DKCRC Briefings

1
The "Dryland Development Paradigm" and
desertification Mark Stafford Smith, IGBP
SCCSIRO Climate Adaptation / Desert Knowledge
CRC /ARIDnet - an IGBP-Global Land Project
network MENA Meeting, Cairo, 20th Nov 2008

2
Where Im going

• The Dryland Development Paradigm
• Some applications
• Desert Knowledge in Australia
• Implications for global monitoring

3
Where are we talking about?
Most of these areas are projected to experience
continued increases in population and pressures
on resources, exacerbated by drying trends with
climate change
4
DDP Background

• Desertification
• 30 years of concern UNCCD
• Persistent uncertainty even in how much there is
  (range in 1990s 17-70!)
• Yet evidently serious and affecting 1bn people
• Worse with climate change - MEA
• Emerging scientific/sectoral consensus
• Stronger link between environment and livelihoods
• Desertification Global change science
• Vulnerability research poverty alleviation
• Community-driven development sector

5
Synthesis

• Dahlem conference in 2001
• Bring together meteorological, environmental
  and social concerns
• Science paper 2007
• Reynolds, et al.
• IGBP-GLP
• Colleagues acknowledged!

6
Dryland Development Paradigm
7
Five Principles and their implications

• P1 Human-environment (H-E) systems are coupled,
  dynamic and co-adapting, so that their structure,
  function and relationships change over time
• P2 A limited suite of slow variables are
  critical determinants of H-E system dynamics
• P3 Thresholds in key slow variables define
  different states of H-E systems, often with
  different controlling processes thresholds may
  change over time
• P4 Coupled H-E systems are hierarchical, nested
  and networked across multiple scales
• P5 The maintenance of a body of up-to-date Local
  Environmental Knowledge (LEK) is key to
  functional co-adaptation of H-E systems

8
Evolvinghuman sub-system
Evolvingenvironment sub-system
LEK
Stafford Smith Reynolds (2002)
9
International influences
State/national structures
Provincial institutions
Communities
Households/farms
Ecological functioning too!
Stafford Smith Reynolds (2002)
10
Five Principles and their implications

• P1 Human-environment (H-E) systems are coupled,
  dynamic and co-adapting, so that their structure,
  function and relationships change over time
• P2 A limited suite of slow variables are
  critical determinants of H-E system dynamics
• P3 Thresholds in key slow variables define
  different states of H-E systems, often with
  different controlling processes thresholds may
  change over time
• P4 Coupled H-E systems are hierarchical, nested
  and networked across multiple scales
• P5 The maintenance of a body of up-to-date Local
  Environmental Knowledge (LEK) is key to
  functional co-adaptation of H-E systems

11
Are the principles useful?

• Intended as a parsimonious set of tenets
• Nothing new in the elements, of course
• Entrain thinking about necessary but sufficient
  complexity for drylands
• Help to define, and respond to, the right
  problems
• local management, policy interventions or
  research
• Formal bottom-up testing in series of workshops
  in South America (see http//www.biology.duke.edu/
  aridnet/)
• Mexico, (Argentina), Honduras, Bolivia, Brazil
• Applied to other developments
• PNAS meta-analysis of Learning from History
• Desert Knowledge ideas
• Monitoring degradation

12
Where Im going

• The Dryland Development Paradigm
• Some applications
• Desert Knowledge in Australia

13
Recognising the Desert Syndrome
Stafford Smith (2008) Rangeland Journal 30 3-14
14
Living with and taking advantage of the
differences
Take advantage of opportunities to provide local
livelihood options (including social, community
and traditional services)
Focusing the research of the Desert Knowledge
Cooperative Research Centre www.desertknowledge.co
m.au
Establish independent (transparent) capital and
recurrent funding mechanisms
Build regional critical mass BUT while
maintaining local accountability ? nested
systems seek economies of scope more than scale
create/ support strategic alliances
Use local skills where possible insulate from
policy changes (distinguish delivery from
governance at most scales)
Opportunistically install tiered governance with
local/regional autonomy bolster local voice,
allow local differences enable demand rather
than supply driven services
15
Where Im going

• The Dryland Development Paradigm
• Some applications
• Desert Knowledge in Australia
• Implications for an integrated dynamic global
  monitoringsystem for drylands
• For adaptive, dynamic governance

