Belinda Reyers & Luthando Dziba

Natural Resources & the Environment

Council for Scientific & Industrial Research

Our Human Future

www.igbp.net

Holocene: Humanity’s 10 000 years of grace

Sources Millennium Ecosystem Assessment; www.census.gov.

Holocene: Humanity’s 10 000 years of grace

MA 2005, FAOSTAT

Sources Millennium Ecosystem Assessment; www.census.gov.

Holocene: Humanity’s 10 000 years of grace

MA 2005, FAOSTAT

The quadruple squeeze

Rockström et al. 2009 Nature, 461 (24): 472-475

Moving out of the holocene

Our human future in the Anthropocene

• Feed nine billion people

• Reduce disaster risks

• Transition to low carbon societies

• Build healthy, resilient & productive cities

• Improve human health

• Adapt to a warmer world

• Ensure sustainable consumption & production

patterns

• Increase societal resilience to future threats

• Providing income and innovation opportunities

through transformations to global sustainability

• …….

Our human future in the Anthropocene

Our human future in the Anthropocene

The contribution from science

The transformation of science

• Solution-oriented

• Bridging disciplines

to solve complex

problems

• Global effort to

address global

challenges

Science for global sustainability

Future Earth = Global research

platform providing the knowledge

and support to accelerate our

transformations to a sustainable

world.

Future Earth = Global research platform

providing the knowledge and support to

accelerate our transformations to a

sustainable world.

• Inspired and created ground-breaking interdisciplinary science relevant to priority sustainability challenges Why

•Delivered key policy-relevant products to these challenges What

How •Pioneered approaches to the co-design and co-

production of solution-oriented global change science

Who • Enabled and mobilised capacities to work in these

new ways, across genders, geographies and generations

Future Earth Science Committee

South Africa’s contribution

Website: www.futureearth.org

National development Disaster management Communal livelihoods

National Development Planning: Water resources

Science and society understanding water resources

National scale: Urban water security

Strategic Water Source

Areas

8% land area provides 50%

of the surface water

Gross Value Added (R millions) Economic value

& population size

Population size

• Red/orange areas

– Collectively support

~50% of SA’s

population

– Contribute >60% of

national GVA

• Economic value vs

population size

disconnect

Outcomes and impacts

www.journeyofwater.co.za

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Be6b70yrTM

Flood

Sea storm

Fire

Science & society working to reduce disasters

Frequency of extreme events

Neumayer and Barthel (2010)

• Climate change will increase natural

hazards

• Ecosystem change is as important Nel et al. 2014. PLoS One.

#

Knysna

#

Sedgefield

#

Plettenberg Bay

#

George

#

Karatara

Level of fire susceptibility0 - 0.1

0.1 - 0.20.2 - 0.30.3 - 0.4

0.4 - 0.7

Urban areas

Level of fire susceptibility per mesozone

Findings

Escaped invasive alien trees

......increase fuel loads substantially

......use more water than indigenous

vegetation

http://www.fsc-watch.org

Large stands of cleared timber

plantations ...... decreased soil permeability from pine resin

.......permeability made worse with fire

Coastal hardening and catchment dams

Steep beach profile

Shallow beach profile ....alter sediment

dynamics

.......increase

beach erosion and

slope

Clearing invasive

alien trees

Restoring wetlands

Restoring foredunes

Project

alignment

Planning

support

US$ 4-million

100 full-time jobs Coordinating ecosystem-based management

Supporting local authorities

Communal rangelands: central to livestock production

Challenges: Alien plants invasion

Livestock: key assets for communal households Supply: milk, meat, manure, fuel services, income security, ceremonial services, etc.

Improving grazing livelihoods

Light invaded Uninvaded Dense invaded

Impacts of invasion: Stutterheim

Overlap of high-value grazing & wattle invasion

High grazing potential Wattle invasion

Districts area overlap Source: Scholes (1998) Source: Kotze, et al., (2010)

Application

• Government departments

• Water, Agriculture, Environment

• Grazing hotspots for agricultural conservation

purposes

• Prioritisation data for programmes

• National Land care, Working for Water

Thank you

Belinda Reyers

breyers@csir.co.za

Luthando Dziba

ldizba@csir.co.za

Ilse Kotzee

ikotzee@csir.co.za

Odirilwe Selomane

oselomane@csir.co.za