Modelling Human-Environment Interactions: Theories and Tools

1. Vespucci Summer School, 2010 Modelling Human-Environment Interactions: Theories and Tools Gilberto Câmara, Tiago Carneiro Pedro Andrade Licence: CreativeCommons ̶̶̶̶ ByAttribution ̶̶̶̶ NonCommercial ̶̶̶̶ ShareAlike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/

2. "We went to explore the Moon, and in fact discovered the Earth." Eugene Cernan photo: NASA

3. Brazil: a natural knowledge economy Deforestation cut by 300% (2005-09) Best technology in biofuels World leader in tropical agriculture 46% of energy is renewable

4. A Vision for INPE in the 21st Century Brazil will be an environmental power and the first developed nation in the tropics INPE will be a world-class centre in Space and Environment R&D for the tropical region

5. Energy Agriculture Ecosystems Space technology can add value to Brazil´s natural knowledge economy Megacities Climate change Weather and natural disasters

6. INPE: CONVERTING DATA INTO KNOWLEDGE SATELLITES Earthobservation, scientific, and data collectionsatellites GROUND SYSTEMS Satellitecontrol, reception, processing anddistributionofsatellite data ANALYSIS AND MODELLING SpaceWeather, WeatherPrediction andEarth System Science SOCIETAL BENEFITS Innovative products to meet Brazil´s needs

7. Monitoring Deforestation in Amazonia DETER: 15-day alerts of newly deforested large areas

8. Outline

9. Our Earth is a Unique Planet in the Solar System Loss of carbon :: No lithosphere motion on Mars to release carbon Runaway greenhouse :: No water cycle to remove carbon from atmosphere Earth Harbor of Life Earth is unique in our solar system in its capacity to sustain highly diversified life from Guy Brasseur (NCAR)

10. By the Year 2050… 9 billion people: 6 billion tons of GHG and 60 million tons of urban pollutants. Resource-hungry: We will withdraw 30% of available fresh water. Risky living: 80% urban areas, 25% near earthquake faults, 2% in coast lines less than 1 m above sea level.

11. The fundamental question of our time How is the Earth’s environment changing, and what are the consequences for human civilization? fonte: IGBP

12. Sustainability Science Core Questions • How can the dynamic interactions between nature and society be better incorporated in emerging models and conceptualizations that integrate the earth system, human development and sustainability? • How are long-term trends in environment and development, including consumption and population, reshaping nature-society interactions in ways relevant to sustainability? • What determines vulnerability/resilience of nature-society interactions for particular places and for particular types of ecosystems and human livelihoods? Source: Sustainability Science Workshop, Friibergh, SE, 2000

13. Global Land Project • What are the drivers and dynamics of variability and change in terrestrial human-environment systems? • How is the provision of environmental goods and services affected by changes in terrestrial human-environment systems? • What are the characteristics and dynamics of vulnerability in terrestrial human-environment systems?

14. Impacts of global land change More vulnerable communities are those most at risk

15. Human actions and global change photo: C. Nobre Global Change Where are changes taking place? How much change is happening? Who is being impacted by the change? What is causing change? photo: A. Reenberg

16. source: Global Land Project Science Plan (IGBP)

17. ESSL - The Earth & Sun Systems Laboratory GDP per Person in Western Europe (1-2000 AD) from Guy Brasseur (NCAR)

18. ESSL - The Earth & Sun Systems Laboratory Perturbations by humans are quasi-exponential from Guy Brasseur (NCAR)

20. from Jackie McGlade (EEA)

21. Can we avoid that this…. Source: Carlos Nobre (INPE)

22. Fire... ….becomes this? Source: Carlos Nobre (INPE)

23. ~230 scenes Landsat/year Deforestation in Amazonia

24. What is a Model? Deforestation in Amazonia in 2020? simplified representation of a process Model = entities+ relations+ attributes+ rules

25. Computational models • Connect expertise from different fields • Make the different conceptions explicit If (... ? ) then ... Desforestation?

26. Computational models • Connect expertise from different fields • Make the different conceptions explicit Territory (Geography) Money (Economy) Culture (Antropology) Modelling (GIScience)

27. Modelling and Public Policy External Influences System Ecology Economy Politics Desired System State Decision Maker Scenarios Policy Options

28. Earth as a system

29. images: USGS Slides from LANDSAT Modelling Human-Environment Interactions How do we decide on the use of natural resources? Can we describe and predict changes resulting from human decisions? What computational tools are needed to model human-environment decision making? Aral Sea 1973 1987 2000

30. We need spatially explicit models to understand human-environment interactions Nature: Physical equations Describe processes Society: Decisions on how to Use Earth´s resources

31. Dynamic Spatial Models f (It) f (It+1) f (It+2) f ( It+n ) F F . . “A dynamical spatial model is a computational representation of a real-world process where a location on the earth’s surface changes in response to variations on external and internal dynamics” (Peter Burrough)

32. Forecast tp + 10 Calibration Calibration Dynamic Spatial Models tp - 20 tp - 10 tp Source: Cláudia Almeida

33. Which is the better model?

34. Limits for Models Uncertainty on basic equations Social and Economic Systems Quantum Gravity Particle Physics Living Systems Global Change Hydrological Models Chemical Reactions Meteorology Solar System Dynamics Complexity of the phenomenon source: John Barrow (after David Ruelle)

35. Soybeans Ranchers Small-scale Farming How do we decide on the use of natural resources? Loggers Competition for Space Source: Dan Nepstad (Woods Hole)

36. What Drives Tropical Deforestation? % of the cases  5% 10% 50% Underlying Factors driving proximate causes Causative interlinkages at proximate/underlying levels Internal drivers *If less than 5%of cases, not depicted here. source:Geist &Lambin (Université Louvain)

37. Human-enviromental systems [Ostrom, Science, 2005]

38. Types of goods Source: E Ostrom (2005)

39. Farms Settlements 10 to 20 anos RecentSettlements (lessthan 4 years) Old Settlements (more than 20 years) Source: Escada, 2003 Institutional analysis Identifydifferentactorsandtry to modeltheiractions

40. Institutional arrangments in Amazonia

41. Prisoner’s Dilemma: Game Theory Did you lie to Congress about WMD in Iraq?

42. Question #1 for Nature-Societymodels What ontological kinds (data types) are required for nature-society models? Fields Cells (objects)

43. Concepts for spatial dynamical models Events and processes Resilience

44. Concepts for spatial dynamical models vulnerability degradation

45. Concepts for spatialdynamicalmodels biodiversity sustainability and much more… Human-environmental models need to describe complex concepts (and store their attributes in a database)

46. Question #2 for Nature-Societymodels Whatmodels are needed to describehumanactions?

47. Clouds: statistical distributions Clocks, clouds or ants? Clocks: deterministic equations Ants: emerging behaviour

48. Statistics: Humans as clouds y=a0 + a1x1 + a2x2 + ... +aixi +E Establishes statistical relationship with variables that are related to the phenomena under study Basic hypothesis: stationary processes Example: CLUE Model (University of Wageningen) Fonte: Verburg et al, Env. Man., Vol. 30, No. 3, pp. 391–405

49. Spatially-explicit LUCC models • Explain past changes, through the identification of determining factors of land use change; • Envision which changes will happen, and their intensity, location and time; • Assess how choices in public policy can influence change, by building different scenarios considering different policy options.

50. Driving factors of change (deforestation) source: Aguiar (2006)