Challenges of the Anthropocene epoch – supporting multi-focus research

International audienceWork on multiscale issues presents countless challenges that have been long attacked by GIScience researchers. Most results either concentrate on modeling or on data structures/database aspects. Solutions go either towards generalization (and/or virtualization of distinct scales) or towards linking entities of interest across scales. However, researchers seldom take into account the fact that multiscale scenarios are increasingly constructed cooperatively, and require distinct perspectives of the world. The combination of multiscale and multiple perspectives per scale constitutes what we call multifocus research. This paper presents our solution to these issues. It builds upon a specific database version model – the multiversion MVBD – which has already been successfully implemented in several geospatial scenarios, being extended here to support multi-focus research

Learning from the Anthropocene: Adaptive Epistemology and Complexity in Strategic Managerial Thinking

open access articleTurbulence experienced in the business and social realms resonates with turbulence unfolding throughout the biosphere, as a process of accelerating change at the stratigraphic scale termed the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene is understood as a multi‐dimensional limit point, one dimension of which concerns the limits to the lineal epistemology prevalent since the Age of the Enlightenment. This paper argues that future conditions necessitate the updating of a lineal epistemology through a transition towards resilience thinking that is both adaptive and ecosystemic. A management paradigm informed by the recognition of multiple equilibria states distinguished by thresholds, and incorporating adaptive and resilience thinking is considered. This paradigm is thought to enhance flexibility and the capacity to absorb influences without crossing thresholds into alternate stable, but less desirable, states. One consequence is that evaluations of success may change, and these changes are considered and explored as likely on‐going challenges businesses must grapple with into the future

Supporting Water Governance and Climate Change Adaptation Through Systemic Praxis

Understanding and working with multiple perspectives on issues of change is an essential part of managing “common pool” water resources. In uncertain and complex situations arising from changes in human settlements and climate, both lives and livelihoods can be at stake. One individual’s or group’s choices can adversely affect others and traditional processes of participation and legislation are often inadequate. Discourse on environmental law recognises that noncompliance with legislation is associated with weak national governance structures. A systemic approach to managing change is required to appreciate interconnections among issues at various levels and to mediate different stakeholdings. Yet there are no blueprints for effecting systemic transformations of complex situations. This paper explores how the implementation of climate change adaptation can be supported when grounded in situations, such as water governance. It draws on the authors’ experiences of systemic praxis in the water sector

Applying the Mandala of Health in the Anthropocene

Issue addressed: The Anthropocene is a new era in which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment. The negative impact humans have on the earth\u27s systems pose significant threats to human health. Health promotion is a discipline well placed to respond to planetary health challenges of the Anthropocene. The overarching aim of this paper is to describe the elements of 21st century socio‐ecological health and apply them in a revised socio‐ecological framework for health promotion.Methods: A qualitative description study design was employed to explore the significance of ecological and cultural determinants of health and review models in contemporary health promotion to inform the development of a revised Mandala of Health. Purposeful sampling was used to recruit ten experts from across Australia including academics and practitioners working at the nexus of health promotion, environmental management and sustainability. Data were analysed thematically, using deductive and inductive methods.Results: A revised Mandala of Health could address existing gaps in health promotion theory and practice. Ecological and cultural determinants of health were considered essential components of health promotion that is often lacking in socio‐ecological frameworks. Indigenous Knowledge Systems were considered immensely important when addressing ecological and cultural determinants of health.Conclusions: A revised Mandala of Health could encourage development of contemporary health models, assisting health promotion to evolve with the health and environmental issues of the Anthropocene. This study highlights the need for more theoretical development and empirical research regarding ecological and cultural determinants of health in a health promotion context.So what?: In the context of the Anthropocene, this study highlights the potential gaps in health promotion theory and practice in terms of the natural environment and health and emphasises the need of a paradigm shift to embed ecological and cultural determinants with other determinants of health

Anthropocene and Design. The role of design in the emerging territorial scenarios of concemporary ruins in the Anthropocene epoch

