The Future of the Natural Systems Sciences

2001 ◽  
pp. 219-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Len R. Troncale
Keyword(s):  
Natural Systems ◽  
The Future

Why we disagree about assisted migration: Ethical implications of a key debate regarding the future of Canada's forests

2011 ◽  
Vol 87 (06) ◽  
pp. 755-765 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Aubin ◽  
C.M. Garbe ◽  
S. Colombo ◽  
C.R. Drever ◽  
D.W. McKenney ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Conservation Biology ◽  
Ethical Question ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Ecological Risks ◽  
Assisted Migration ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
Risks And Benefits ◽  
The Future

Assisted migration has been proposed as one tool to reduce some of the negative ecological consequences of climate change. The idea is to move species to locations that could better suit them climatically in the future. Although humanmediated movements are not a recent phenomenon, assisted migration has lately been the source of debate, in particular within conservation biology circles. In this paper, we outline the major perspectives that help define differing views on assisted migration and shed some light on the ethical roots of the debate in the context of Canadian forests. We emphasize that there are many different forms of assisted migration, each responding to different (often unstated) objectives and involving unique risks and benefits, thus making the debate more nuanced than often portrayed. We point out certain seeming contradictions whereby the same argument may be used to both support and oppose assisted migration. The current debate on assisted migration primarily focuses on ecological risks and benefits; however, numerous uncertainties reduce our capacity to quantitatively assess these outcomes. In fact, much of the debate can be traced back to fundamental perspectives on nature, particularly to the ethical question of whether to deliberately manage natural systems or allow them to adapt on their own. To facilitate discussion, we suggest that the focus should move towards a clearer identification of values and objectives for assisted migration.

scholarly journals Preparing Scientists, Policymakers, and Managers for a Fast-Forward Future

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Norgaard ◽  
◽  
John Wiens ◽  
Stephen Brandt ◽  
Elizabeth Canuel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Science Policy ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Disturbance Ecology ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Expert Elicitation ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Scenario Analyses ◽  
Horizon Scanning ◽  
The Future ◽  
Research Findings

Ecosystems in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta are changing rapidly, as are ecosystems around the world. Extreme events are becoming more frequent and thresholds are likely to be crossed more often, creating greater uncertainty about future conditions. The accelerating speed of change means that ecological systems may not remain stable long enough for scientists to understand them, much less use their research findings to inform policy and management. Faced with these challenges, those involved in science, policy, and management must adapt and change and anticipate what the ecosystems may be like in the future. We highlight several ways of looking ahead—scenario analyses, horizon scanning, expert elicitation, and dynamic planning—and suggest that recent advances in distributional ecology, disturbance ecology, resilience thinking, and our increased understanding of coupled human–natural systems may provide fresh ways of thinking about more rapid change in the future. To accelerate forward-looking science, policy, and management in the Delta, we propose that the State of California create a Delta Science Visioning Process to fully and openly assess the challenges of more rapid change to science, policy, and management and propose appropriate solutions, through legislation, if needed.

scholarly journals Prospective image of the industrial future

2020 ◽  
pp. 25-34
Author(s):  
Snežana Todosijević-Lazović ◽  
Zoran Katanić ◽  
Damnjan Radosavljević
Keyword(s):  
Communication Process ◽  
Spontaneous Order ◽  
Chain Reaction ◽  
Historical Aspect ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
New Information ◽  
Partial Models ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
Rational Behaviour

World and facts that will structurally organize it, in the future will be much different from a position in which they are nowadays. Dynamics of development is a result of rapid events and implementation of change. If technology generates a change, a question of survival of functioning and controlling mechanisms for managing businesses in past is being imposed. Chain reaction will show as necessary. The new information will represent the basic of decision of predictive character. The laws of construction and functioning of cybernetic systems are supported. Evolutionary economy [1] and digital Darwinism will mark, from a historical aspect, the content of work and communication. If the natural systems came to be in a spontaneous order, the social organizations are constructed, which especially stands for enterprise, that is set to be efficient and useful creation and whose shaping and management is based solely on a rational behaviour, which means a goal-oriented business direction. In accordance with the topic, the industrial policies, dying industries, propulsive industries in making, occurring technologies will be evaluated that are characterized by AI as well as tendencies of the evolutionary character and digital Darwinism. The result of work should represent the whole model and partial models of industry of the future. IT and communication process (networking) create a symbiosis and that will be a necessity for functioning the organizational systems

scholarly journals Vision for a Sustainable Future

2003 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Harry F. Recher ◽  
Richard J. Hobbs ◽  
Denis A. Saunders
Keyword(s):  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Federal State ◽  
National Strategy ◽  
Evolutionary Time ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Landscape Degradation ◽  
Clear Vision ◽  
The Future

IN 1996, the Australian Federal, State and Territory governments ratified the National Strategy for the Conservation of Australia's Biological Diversity (Commonwealth of Australia 1996). This strategy states that production systems must be sustainable and not result in further loss of biological diversity. Although there is a considerable amount of work addressing the issues of landscape degradation and sustainability, it is largely conducted in the absence of any clear vision of where Australia, as an environment in which we live, should be at the end of the 21st Century and beyond. That is, Australia lacks an integrated, long-term strategic plan for the future. As a nation, Australia is not alone in lacking a vision for the future. At whatever scale we choose, from global to regional, effective environmental management and the conservation of natural systems are hampered by the lack of vision and planning on the ecological and evolutionary time scales appropriate for complex and continually changing ecosystems.

