Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Global drivers
Unwanted outcomes
Climate
• global warning
• sea level rise
• oods, droughts
• climate refugees
Changed C/N cycles and rising
atmospheric GHG concentration
Increasing antibiotic resistance
Ecosystem
• declining agriculture
and sheries
• ocean acidication
• reduced access to
fresh water
Increasing connectivity
(economic, social, ecological)
Human health
• emerging pandemics
• resurgent existing
diseases
• famines
• other mortality
events
Rising human numbers and
urbanization
Increasing per capita
resource use
Nuclear proliferation
Economic
• emerging shocks
• nancial market
shocks
• trade disruption
• increased correlation
of risk
International terrorism
Figure 7.4
Unwanted social outcomes resulting from the interactive effects of both
biophysical and social drivers in the Earth System
Source: Folke, 2011
A recent analysis of this food crisis has explored how the types of factors
shown
Figure 7.4
operated in that crisis (Biggs et al., 2011). The oil price spike of
2007-08 acted as a strong, underlying global driver and trigger, as oil-based fuels
underpin much of the global food system from production to packaging, transport
and marketing. However, other drivers and initial responses to the rising prices
compounded the crisis. Climate change-related drivers played an important role
in two ways. First, the drought in Australia reduced food exports, and in a future
global food system on the edge of undersupply, a small drop in Australian output
could have global implications. Second, a significant switch away from food
and towards biofuel production in the American agricultural sector also likely
contributed to the rapid rise in food prices. Responses to the price rises in some
countries, such as the grains export ban in Russia, may have also exacerbated the
situation.
An Australian example of the interacting stressors syndrome is the Great
Barrier Reef (GBR) (see also Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2013,
Chapter 5
in this
volume). The GBR is subject to a wide range of local and regional pressures,
ranging from the proximate (direct) pressures of fishing and tourism to the
regional-level pressure of sediment and nutrient runoff into the coastal seas from
the adjacent agricultural areas of North Queensland and the passage of large
merchant ships through the GBR (Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority,
