Integrated Carbon, Water and Land Management for Poverty Alleviation

生态系统服务可以而且应该与碳管理相联系，并与可持续的水和土地管理相结合。减缓气候变化的全球性为发展中国家提供了机会，使它们能够利用其自然资源和在国际碳市场上进行交易，从而减轻贫穷。通过重新造林或生物燃料生产进行的生物碳固存可能会带来这种机会。然而，任何此类举措所导致的土地使用变化可能对生物多样性、水质和水供应等生态系统服务有害。从长远来看，气候和人口的变化可能会加剧这些影响，使这种土地管理举措从生物物理和社会经济角度来看都无法持续。因此，应在一个纳入气候和社会经济变化的框架内评估土地使用变化举措，以确定那些有可能长期减轻贫困的举措，而不考虑那些可能使问题恶化的举措。关于土地管理的现有广泛工作已经产生了许多关于能源作物生理学、不同土地管理战略的经济影响、观察到的土地管理对生态系统服务的影响以及实施土地管理项目的最佳做法的宝贵数据。与此同时，在陆地表面反馈、水循环、区域气候可变性和变化方面也开展了大量工作，其中涉及发展最新的气候、陆地表面、水文和作物模型。该项目建议将这些研究结合起来，调查土地管理举措在气候变化中的可持续性。现有的工具，根据公布的数据，将被合并成一个建模框架，将应用于一系列涉及甘蔗集约化种植的场景。具体而言，将讨论以下三个问题：（1）在不断变化的气候条件下为生产生物燃料而种植甘蔗的可行性和可持续性（经济和物质），以及这些活动长期减轻贫困的能力。(2)土地管理对生态系统服务的长期影响，特别关注对水资源供应的影响（3）地表-气候反馈，及其对土地管理举措和现有土地利用的可持续性的影响。该模型将应用于巴西和加纳的甘蔗种植。巴西有一个成熟的甘蔗产业，已经提供了大量的就业和收入。该国大部分地区对生物燃料生产的依赖使该行业的长期经济可行性成为一个紧迫问题。虽然生产目前不受水资源的限制，但由于环境条件的变化，未来可能会发生变化。加纳被选为另一个案例研究的对象，因为该国即将成为生物乙醇市场的主要参与者，这是2006年与巴西合作伙伴签署的一项种植生物能源作物的协议的结果。从巴西向非洲出口生物燃料技术的前景提出了有关环境可持续性和能源作物种植举措减轻贫困能力的紧迫问题。特别是，迫切需要严格评估产量（以及利润）、灌溉、水资源和当地人民生计之间的微妙平衡。拟议的研究主要是概念验证，主要侧重于开发一个建模框架，并与加纳和巴西的研究人员合作，以便以有用和信息丰富的方式应用它。然而，应当强调的是，该框架同样适用于其他能源和粮食作物，如麻风树，并可适用于世界任何地区。

Ecosystem services can and should be related to carbon management, in combination with sustainable water and land management. The global nature of climate change mitigation provides opportunities for developing countries to alleviate poverty by capitalizing on their natural resources and trading on the international carbon markets. Such opportunities may arise from biotic carbon sequestration through reforestation or biofuel production. However, the changes in land-use that result from any such initiatives may be detrimental to ecosystem services, such as biodiversity, water quality and water availability. In the long term, changes in climate and population may worsen these impacts, rendering such land management initiatives unsustainable from both biophysical and socio-economic standpoints. Land use change initiatives should therefore be assessed in a framework that incorporates climate and socio-economic change, in order to identify those that have the potential to alleviate poverty in the long term, and discount those that are likely to worsen the problem. The extensive existing work on land management has yielded much valuable data on energy crop physiology, the economic implications of different land management strategies, the observed effects of land management on ecosystem services, and best practice for implementing land management projects. Parallel to this, there has been much work on land surface feedbacks, the water cycle, regional climate variability and change, which has involved the development of state-of-the-art climate, land surface, hydrological and crop models. This project proposes to bring these strands of research together to investigate the sustainability of land management initiatives in a changing climate. Existing tools, informed by published data, would be combined into a modeling framework that would be applied to a series of scenarios involving intensive cultivation of sugar cane. Specifically, the following three issues would be addressed: (1) The feasibility and sustainability (economic and physical) of sugarcane cultivation for biofuel production in a changing climate, and the capacity of such activities to alleviate poverty in the long term. (2) The long term impact of land management on ecosystem services, with particular focus on the effect on water availability (3) Land surface - climate feedbacks, and their impact on the sustainability of land management initiatives and existing land use. The modeling would be applied to sugarcane cultivation in Brazil and Ghana. Brazil has a well-established sugarcane industry that already provides substantial employment and income. The dependence of large parts of the country on biofuel production makes the industry's long-term economic viability a pressing issue. Although production is not currently limited by water availability, this may change in the future due to changing environmental conditions. Ghana was chosen for the other case study because it is on the verge of becoming a major player in the bio-ethanol market, as the result of an agreement signed with Brazilian partners in 2006 to grow bio-energy crops. The prospect of exporting biofuel technology from Brazil to Africa raises urgent questions about environmental sustainability and the capacity of energy crop cultivation initiatives to alleviate poverty. In particular, there is a pressing need for rigorous assessment of the delicate balance between yield (and hence profitability), irrigation, water resources and the livelihoods of local people. The proposed study is primarily a proof of concept, with the main focus on developing a modeling framework and engaging with researchers in Ghana and Brazil, in order to apply it in a useful and informative way. It should be emphasized, however, that the framework would be equally applicable to other energy and food crops, such as Jatropha Curcas and could be applied to any region of the world.