16
DDP Implications for dryland monitoring

• Include human and environmental variables
• As the norm, not the exception
• Focus on slow variables
• Though some fast variables may be useful as well
• Define thresholds and decision points
• No point monitoring without possible responses
• Focus on relevant scale for end-user
• Dont expect multi-purpose outputs
• Nest systems across scales for different purposes
• Incorporate local knowledge (requires engagement)
• To interpret data at various scales
• To be monitored in its own right

17
Some key features - 1

• Need to sort out the clients for the data
• International, national, sub-national
• Different regions will care about different
  measures
• Some consistent meta-themes, other sensitive to
  locale
• On-ground measures legitimately differ by system
• Need to combine remote sensing (etc) and local
  ground data for credible measures of change
• Tracking statistically significant change is much
  harder than assessing state
• But needed to determine whether investments are
  working, to contribute to adaptive
  decision-making

18
Some key features - 2

• Need the right (multi-scaled) governance of the
  system to be effective, owned, credible
• To sustain valuing of results and consequent
  investment in collecting data
• All suggests a nested system
• Nested clients, purposes (some generic data)
• Nested measures (mostly generic themes but
  different indicators, able to be logically
  collated upscale)
• Nested governance
• Nested development cant do it all at once!

19
Verstraete et al (2008) Fig. 3
Nested monitoring of human and environmental slow
variables, chosen so local data systematically
contributes to broader scale data, with remote
sensing providing context at broader scales Data
aimed at primary dryland syndromes, e.g.
population, poverty, market orientation, access
to finance, health, food reserves in developing
country, age of managers, NRM investment, pests
and weeds, indigenous minority access in
developed country Indicator tailored to regional
trajectories, eg. population density, food and
water per head, net agricultural productivity per
unit area in agricultural region, endangered
species, weed invasions, fire regimes, tourist
income in amenity region Data on locally
important ecosystem services, e.g. pasture
productivity, soil nitrogen, household poverty in
agricultural area, water quality, pasture cover
in catchment. Measures suited to ecosystems
Dryland areas where uses prioritise
different ecosystem services within the countrys
general trajectory
Dryland regions within countries with
different trajectories
Dryland countries experiencing major regional
syndromes at global scale
A Global Dryland Observing System, drawing on and
interpreting other existing local and global data
sources??
20
Satisfying the DDP?

• Combining biophysical and social measures for
  explanation
• Linked to user needs at all scales
• Focus on appropriate slow variables and
  thresholds
• Recognises multi-scaled nature of drylands in
  structure and measurement
• Needs to develop as a coordinated nested network
• Local (according to scale) knowledge involved
  in measurement and interpretation
• (And should measure it as a key slow variable as
  well)

21
Partial bibliography

• Reynolds, J. F., and D. M. Stafford Smith,
  editors. 2002. Global Desertification Do Humans
  Cause Deserts? Dahlem Workshop Report 88, Dahlem
  University Press, Berlin.
• Reynolds, J. F., D. M. Stafford Smith, E. F.
  Lambin, B. L. Turner, II, M. Mortimore, S. P. J.
  Batterbury, T. E. Downing, H. Dowlatabadi, R. J.
  Fernandez, J. E. Herrick, E. Huber-Sannwald, H.
  Jiang, R. Leemans, T. Lynam, F. T. Maestre, M.
  Ayarza, and B. Walker. 2007. Global
  Desertification Building a Science for Dryland
  Development. Science 316 847-851.
• Stafford Smith, D. M., G. M. McKeon, I. Watson,
  W., B. K. Henry, G. S. Stone, W. B. Hall, and S.
  M. Howden. 2007. Learning from episodes of
  degradation and recovery in variable Australian
  rangelands. Proceedings of the National Academy
  of Sciences 104 20690-95.
• Stafford Smith, M. 2008. The 'desert syndrome' -
  causally-linked factors that characterise outback
  Australia. The Rangeland Journal 303-14.
• Verstraete, M. M., R. J. Scholes, and M. Stafford
  Smith. 2008. Climate and desertification looking
  at an old problem through new lenses. Frontiers
  in Ecology and the Environment in press.
• (EU Joint Research Centre Desertification project)

22

Desert KnowledgeCooperative Research
Centre Growing in the Desert www.desertknowledge
.com.au
Assessment, Research, and Integration on
Desertification network http//www.biology.duke.ed
u/aridnet/