University of Southampton researchers are pioneering a new way of measuring and monitoring the impact of industrial and agricultural development on the environment.
Working in collaboration with East China Normal University, the Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology and the University of Dundee, the team has created the world's first long-term record of ecosystem health, which examines the past condition of environmental resources in China's Yangtze basin region, and helps develop forecasts for the future.
"We have examined what effect modern intensive farming techniques have had on 'ecosystem services' – things like food, fuel, soil and clean water – in the Yangtze basin area. From this we get an overview of the condition of these resources, which are essential for the survival of local communities," says lead researcher Professor John Dearing from the University of Southampton.
The team drilled core samples at two lakes in the region, west of Shanghai, and have made detailed studies of the sediment they retrieved.
Professor Dearing explains, "The data we have compiled came from the analysis of microfossils, geo-chemistry, mineral magnetism, and sediment accumulation rates. These different analyses give us clues about the past health of the environment – for example, pollen samples tell us about the diversity of plant species at a given time, while metal content can be used to measure air quality. By bringing all the information together, we have been able to track the condition of environmental resources over a 200 year period."
In addition, researchers have examined official statistical records and climate models to give trends on land use, population, gross domestic product (GDP), temperature and precipitation. By comparing these statistics with the core sample data they have seen that as GDP in the Yangtze region increased sharply in the 1970s, the quality of ecosystem services suffered a downward trend. Improved environmental regulation and policies encouraged a partial stabilisation in the 1980s, but the downward trend continued sharply in the 1990s and beyond. The study findings have been published in the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1.
Professor Dearing comments, "Intensive agriculture has lifted many Chinese rural communities out of poverty in the last 30 years, but irrigation, mechanisation and fertilisers that came with it have degraded soils badly and there is already evidence of declining water quality.
"Economic development and an increase in regional wealth are clear trade-offs for the decline in ecosystem services. However, in the long-term, this decline will be a threat to local livelihoods and could reach a 'tipping point', becoming irreversible.
"Financial indexes, like the FTSE 100 or Dow Jones, are used to monitor the health of an economy, and this project has led us to consider that palaeoecological records could provide the basis for a regional 'ecosystem service index', monitoring the health of a region's environment."
Where suitable, researchers hope to use the technique they have developed in China for other areas of the world, with the aim of helping policymakers to prioritise the most urgent environmental problems and identify which strategies work best to tackle them.
This £250,000 project is part of the Ecosystem Services and Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) programme funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, Department for International Development and Economic and Social Research Council to the universities of Southampton, Dundee and Durham: http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/programmes/espa/.
ESPA is a programme accredited under the Living With Environmental Change partnership: http://www.lwec.org.uk.
Additional funding was from the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme Past Global Changes, National Natural Science Fund of China, the National Basic Research Program of China and the National Major Projects on Control and Rectification of Water Body Pollution.
Notes to Editors:
1) To read the full research paper, 'Extending the timescale and range of ecosystem services through paleoenvironmental analyses, exemplified in the lower Yangtze basin,' visit: http://intl.pnas.org/content/109/18/E1111.full.pdf+html
2) The University of Southampton is celebrating its 60th anniversary during 2012.
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II granted the Royal Charter that enabled the University of Southampton to award its own degrees in the early weeks of her reign in 1952
In the six decades to follow, Southampton has risen to become one of the leading universities in the UK with a global reputation for innovation through academic excellence and world-leading research.
This year, the University's reputation continues to grow with the recent awarding of a Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education in recognition of Southampton's long-standing expertise in performance sports engineering. http://www.southampton.ac.uk/60
3) Researchers at the University of Southampton are about to embark on two international studies to improve the lives of more than one billion people who live in poverty around the world. The University will be leading two out of the three international consortium research projects funded by a £40.5m Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) programme, following a world-wide competition that attracted over 320 bids. For more information: http://www.southampton.ac.uk/mediacentre/news/2012/apr/12_65.shtml
4) For further information about partner universities:
East China Normal University http://www.ecnu.edu.cn/english/
Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology http://english.niglas.cas.cn/au/bi/
University of Dundee http://www.dundee.ac.uk/
About the University of Dundee: The University of Dundee has an international reputation for excellence across a range of disciplines including science, medicine, engineering and art and was voted number one in this year's Times Higher Education Student Experience Survey.
The calibre of research at Dundee is high, with 95% of staff working in areas of national or international excellence. The University ranks in the UK's top three for research income per capita and in the top 20 for research income.
University of Durham http://www.dur.ac.uk/
About Durham University: Durham University is a world top-100 university with a global reputation and performance in research and education. The most recent UK league tables place Durham in the top echelon of British universities academically. Durham is ranked in the top 3 UK universities in the influential Sunday Times University Guide 2012; is 26th in the world for the impact of its research (THE citations ratings) and 15th in the world for the employability of its students by blue-chip companies world wide. We are a residential Collegiate University: England's third oldest university and at our heart is a medieval UNESCO World Heritage Site, jointly owned with Durham Cathedral. Durham has accepted an invitation to join the Russell Group of leading research-intensive UK universities.
5) Living With Environmental Change (LWEC) http://www.lwec.org.uk
LWEC represents an unprecedented partnership of organisations funding, undertaking and using environmental research, including the Research Councils, government departments, devolved administrations and delivery agencies. The ten-year initiative will connect world-leading natural, engineering, economic, social, medical, cultural, arts, and humanities researchers with policy-makers, business, the public, and other key stakeholders.
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences