Environmental

Systems and
Societies (ESS)
DP1
 Syllabus Foundations
of ESS

Human
Ecosystems
Systems and
and Ecology
Resource use

Climate
Biodiversity
Change and
and
Energy
Conservation
Production

Water, Food
Atmospheric
Production
systems and
systems and
societies
societies

Soil systems
and societies

2 16-Aug-21 Sara Noor Ehsan

 First Unit

Chapter 1: Foundations of ESS

1.1 Environmental Value Systems

1.2 Systems and Models

1.3 Energy and Equilibria

1.4 Sustainability

1.5 Humans and Pollution

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Foundations of ESS
1.4. Sustainability
 Significant Ideas
• All systems can be viewed through the lens of sustainability.
• Sustainable development meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
• Environmental indicators and ecological footprints can be used to assess
sustainability.
• Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA’s) play an important role in
sustainable development.

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 Knowledge and Understanding
• Define the terms; sustainability, natural capital, natural income,
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), and ecological footprint (EF)
• Give examples of both goods and services that ecosystems provide
• List & explain factors that may be used as environmental indicators of
sustainability
• Discuss the importance of the Millennium Development Goals
• Outline the EIA process
• Discuss how an EF indicates the sustainability of a population

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 Applications of this topic

• Explain the relationship between natural capital, natural income, and

sustainability.
• Discuss the value of ecosystem services to a society.
• Discuss how environmental indicators can be used to evaluate the progress of
a project to increase sustainability, eg Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.
• Evaluate the use of EIA’s
• Explain the relationship between ecological footprint (EF) and sustainability.

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 What is sustainability?
• The ability to maintained at a certain rate or level.
• All living things depend either directly or indirectly on Earth’s resources,
therefore we can get more specific and state that sustainability means that we
are able to maintain use of Earth’s resources as a rate that will prevent future
generations from running out.
• This has several key points
• Earth’s Resources are limited (finite amount of matter)
• It takes TIME for Earth’s resources to be replenished
• We can only use resources at a rate that will prevent their depletion

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 Sustainable Development
• The original definition of Sustainable Development came from the Rio Earth
Summit
• "Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising
the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Bruntland
Report for the World Commission on Environment and Development
(1992)

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 Important Vocabulary
• Natural Capital:  the source or stocks
of resources and services that are
derived from nature and can produce
sustainable natural income. (examples:
a forest, a kelp bed, mineral deposits,
fisheries, fertile soil)
• Natural Income: the goods and
services provided by the environment
(examples: timber, grain, erosion
prevention, oxygen, climate
regulation, water purification)

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 Where Are We Now? On July 28th we used up our
resources for 2022

Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity has exhausted nature’s
budget for the year. For the rest of the year, we are maintaining our ecological
deficit by drawing down local resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere.
This means that we are currently using future generations’ resources. Based on
current demand on Earth, we need 1.7 Earth’s to support humanity
This Concept is called Ecological Overshoot

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 How Do We Know How We are Doing?
• We can measure sustainability on a range of scales, from individuals, to local
communities, to global.
• Why is looking at these different scales important?
• Which scale will be most accurate (large or small)?
Small scale is more accurate but need global measure to have the whole picture.

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 If We Know This Why Don’t We Stop?

• Habits – it is hard to change

• Tragedy of the Commons – individuals act based on their own needs/wants
without consideration of who it will affect the whole group
• Do we have a value for soil? Water? Air?

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 Millennium Development Goals
• Presented at UN Millennium Summit in 2000
• 189 Nations signed the Declaration
• 8 Goals to be achieved by 2015:
• Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme Poverty & Hunger
• Goal 2: Universal Primary Education
• Goal 3: Gender Equality and Empower Women
• Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality
• Goal 5: Improve Maternal Healthcare
• Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
• Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability
• Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development

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 Some research on Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA)?

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 MEA

• It was funded by the UN and started in 2001. A four year research study of earths
natural resources.
• Research programme that focuses on how ecosystems have changed over the
last decade and predicts change that will happen
• Objective: “to assess the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-
being and the scientific basis for action needed to enhance the conservation and
sustainable use of those systems and their contribution to human well-being.
• Report states that natural resources(food, freshwater, fisheries, timber, air) are
being used in a way that degrades them, thereby making the usage
unsustainable in the longer run

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 • Key Factors include:
MEA
 60% of the worlds ecosystem have been degraded
 About 25% of the Earths land surface is now cultivated
 We use 40-50% of all available surface freshwater and water withdrawals
from underground sources have doubled over the past 40 years.
 Over 25% of all fish stocks are overharvested
 Since 1980, about 35% of the mangroves have been destroyed
 About 20% of corals have been lost in 20 years and another 20% degraded
 Nutrient pollution has led to eutrophication of waters and dead coastal zones
 Species extinction rates are now 100-1000 times above the background rate
 We have had more effect on the ecosystems of Earth in the last 50 years than
ever before

