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The University of Southampton
Sustainability Science

Safe Operating Spaces for Regional Socio-ecological Systems workshop Event

Time:
09:00 - 17:00
Date:
10 - 11 July 2012
Venue:
University of Southampton

For more information regarding this event, please email Prof John Dearing at J.Dearing@soton.ac.uk .

Event details

For the earth system, the planetary boundaries concept provides a powerful framework for exploring thresholds in key global processes and defining safe operating spaces. In this workshop, the focus is on how to produce parallel understanding at sub-planetary scales in order to give an enhanced level of information for local-regional policy-makers.

We envisage 25 participants working in plenary and break-out groups. The intended outcome is a scoping paper with workshop participants as authors for a high impact journal (e.g Science).

Science objectives

  • Develop a methodology for assessing theoretical boundaries for human activities within a regional ecosystems services framework that can be deployed worldwide;
  • Identify and assess alternative theoretical dynamical approaches to setting regional boundaries, for example: linear-threshold-fold bifurcation change; convergent trends; variance from background/norm; socio-ecological network topology;
  • Critically assess data needs and challenges for observing and anticipating trends, thresholds and interactions in regional ecosystem services, biogeochemical processes and their drivers over multi-decadal timescales;
  • Provide case-studies to demonstrate the approaches.

It is intended that a working paper with reviewed articles, ideas and case-study material will be produced by the organisers and circulated in advance of the workshop. This will provide background for discussions and a possible template for the subsequent scoping paper.

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