ESPA Deltas: ASSESSING HEALTH, LIVELIHOODS, …Mangrove-dominated (Sundarban Impact Zone) 2. Wetland ecosystem services and associated livelihoods 3. Agriculturally dominated incomes

ESPA Deltas ESPA Science Workshop 19-20 Nov 2012

ESPA Deltas: ASSESSING HEALTH, LIVELIHOODS,

ECOSYSTEM SERVICES AND POVERTY ALLEVIATION IN POPULOUS DELTAS

Presented by Prof. Robert J. Nicholls

University of Southampton www.espadelta.net


Plan

• Introduction • Consortium • Project Details • Concluding Remarks


Threatened Deltas

Population potentially displaced by current sea level trends to 2050

Source: IPCC AR4 using data in Ericson et al. (2006)

Extreme = >1 million; High = 1 million to 50,000; Medium = 50,000 to 5,000 people


Main Study Site

China

India

Nepal Bhutan

India Burma

Pakistan

Kathmandu

Dhaka

New Delhi Thimphu

R. Ganges

R. Brahmaputra

R. Meghna

Bangladesh


Bangladesh Case Study Area


ESPA Delta: Project Aims

In Coastal Bangladesh • To engage relevant stakeholders throughout the project via participatory

methods. • To understand the present relationship between ecosystem services and

human well-being and health. • To predict how these ecosystem services might evolve over the coming years

and decades (up to 50 years) . • To analyse how policy can influence these outcomes and promote ecosystem

services and human well-being and health. • To select robust policies that are effective across the range of uncertainty.

More Broadly • To test the transferability of these methods to other populated deltas.


ESPA Delta: Example Questions

• Who are the poor? • What are the Ecosystem Services? • How and why are these Ecosystem Services changing? • What is the role of biophysical change and Ecosystem Services? • What implications do the changes have for the poor? • How can policy promote ecosystem services and poverty

alleviation?


• Interdisciplinary: Socio-Economic, Biophysical, Legal Context • Multi-scale: Nested study domains – Global – Ganges-

Brahmaputra basin, Bay of Bengal, National, Study Area, Sub-divisions of study area, Trans-boundary issues

• Integrative: Linking model domains, integrated modelling to address policy questions, scenario development, policy testing and sensitivity analysis (with new model development, where necessary)

• Transferable: Tested conceptually in two other (Indian) sites

Methodological Principles – Transition into practice


Key Ecosystem Services

Source: BRAC (2007)


Example Delta Ecosystem Activities


THE CONSORTIUM UK Partners

• University of Southampton PI Robert Nicholls • University of Oxford (Scenario Development) • Exeter University (Ecosystem Services and Poverty) • Dundee University (Legal context) • Hadley Centre MET office (Climate Change Modelling) • Plymouth Marine Laboratories (Fisheries Modelling) • National Oceanography Centre Liverpool (Marine Modelling)


THE CONSORTIUM Indian Partners

• IIT Roorkee – Lead Nayan Sharma PI (Hydrological Modelling) • Cotton College, Guwahati (Social Economic context) • Aaranyak (Social Economic context) • Jadavpur University (Mangrove/Ecological Modelling)


THE CONSORTIUM Bangladeshi Partners

• Institute of Water and Flood Management, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) – Prof Rahman Lead PI

• Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS): (Policy) • Institute of Livelihood Studies (ILS): (Livelihood) • Ashroy Foundation: (Social Survey) • Institute of International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research,

Bangladesh (ICDDR,B) : (Health) • Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS):

(GIS, Database) • Bangladesh Agricultural University (Fisheries, Agriculture) • Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI): Agriculture) • Technological Assistance for Rural Advancement (TARA): Fisheries/ecology • Mohammad Shahad Mahabub Chowdhury (IUCN): ecology • Kazi Matin U Ahmed (Dhaka University): Ground Water


Project Structure


Work Package 1 - Governance

Quality of the legal, institutional and policy context: – Management of Ecosystem Services (e.g. freshwater,

forestry, pollution control, fisheries, protected areas); – Extent to which people can escape from poverty (e.g.

property rights, control of monopolies, disaster management, availability of information, access to justice);

– Mediation processes between them (as elucidated in WP2)

Engagement with relevant stakeholders - key for: – understanding reality of governance context; – future policy drivers; – scenario development; and – research relevance

Critical Stakeholder Interventions

Nicholls Consortia Presentation ESPA Consortia Workshop 19-20 Sept 2012


Three Key Stakeholder interventions

Initial Policy Questions (WP2)

• Salinity impacts on rice

• Development of agro-business

• Coastal defence options

• Impacts of upstream interventions

Development of Scenarios (WP4)

• Economic trends/GDP

• Commodity pricing

• Socio-economics • Governance • Trans boundary

issues

Intervention testing (WP6)

• Running policy interventions on the model

• Conducting policy sensitivity analysis

• Handling Uncertainty


Scenario Building (WP4)


Work Package 2 – Model Conceptualisation Hypotheses

• Investigating four mechanisms known to mediate between wellbeing and the environment: – Seasonality – Mobility – Property rights – Moral economy