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 MEA
Recommendations included in the report:
Remove subsidies to agriculture, fisheries and energy sources that harm the
environment
Encourage landowners to manage property in ways that enhance the supply
of ecosystem services, such as carbon storage and generation of fresh water
Protect more areas from development, especially in oceans

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 MEA
General Findings:
• Humans are using natural resources unsustainably.
• 60% of the world’s ecosystems have been degraded
• This has resulted in a decrease of biodiversity on earth.
• Short term economic gains at expense of some social groups and the
environment
• The degradation of ecosystem services could grow significantly worse during
the first half of this century and is a barrier to achieving the Millennium
Development Goals.

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Environmental
Impact Assessment
 EIA

• An EIA is a report prepared BEFORE a development project or large change

in the way an area of land is used.
• Purpose:
• To aid in planning of development
• To understand the environmental impact that may occur from a project before it is
put into place
• To help determine ways to minimize the damage done to the environment

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 EIA process

• Conduct a baseline study – what is the environment like now

• Predict the positive and negative impacts of proposed development
• Possible impacts on human life and the environment
• Ways to reduce negative impacts
• Economic benefits and other benefits of the project

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 Steps to conduct an EIA
1. Screening
2. Scoping
3. Baseline study
4. Impact Assessment & Prediction
5. Impact Mitigation & Management
6. The EIA Report
7. Review & Licensing
8. Monitoring.

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 Case Study

Wyoming wind energy project, US

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 Case Study

Ashegoda wind farm, Ethiopia

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 Case Study

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 Case Study

Al Raha Beach development ,Abu Dhabi, UAE

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 Case Study

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 Case-Study

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 EIA- Generalized process flow

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 Criticism of EIA
• Advice can be ignored
• Baseline studies can be incomplete
• Lack of monitoring or review

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 Weakness of EIA
• Different standards in different countries
• Where is boundary of impact zone?
• Expensive!
• EIA = a model

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 EIA Summary
• Support the goals of environmental protection and sustainable development
• Integrate environmental protection and economic decisions at the earliest
stages of planning
• To predict environmental, social, economic and cultural consequences
• To mitigate any adverse impacts
• To provide involvement of the public and government agencies

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 Ecological Footprint
• The amount of land and water a given population requires to
sustainable provide all resources at the rate at which they are being
consumed.
• The space required to support all the inputs and outputs of a
population.
• Using this model, it is possible to estimate how much of the Earth (or
how many planet Earths) it would take to support humanity if
everybody followed a given lifestyle. Currently estimated at 1.7 planet
Earths.

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 Ecological Footprint
• When humanity's ecological resource demands exceed what nature can
supply, we reach ecological overshoot
• The effects: carbon-induced climate change, species extinction,
deforestation, dead coral reefs and the loss of groundwater
• The human footprint has more than tripled since 1960

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 Components of the Ecological Footprint
(six human activities that require space)

1. Growing Crops
2. Grazing Animals
3. Harvesting Timber
4. Catching Fish
5. Accommodating Infrastructure (housing, transportation systems,
industry, built up land…)
6. Absorbing Carbon Dioxide Emissions (burning fossil fuels)

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37 05/03/2023 Add a footer
 Ecological Footprint
How to increase
• greater reliance on fossil fuels
• increased use of technology and energy (but
technology can also reduce the footprint)
• high levels of imported resources (which have
high transport costs)
• large per capita production of carbon waste
(high energy use, fossil fuel use)
• large per capita consumption of food
• a meat-rich diet
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How to decrease
• reducing use of resources
• recycling resources
• reusing resources
• improving efficiency of resource use
• reducing amount of pollution produced
• transporting waste to other countries to deal with
• improving country to increase carrying capacity
• importing resources from other countries
• reducing population to reduce resource use
• using technology to increase carrying capacity
• using technology to intensify land
 Videos
https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=omtxRNOfXv4&ab_channel=SwissLearningExchange

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKF7ipyiez0&ab_channel=ScienceSauce

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_
ijbgNtdu9c&ab_channel=SwissLearningExchange
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8E_eQRliPU&ab_channel=TamimAlKuwari
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H07CjSGsl94&ab_channel=ScienceSauce
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFJLm8Xo5Ps&ab_channel=ScienceSauce
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN4bxv9nens&t=1s&ab_channel=DrMarkham

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 Thank you ! Any Questions?

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