Managing ecosystem services for food security and the nutritional health of the rural poor at the forest-agricultural interface

[提案EE112/ K1396905]由于气候变化和社会经济发展的加速，预测全球变化对农村社区的影响越来越具有挑战性。英国政府首席科学顾问约翰·贝丁顿教授将确保食品、能源和水安全的综合需求描述为“完美风暴”。很明显，由于食物链的不可预测性和气候变化的影响，粮食安全将继续是发展中国家的一个关键问题。贫困农村社区的粮食安全往往在很大程度上依赖于来自“自然”环境的生态系统服务流动。几千年来，人类一直在思考和学习经验，这些经验塑造了支撑粮食生产和土地管理的过程，解决了多种因素和权衡。然而，许多粮食生产系统需要集约化管理，并且在其最佳环境条件范围之外容易出现故障。人们越来越关注当前农业系统在不进一步降低关键生态系统服务（如供水、授粉）的情况下支持不断增长的人口的能力。在干旱等极端事件或其他冲击或危机（环境、社会或经济）期间，农村社区依赖生态系统服务来满足其营养和生计需求的程度往往会增加。这突出了尽量减少农业系统对生态系统及其提供的服务的影响的重要性。应对粮食不安全的战略反过来可能对生态系统提供生态系统服务的能力产生影响，因为社会经济系统和生态系统之间反馈的时空性质可能很复杂。解决自然资源管理和农村生计的可持续性问题需要跨学科的综合思考。必须充分了解可能或已经发生的从天然森林到管理景观的复杂转变，以便能够采用促进可持续转变和/或减轻任何负面影响的系统。因此，该提案汇集了社会科学、经济学、生态学、风险管理、空间规划、气候变化和复杂性科学方面的专业知识，设计并整合了一套模型和方法，以分析生态系统服务的动态储量和流量如何转化为地方一级的粮食安全和营养健康。该研究将考察贫困农村社区生态系统服务、粮食安全和孕产妇和儿童健康结果之间的多重（和多向）联系，涉及三个主要主题：1 .粮食安全、营养健康和生态系统服务之间的驱动因素、压力和联系；2 .危机和引爆点：森林-农业界面粮食不安全与生态系统服务之间过去、现在和未来的相互作用；科学-政策界面：我们如何管理生态系统服务，以减少粮食不安全和增进营养健康？将在哥伦比亚和马拉维进行家庭和家庭内部营养状况分析，并在相关空间尺度上评估和绘制生态系统服务地图，这些地点的特点是森林和农业用地的马赛克，以探索在气候和社会经济变化下与管理这些动态景观相关的权衡和临界点。强大的新模型将预测生态系统服务将如何被人类福祉和粮食安全的驱动因素和压力所改变。这将有助于制定风险管理/缓解模式和战略，为国家和区域政策提供信息，以维持生态系统和支持人类福祉。

[Proposal EE112/ K1396905] Predicting the impacts of global change on rural communities is increasingly challenging due to the accelerating pace of climate change and social and economic development. The combined demands of ensuring food, energy and water security have been described as a "Perfect Storm" by Prof Sir John Beddington, HM Government's Chief Scientific adviser. It is clear that food security will continue to remain a critical issue in developing countries due to the unpredictable nature of food chains and the effects of climate change.Food security in poor rural communities often relies significantly on flows of ecosystem services from 'natural' environments. For millennia mankind has engaged in thinking and learning experiences which have shaped the processes underpinning the production of food and the management of land, addressing multiple factors and tradeoffs. However, many food production systems require intensive management and are prone to failure outside of the range of their optimal environmental conditions. Concerns are growing about the ability of current agricultural systems to support rising human populations without further degrading critical ecosystem services (such as water provisioning, pollination). During extreme events, such as drought, or other shocks or crises (environmental, social or economic), the dependence of rural communities on ecosystem services to meet their nutritional and livelihood needs often increases. This highlights the importance of minimising the impacts of agricultural systems on ecosystems and the services they provide. Strategies for coping with food insecurity may, in turn, have an impact on the capacity of ecosystems to deliver ecosystem services as the spatial and temporal nature of feedbacks between socio-economic and ecological systems can be complex. Addressing the sustainability of natural resource management and rural livelihoods requires integrated thinking across disciplines. The complex transformations which can, or have already occurred from natural forest to managed landscapes must be fully understood so that systems can be adopted which promote sustainable transformations and/or can mitigate any negative impacts. This proposal therefore brings together expertise in social sciences, economics, ecology, risk management, spatial planning, climate change and complexity sciences to design and integrate a suite of models and methods to analyse how dynamic stocks and flows of ecosystem services translate to local-level food security and nutritional health. The study will examine the multiple (and multi-directional) links between ecosystem services, food security and maternal and child health outcomes in poor rural communities, addressing three main themes:1. Drivers, pressures and linkages between food security, nutritional health and ecosystem services;2. Crises and tipping points: Past, present and future interactions between food insecurity and ecosystem services at the forest-agricultural interface;3. The science-policy interface: How can we manage ecosystem services to reduce food insecurity and increase nutritional health? Analysis of household and intra-household nutritional status and assessment and mapping of ecosystem services at the relevant spatial scales will be conducted in sites in Colombia and Malawi, which are characterised by mosaics of forests and agricultural lands, to explore the trade-offs and tipping points associated with managing these dynamic landscapes under climate and socio-economic change. Powerful new models will predict how ecosystem services will be changed by drivers and pressures for human wellbeing and food security. This will allow risk management/mitigation models and strategies to be developed which can inform national and regional policy in order to maintain ecosystems and support human wellbeing.