• Each of these mechanisms has positive or negative

impacts on the ability of ecosystem services to alleviate poverty depending on characteristics of the: – Socio-ecological system – Ecosystem service – Social status


Work Package 2 Applied to 10 socio-ecological systems

1. Mangrove-dominated (Sundarban Impact Zone) 2. Wetland ecosystem services and associated livelihoods 3. Agriculturally dominated incomes (within and outside of

polders) 4. Livestock-related livelihoods on newly-accreted charlands 5. Inland capture fisheries 6. Inland culture fisheries 7. Aquaculture systems (shrimp, prawn and crab collection

and fattening) 8. Offshore capture fisheries 9. Peri-urban areas 10. Urban areas


Work Package 3 – Socio-Economic Analysis and Model Aim: To quantify the relationship between poverty and ecosystem services building on WP2. • Analysing census data over time to create

poverty maps. • Examining fertility rates by urban/rural and

province for projections • Reviewing best software for projections • Preparing demographic projections • Planning surveys with WP2


Bangladesh Case Study Area

(about 250 Unions and data for three

census periods)


WP5 Integrated Biophysical Model (incomplete – missing Mangrove model)

GCMs/ RCMs

Catchment Models GWAVA / INCA (Oxford) Groundwater (BUET Morphodynamics (Soton)

Delta Model FVCOM

Crop Models CROPWAT, AquaCrop, MAXENT

Coastal Fisheries Model Size-based models

Bay Bengal Model GCOMS

Met Office Hadley Centre

Oxford Buet Soton IITR

BUET NOC PML

Soton BARI BAU

PML

PML TARA BAU IUCN

Temperature, rainfall

Sea level, storms

Water, sediment

Freshwater, sediment, nutrients

Primary productivity


Work Package 4 – Integration and Scenarios

Aim • Develop scenarios to analyse future outcomes • Develop an integrated modelling framework of socio-

ecological systems Tasks • Establish baseline status from observations • Develop exogenous and endogenous scenarios • Develop integrated model framework of socio-

ecological systems building on WP3/WP5 • Apply framework in Vensim Outcomes • Assessment of scenario development tools • South-Asian ecosystem services scenarios


Land erosion

Fish capture

No of Tourists

Biomass of Fish stock Biomass

Production rate

X Mortality

rate

X

+ +

Magnitude/frequency of cyclones

+

Sea Level Rise

+

+ +

Employment opportunities

Market price of fish

Market price of tourist attractions

Nutrients

Primary production +

+

+ +

+ +

Hazardous Substances

+

Nutrition + Population

number +

+

Social model

Mangrove model

ES flows – Coastal fishery


Inland only

Coastal waters

How to consider the ES flows spatially?

Mangrove forest

Inland +

Mangrove

Inland +

Coastal

Inland +

Mangrove +

Coastal

~250 unions

river

forest

agricultural field

settle- ment

shrimp farming


Database for ESPA Deltas Project • Organised by CEGIS, Bangladesh • About 400 existing data layers available • Augmented with Project data and results


Short-term Scientific Outputs

Fast Track papers (within first 12 months) • “An assessment of the key policy issues concerning

ecosystem services and poverty alleviation in coastal Bangladesh” (WP1)

• “A review of the state of coastal Bangladesh with a focus

on ecosystem services and poverty alleviation” (WP2) • “A review of the trends in ecosystem services in coastal

Bangladesh: A preliminary assessment” (WP5)


Short-term Scientific Outputs

Conference Papers ICWFM 2013 (4th) to be held in Bangladesh: March 2013

• Loss of Ecosystem Services in Shrimp Aquaculture area and its impact on livelihood of Poor People (WP2) • Assessment of Coastal Ecosystem component in Changed hydrological

condition (WP5) • Application of remote sensing and GIS in measuring water quality of the major

water bodies in the Ganges delta (WP5) • Changes in the Biomass Content in Sundarban Area: A Remote Sensing

Approach (WP5) • Spatial and Temporal Trend of tidal range and salinity in the Bengal Delta (WP5) • Application of FVCOM in Simulating the Ecosystem Parameters in the Coastal

region of the Bay of Bengal : Developing a Model of the Region


CONCLUDING REMARKS

The ESPA Delta project is making significant progress across a broad range of academic areas including: • Analysis of governance • Participatory methods • Ecosystem services and human well-being in deltas • Integrated assessment methods

All this work is focussed on understanding the relationship between ecosystem services and poverty alleviation in deltas and the potential role of policy in shaping outcomes Early outputs will be available in Spring 2013 Thanks to all the Consortium members.


ESPA Deltas: ASSESSING HEALTH, LIVELIHOODS,

ECOSYSTEM SERVICES AND POVERTY ALLEVIATION IN POPULOUS DELTAS

Presented by Prof. Robert J. Nicholls

University of Southampton www.espadelta.net

Documents

ESPA Deltas: ASSESSING HEALTH, LIVELIHOODS, …Mangrove-dominated (Sundarban Impact Zone) 2. Wetland ecosystem services and associated livelihoods 3. Agriculturally dominated incomes