Continuous Negotiation in Climate Adaptation: The Challenge of Co-Evolution for the Capability Approach to Justice

The capability approach is increasingly presented as a promising approach to address questions of justice in local climate adaptation. In an attempt to integrate environmental protections into the capability approach, Breena Holland developed the meta-capability Sustainable Ecological Capacity to establish substantive ecological limits. This article, however, empirically demonstrates that defining ecosystem thresholds in co-evolving systems is subject to conflict and continuous negotiation. Taking the Haringvliet dam in the Dutch South-West Delta as an illustrative case, this paper shows how people uphold different views about the Haringvliet’s most desirable ecosystem state. Future shifts in the socio-ecological system, such as decreased fresh water availability and sea-level rise, are expected to uproot today’s compromise about chloride levels in the Haringvliet. This suggests that anticipatory water management should not only address climate impacts, but also prepare for re-negotiations of established ecological thresholds. The associated politics of climate adaptation deals with questions about which functions to protect, at what costs and for whom. Hence, it is critical to integrate procedural justice and attention to political inequalities in capabilities-based adaptation justice frameworks.

How to Аssess Еnvironmental Safety?

The analysis of the main approaches to the assessment of environmental safety is presented. The requirements for environmental safety measurement are justified. The relationship between safety and development, safety and danger are revealed. The approach to the environmental safety methodology is proposed. The goals of environmental safety are justified. The article analyzes life expectancy as the indicator of environmental safety and its dependence on other priorities of the state development, such as the cost of childbirth and raising children, support for pregnant and nursing mothers, care for pensioners (the size of pensions, their indexation, retirement age), the cost of ensuring industrial and transport safety, etc. The indicators that determine the quality (state) of the natural environment as maximum permissible environmental loads and the degree of proximity of the ecosystem state to the border of its stability are considered in the article. The possibility and advantages of using the assessment of the photosynthetic organisms (photosynthetics) state as the indicator of environmental safety are substantiated. The possibility of using the other integral biota state indicators to assess environmental safety is shown in the article.

Interacting Fire, Logging and Climate Change has Sprung a Landscape Trap in Victoria’s Montane Ash Forests

Ecosystems are influenced by multiple drivers which shape ecosystem state and biodiversity. In some ecosystems, interactions and feedbacks between drivers can produce traps that confine an ecosystem to a particular state or condition and influence processes like succession. A range of traps have been recognized, with one of these – “a landscape trap” first proposed a decade ago for the tall, wet Mountain Ash and Alpine Ash forests of Victoria, south-eastern Australia. Under such a trap, young flammable forest is at high risk of reburning at high-severity, thereby precluding stand maturation, and potentially leading to ecosystem collapse. These young forests are more common because recurrent wildfire and widespread clearcutting have transformed historical patterns of forest cover from widespread old-growth with small patches of regrowth embedded within it, to the reverse. Indeed, approximately 99% of the montane ash ecosystem is now relatively young forest. Based on new empirical insights, we argue that at least three key inter-related pre-conditions underpin the development of a landscape trap in montane ash forests. A landscape trap has been sprung in these forests because the pre-conditions for its development have been met: We show how inter-relationships between these pre-conditions, leading to frequent high-severity fire, interacts with life history attributes (e.g. time to viable seed production) to make montane ash forests (e.g. which have been highly disturbed through logging and frequent fire) vulnerable to ecosystem collapse. We conclude with the ecological and resource management implications of this landscape trap and discuss how the problems created might be rectified.

Vegetation memory effects and their association with vegetation resilience in global drylands

Vegetation memory describes the effect of antecedent environmental and ecological conditions on the present ecosystem state and has been proposed as an important proxy for vegetation resilience. In particular, strong vegetation-memory effects have been identified in dryland regions, but the factors underlying the spatial patterns of vegetation memory remain unknown. We aim to map the components and drivers of vegetation memory in dryland regions using state-of-the-art climate reanalysis data and refined approaches to identify vegetation-memory characteristics across dryland regions worldwide. Using a framework which distinguishes between intrinsic and extrinsic ecological memory, we show that: (i) intrinsic memory is a much stronger component than extrinsic memory in the majority of dryland regions; and (ii) climate reanalysis data sets change the detection of extrinsic vegetation memory effects in some global dryland regions. Synthesis: Our study offers a global picture of the vegetation response to two climate forcing variables using satellite data, information which is potentially relevant for mapping components and properties of vegetation responses worldwide. However, the large differences in the spatial patterns in intrinsic vegetation memory in our study compared to previous analyses show the overall sensitivity of this component in particular to the initial choice of extrinsic forcing variables. As a result, we caution against using the oversimplified link between intrinsic vegetation-memory and vegetation recovery rates at large spatial scales.

Long-Term Studies Of Surface-Sediment Diatom Assemblages In Assessing The Ecological State Of Lake Ladoga, The Largest European Lake

The study continues a series of observations started in the late 1950s, aimed at inferring changes in the Lake Ladoga ecosystem state recorded in the surface-sediment diatom assemblages. At the pre-anthropogenic stage (prior to the 1960s), the composition of the surface-sediment diatom assemblages indicated an oligotrophic state of Lake Ladoga. With the increased P load to the lake (late 1960s–1980s), the transition to a mesotrophic state was recorded via increased proportions of eutrophic species and decreased abundances of the taxa typical of the pre-anthropogenic stage. In the early 1990s, the composition of the surface-sediment diatom assemblages still indicated a mesotrophic state despite a decreased external P load. At the present de-eutrophication stage of Lake Ladoga (the 2000s), the abundances of eutrophic taxa steadily decrease while some taxa typical of the pre-anthropogenic period return to their dominating position in the surface-sediment diatom assemblages. However, despite the decreased P concentrations, the Lake Ladoga ecosystem has not returned to its pre-anthropogenic state as indicated by the present-day composition of the surface-sediment diatom assemblages. This suggests a delayed ecosystem response to the decreased anthropogenic pressure, and possibly some irreversible changes resulting from the eutrophication. At present, de-eutrophication processes and ecosystem recovery are superimposed upon the recent climatic changes that govern the onset and duration of the vegetative seasons for the phytoplankton communities in Lake Ladoga. The diatom-inferred changes in the ecological state of Lake Ladoga are in agreement with the results of longterm hydrochemical and hydrobiological studies.