Flooding in the future – predicting climate change, risks and responses in urban areas

2005 ◽  
Vol 52 (5) ◽  
pp. 265-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
R.M. Ashley ◽  
D.J. Balmforth ◽  
A.J. Saul ◽  
J.D. Blanskby
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Past Performance ◽  
Drainage Systems ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Weather Patterns ◽  
Operational Life ◽  
The Future ◽  
Storm Drainage ◽  
The Uk

Engineering infrastructure is provided at high cost and is expected to have a useful operational life of decades. However, it is clear that the future is uncertain. Traditional approaches to designing and operating urban storm drainage assets have relied on past performance of natural systems and the ability to extrapolate this performance, together with that of the assets across the usable lifetime. Whether or not climate change is going to significantly alter future weather patterns in Europe, it is clear that it is now incumbent on designers and operators of storm drainage systems to prepare for greater uncertainty in the effectiveness of storm drainage systems. A recent UK Government study considered the potential effects of climate and socio-economic change in the UK in terms of four future scenarios and what the implications are for the performance of existing storm drainage facilities. In this paper the modelling that was undertaken to try to quantify the changes in risk, together with the effectiveness of responses in managing that risk, are described. It shows that flood risks may increase by a factor of almost 30 times and that traditional engineering measures alone are unlikely to be able to provide protection.

Postscript: the future history of the garden

2019 ◽  
pp. 133-136
Author(s):  
Gordon Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Disease Control ◽  
External Factors ◽  
Garden Design ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Impact Of Climate Change ◽  
Soil Enrichment ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Organic Gardening

Planting and garden design have never stood still, in part because fashions change, but also because of external factors. The most conspicuous fashion in recent decades has been the rise of organic gardening, a movement originating in the 1920s, which aspires to sustainability achieved by a synergy with natural systems of soil enrichment and pest and disease control. Another driver of change is the reduction in biodiversity. The Postscript considers the likely impact of climate change on garden design and suggests gardens will continue to evolve, as they have since remote antiquity. Garden design will adapt to changing conditions, but gardens will continue to provide havens of beauty and respite for the weary.

scholarly journals Changes of energy fluxes in marine animal forests of the Anthropocene: factors shaping the future seascape

2019 ◽  
Vol 76 (7) ◽  
pp. 2008-2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergio Rossi ◽  
Enrique Isla ◽  
Mar Bosch-Belmar ◽  
Giovanni Galli ◽  
Andrea Gori ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Structural Complexity ◽  
Energy Budgets ◽  
Suspension Feeding ◽  
Marine Animal ◽  
Energy Fluxes ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
The Future ◽  
Secondary Productivity

Abstract Climate change is already transforming the seascapes of our oceans by changing the energy availability and the metabolic rates of the organisms. Among the ecosystem-engineering species that structure the seascape, marine animal forests (MAFs) are the most widespread. These habitats, mainly composed of suspension feeding organisms, provide structural complexity to the sea floor, analogous to terrestrial forests. Because primary and secondary productivity is responding to different impacts, in particular to the rapid ongoing environmental changes driven by climate change, this paper presents some directions about what could happen to different MAFs depending on these fast changes. Climate change could modify the resistance or resilience of MAFs, potentially making them more sensitive to impacts from anthropic activities (i.e. fisheries and coastal management), and vice versa, direct impacts may amplify climate change constraints in MAFs. Such changes will have knock-on effects on the energy budgets of active and passive suspension feeding organisms, as well as on their phenology, larval nutritional condition, and population viability. How the future seascape will be shaped by the new energy fluxes is a crucial question that has to be urgently addressed to mitigate and adapt to the diverse impacts on natural systems.

International determination of the total motion of the pole

1961 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 29-41
Author(s):  
Wm. Markowitz
Keyword(s):  
Secular Motion ◽  
The Future

A symposium on the future of the International Latitude Service (I. L. S.) is to be held in Helsinki in July 1960. My report for the symposium consists of two parts. Part I, denoded (Mk I) was published [1] earlier in 1960 under the title “Latitude and Longitude, and the Secular Motion of the Pole”. Part II is the present paper, denoded (Mk II).

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