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Belinda Reyers & Luthando Dziba
Natural Resources & the Environment
Council for Scientific & Industrial Research
Our Human Future
www.igbp.net
Holocene: Humanity’s 10 000 years of grace
Sources Millennium Ecosystem Assessment; www.census.gov.
Holocene: Humanity’s 10 000 years of grace
MA 2005, FAOSTAT
Sources Millennium Ecosystem Assessment; www.census.gov.
Holocene: Humanity’s 10 000 years of grace
MA 2005, FAOSTAT
The quadruple squeeze
Rockström et al. 2009 Nature, 461 (24): 472-475
Moving out of the holocene
Our human future in the Anthropocene
• Feed nine billion people
• Reduce disaster risks
• Transition to low carbon societies
• Build healthy, resilient & productive cities
• Improve human health
• Adapt to a warmer world
• Ensure sustainable consumption & production
patterns
• Increase societal resilience to future threats
• Providing income and innovation opportunities
through transformations to global sustainability
• …….
Our human future in the Anthropocene
Our human future in the Anthropocene
The contribution from science
The transformation of science
• Solution-oriented
• Bridging disciplines
to solve complex
problems
• Global effort to
address global
challenges
Science for global sustainability
Future Earth = Global research
platform providing the knowledge
and support to accelerate our
transformations to a sustainable
world.
Future Earth = Global research platform
providing the knowledge and support to
accelerate our transformations to a
sustainable world.
• Inspired and created ground-breaking interdisciplinary science relevant to priority sustainability challenges Why
•Delivered key policy-relevant products to these challenges What
How •Pioneered approaches to the co-design and co-
production of solution-oriented global change science
Who • Enabled and mobilised capacities to work in these
new ways, across genders, geographies and generations
Future Earth Science Committee
South Africa’s contribution
Website: www.futureearth.org
National development Disaster management Communal livelihoods
National Development Planning: Water resources
Science and society understanding water resources
National scale: Urban water security
Strategic Water Source
Areas
8% land area provides 50%
of the surface water
Gross Value Added (R millions) Economic value
& population size
Population size
• Red/orange areas
– Collectively support
~50% of SA’s
population
– Contribute >60% of
national GVA
• Economic value vs
population size
disconnect
Outcomes and impacts
www.journeyofwater.co.za
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Be6b70yrTM
Flood
Sea storm
Fire
Science & society working to reduce disasters
Frequency of extreme events
Neumayer and Barthel (2010)
• Climate change will increase natural
hazards
• Ecosystem change is as important Nel et al. 2014. PLoS One.
#
Knysna
#
Sedgefield
#
Plettenberg Bay
#
George
#
Karatara
Level of fire susceptibility0 - 0.1
0.1 - 0.20.2 - 0.30.3 - 0.4
0.4 - 0.7
Urban areas
Level of fire susceptibility per mesozone
Findings
Escaped invasive alien trees
......increase fuel loads substantially
......use more water than indigenous
vegetation
http://www.fsc-watch.org
Large stands of cleared timber
plantations ...... decreased soil permeability from pine resin
.......permeability made worse with fire
Coastal hardening and catchment dams
Steep beach profile
Shallow beach profile ....alter sediment
dynamics
.......increase
beach erosion and
slope
Clearing invasive
alien trees
Restoring wetlands
Restoring foredunes
Project
alignment
Planning
support
US$ 4-million
100 full-time jobs Coordinating ecosystem-based management
Supporting local authorities
Communal rangelands: central to livestock production
Challenges: Alien plants invasion
Livestock: key assets for communal households Supply: milk, meat, manure, fuel services, income security, ceremonial services, etc.
Improving grazing livelihoods
Light invaded Uninvaded Dense invaded
Impacts of invasion: Stutterheim
Overlap of high-value grazing & wattle invasion
High grazing potential Wattle invasion
Districts area overlap Source: Scholes (1998) Source: Kotze, et al., (2010)
Application
• Government departments
• Water, Agriculture, Environment
• Grazing hotspots for agricultural conservation
purposes
• Prioritisation data for programmes
• National Land care, Working for Water
Thank you
Belinda Reyers
Luthando Dziba
Ilse Kotzee
Odirilwe Selomane
