Assessing health, livelihoods, ecosystem services and poverty alleviation in populous deltas
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Oxford
Department Name: Geography - SoGE
Abstract
Delta regions are probably the most vulnerable type of coastal environment and their ecosystem services face multiple stresses in the coming decades. These stresses include, amongst others, local drivers due to land subsidence, population growth and urbanisation within the deltas, regional drivers due to changes in catchment management (e.g. upstream land use and dam construction), and global climate change impacts such as sea-level rise.The ecosystem services of river deltas support high population densities, estimated at over 500 million people globally, with particular concentrations in Southern and Eastern Asia and Africa. A large proportion of these people experience extremes of poverty and are severely exposed to vulnerability from environmental and ecological stress and degradation. In areas close to or below the poverty boundary, both subsistence and cash elements of the economy tend to rely disproportionately heavily on ecosystem services which underpin livelihoods.Understanding how to sustainably manage the ecosystem services in delta regions and thus improve health and reduce poverty and vulnerability requires consideration of all these stresses and their complex interaction. This proposal aims to develop methods to understand and characterise the key drivers of change in ecosystem services that affect the environment and economic status in the world's populous deltas. This will be done through analysis of the evolving role of ecosystem services, exploring the implications of changes for the livelihoods of delta residents, and developing management and policy options that will be beneficial now and in the future in the face of the large uncertainties of the next few decades and beyond.The extensive coastal fringe of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta within Bangladesh has been selected as the pilot study area for this work. This is because Bangladesh is almost entirely located on one of the world's largest and most dynamic deltas. It is characterised by densely populated coastal lowlands with significant poverty, supported to a large extent by natural ecosystems such as the Sunderbahns (the largest mangrove forest in the world). It is under severe development pressure due to many growing cities, eg Khulna and the capital, Dhaka.At present the importance of ecosystems services to poverty and livelihoods is poorly understood. This is due to due to the complexity of interactions between physical drivers, environmental pressures and the human responses to stresses and the resultant impacts on ecosystems. Government policy rarely takes up the ecosystems services perspective and as a result an holistic overview of their value is often overlooked.This project aims to address this gap by providing policy makers with the knowledge and tools to enable them to evaluate the effects of policy decisions on people's livelihoods. This will be done by creating a holistic approach to formally evaluating ecosystems services and poverty in the context of changes such as subsidence and sea level rise, land degradation and population pressure in delta regions. This will be tested and applied in coastal Bangladesh and tested conceptually in other populous deltas.
Planned Impact
See lead proposal
Organisations
Publications
Edmunds WM
(2015)
A review of arsenic and its impacts in groundwater of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna delta, Bangladesh.
in Environmental science. Processes & impacts
Futter M N
Modelling Hydrology in Himalayan Catchments using the PERSIST model
in environmental science: Process and Impacts
Futter MN
(2015)
Rainfall runoff modelling of the Upper Ganga and Brahmaputra basins using PERSiST.
in Environmental science. Processes & impacts
Jin L
(2015)
Assessing the impacts of climate change and socio-economic changes on flow and phosphorus flux in the Ganga river system.
in Environmental science. Processes & impacts
Sharma BM
(2016)
Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in river and ground/drinking water of the Ganges River basin: Emissions and implications for human exposure.
in Environmental pollution (Barking, Essex : 1987)
Whitehead PG
(2015)
Impacts of climate change and socio-economic scenarios on flow and water quality of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna (GBM) river systems: low flow and flood statistics.
in Environmental science. Processes & impacts
Whitehead PG
(2015)
Dynamic modeling of the Ganga river system: impacts of future climate and socio-economic change on flows and nitrogen fluxes in India and Bangladesh.
in Environmental science. Processes & impacts
Description | This Oxford component of the ESPA Deltas project is concerned with 4 aspects of the project, these being 1) the development of scenarios for the overall programme 2) the application of a hydrological model for the whole Ganga, Brahmaputra and Megna Catchments and the generation of climate driven water flows into Bangladesh 3) the assessment of water quality (particularly nutrients) moving down the Ganges and Brahmaputra into Bangladesh and 4( assisting with the development of an overall systems model to integrate all the ecosystem services and poverty alleviation. Progress has been moving forward on all fronts with the production of a draft scenarios paper in collaboration with co authors in Bangladesh and the UK. The hydrological model has been set up, calibrated and validated. A preliminary set of climate scenarios from the Met Office Hadley Model have been run through the model to generate flows entering Bangladesh. Preliminary results suggest increased annual total water flows, but increased drought in the dry periods. This will create problems for trans-boundary water management especially if India increases water irrigation and if current plans for water transfers from the Brahmaputra to the Ganga go ahead. Water quality data is sparse for the upstream rivers but annual water chemistry data suggests low nutrient levels at the moment , but this will change with changing climate driven flows and with water transfer flows. Further data is being sought from different agencies. The issue of arsenic and other potential pollutants are being reviewed in the project and a paper is currently being produced to review this issue. An integrated model strategy has been evaluated and a key future task will be to turn the scenario strategy into quantitative time series to evaluate ecosystem change. |
Exploitation Route | Exploitation in schools General Public papers are being planned for both conferences and journals. presentations to international meetings and internal meetings Teaching of Oxford MSc students in the Water Science and Policy MSc at Oxford see http://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/graduate/msc-wspm/ Linkage with with NERC Macronutrient Cycles Programme follow @mncycles see http://macronutrient-cycles.ouce.ox.ac.uk/ |
Sectors | Chemicals,Communities and Social Services/Policy,Environment |
URL | http://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/staff/pwhitehead.html |
Description | Finding being used by the Bangladesh Government to assess alternative policies for water and environmental management. Impacts of climate change could be significant with increased flooding and extended periods of drought. Most importantly new plans by India for large-scale water transfers upstream could have a massive effect. |
Sector | Education,Environment |
Impact Types | Economic,Policy & public services |