In recent times, the influence of human behaviour on Earth's atmosphere is so significant to suggest the identification of the beginning of a distinct new geological Epoch, named with the term Anthropocene. It would be the last Epoch of the current Quaternary Period (starting 2.58 million years ago), following the current Holocene Epoch (starting 11.700 years ago). Anthropocene could also be read as a cultural concept, related to philosophy, literature and arts; a concept with which Humanities deal with complex questions about the relation between human beings, artefacts, nature and time. As a consequence, this relationship becomes relevant concerning the existing built environment. In fact, Contemporary Ruins (hereby meant as the dismissed, incomplete, and abandoned heritage built less than a century ago) are increasingly recognized as a growing phenomenon, both in terms of increasing numbers of reported case studies, and their rising territorial extensions. Moreover, in the past decades, dismissed buildings where easily reabsorbed through a process of re-functionalization, conversion of use, or physiologically assimilated by nature. Nowadays, these phenomena become visible. These tangible evidences of traumatic events, failures, and transformations, often remain as evident presences, because they are made up of new materials, built in contexts that don’t have the ability to re-metabolize them or because of their huge and growing territorial dimensions. Historically, Design represented the creative engine that generated tools, products, spaces, etc. It was an activity carried on only by few and skilled experts. Today, it seems assuming another direction, a more spread and expanded character. The so-called ‘diffuse design’ refers to design activities undertaken by a growing number of individuals. These actions often lead to large transformations, bringing about big social changes. Apparently, design could be seen as a shared attitude. This attitude is so widespread, expanded and shared that becomes part of the aforementioned cultural model that deals with the fundamental relationships between human beings, nature and time. Accordingly with the three topics outlined, we propose an exploratory paper with the aim to investigate the role of design attitude in the process of intervention on new fragile and complex territorial scenarios due to the growing dimensions of Contemporary Ruins. A critical reflection, supported by the cultural framework of Antropocene’s concept, in which natural elements and results of human activity become elements of the same scenario, complex as homogeneous, on which design actions can be activated, with the involvement of a new designing society

Land system science and sustainable development of the earth system: A global land project perspective

Land systems are the result of human interactions with the natural environment. Understanding the drivers, state, trends and impacts of different land systems on social and natural processes helps to reveal how changes in the land system affect the functioning of the socio-ecological system as a whole and the tradeoff these changes may represent. The Global Land Project has led advances by synthesizing land systems research across different scales and providing concepts to further understand the feedbacks between social-and environmental systems, between urban and rural environments and between distant world regions. Land system science has moved from a focus on observation of change and understanding the drivers of these changes to a focus on using this understanding to design sustainable transformations through stakeholder engagement and through the concept of land governance. As land use can be seen as the largest geo-engineering project in which mankind has engaged, land system science can act as a platform for integration of insights from different disciplines and for translation of knowledge into action

Sense of Place in the Anthropocene: A students-teaching-students course

Contemporary environmental education is tasked with the acknowledgement of the Anthropocene - an informal but ubiquitous term for the current geological epoch which arose from anthropogenic changes to the Earth system - and its accompanying socio-ecological implications. Sense of Place can be a hybridized tool of personal agency and global awareness for this task. Through the creation, execution and reflection of a 14-student students-teaching-students (STS) course at the University of Vermont in the Spring of 2019, Giannina Gaspero-Beckstrom and Ella Mighell aimed to facilitate a peer-to-peer learning environment that addressed sense of place, social justice and community engagement. The students-teaching-students framework is an alternative educational approach that supports the values and practices of the University of Vermont’s Environmental Program, as well as an intentional breakdown of the hierarchical knowledge paradigm. Using alternative pedagogies (predominately critical and place-based), we attempted to facilitate meaningful learning through creative expression, experiential education, community dialogue and personal reflection. Our intention with this was to encourage awareness and action

Laudato si\u27 - establishing local approaches for global ecological conversion

In 2017 the Aotearoa Community Development Association (ACDA) and the International Association for Community Development (IACD) held a conference, Sustainably yours: Community development and a sustainably just future, in Auckland where I presented a paper titled “Community development – The ‘missing ingredient’ in striving for sustainability”. That paper examined the United Nations Agenda 2030 (2015) and, in particular, the associated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This paper will explore a further significant document, also released in 2015, the encyclical (letter) by Pope Francis, Laudato si’: On care for our common home. The paper starts with some history of the Pope’s work, moves on to provide an overview of the areas Laudato si’ encompasses, analyses some of the responses it has attained, and then concludes with a review of how and where community development theory and processes fit with the document

The Mission of Early Childhood Education in the Anthropocene

During the last century, the human way of life has begun to transgress many of the Earth’s biophysical boundaries in an alarming way. The consequences of this are more dramatic and long lasting than ever before. Many researchers even argue that humanity has created a new geological epoch, which they call Anthropocene. Education, even in early childhood (EC), is often presented as a remedy for these complex problems. Yet, how can anyone prepare young children to deal with such tremendous changes? The primary aim of our study is to define and outline what the mission of early childhood education (ECE) might be in the epoch of the Anthropocene. Through a comprehensive review of the literature, we have tried to find answers about how the Anthropocene could be addressed in ECE. We have searched for answers in the natural science literature, policy documents, educational research articles and philosophy, and discuss the various standpoints we have identified. We argue that the Anthropocene demands a new, more authentic education; a change towards a more holistic, transformative, sustainability-oriented approach. At the same time, children, as always, have a right to a safe, positive and encouraging childhood