, 2002)), whereas The Netherlands
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