It is becoming increasingly apparent that long-lasting land use legacies need to be part of present-day environmental assessment and natural resource management. The subtle but persistent effects of past human activities may have profound consequences for modern ecosystems and the people who rely on these ecosystems for their subsistence. Multi-disciplinary analysis of long-term climatic, vegetational and landscape changes can provide essential baseline data for realistic modelling and prediction of future changes and their impacts. The same type of analysis can be applied to changes or variations in the human consumption, management and exploitation of ecosystems, landscapes or natural resources across different spatial or temporal scales. In this way, we can enlarge our understanding of the key factors or drivers that affect the capacity of natural ecosystems to provide for human needs, and the key elements of risk, resilience and vulnerability in the relationship between ecosystems and socio-economic systems. This understanding is crucial to the formulation of plausible scenarios and realistic policy options for management of the relationship between ecosystem services and human well-being.
Current projects related to this theme
