4 Future directions in Swiss research related to the human dimensions of global environmental change - A tentative summary

4.1 Internationally identified gaps in research and monitoring

This section summarises research and monitoring needs concerning the human dimensions of global environmental change research as identified by the international programmes and scientific and technical panels mentioned above in Chapter 3.

Monitoring

• monitoring and data collection of actual land use (=geographically referenced data for which land is being used for what purpose), requiring improved geographical information systems which can bring together land use data with socio-economic information. (The networks need to be fully integrated with those for freshwater.);
• monitoring social intervention;
• collection and evaluation as well as monitoring of data on effective educational and cultural policies to change life styles towards sustainable populations patterns, consumption control, and redistribution, methodologically, giving attention to developing new forms of data collection that will allow for regional and national differences in the management of resources and population regulation to be better understood and monitored;
• monitoring of (public) opinion as being set up by Global Omnibus Environmental Survey (GOES) and the IHDP Working Group on Perception, Assessment and Behaviour (PAGEC);
• monitoring of social systems: global social monitoring, including geographical data as far as possible to reflect individual affectedness and incorporating the existing achievements of GOES and PAGEC;
• monitoring quality of life: improving the lack of statistical information, taking into account increasing urbanisation and research on how the behaviour of individuals in one place influences the behaviour of others elsewhere etc.;
• Monitoring change and policy impacts on quality of life questions by scientific organisations.

Process studies and models

• modelling and scenario development of individual and social change and intervention planning;
• computer simulations to understand our economic dependence on natural ecosystem services and capital, and the interdependence between ecological and economic components of the system;
• new models in which population control is not simply a question of family planning but of economic, ecological, social and political planning; in which the wasteful use of resources is not simply a question of finding new substitutes but of reshaping affluent life styles and in which sustainability is seen not only as a global aggregate process but also as one having to do with sustainable livelihoods for a majority of local peoples;
• development of better global ecological and socio-economic modelling capabilities to allow us to see the range of possible outcomes of our current activities, especially the interrelated impacts of population, per capita resource use, and wealth distribution;
• direct observation and diagnostic models of land-cover dynamics, including: determining important land-cover changes and regions of consideration; direct measurement of regional and global land cover and land use; direct observations of land-cover change dynamics; analysing the spatial relations of land-cover change; observing the proximate causes of land-cover change; developing empirical diagnostic models;
• regional and global models on land use and land cover change as frameworks for integrative assessments: exploring existing regional and global models projecting land uses and land cover; creating a new structure for modelling land-use and land- cover change; extending the horizontal linkages and refining the vertical linkages; introducing water into the land-use and land-cover change projections; model validation and sensitivity analysis;
• development of land-use and land-cover classification systems; land-cover mapping; land-cover conversion mapping; developing socio-economic datasets;
• development of a scalar framework and rules for crossing and linking spatial scales in land use-land cover change research;
• Development and application of models for use outside of developed countries (e.g. to represent more explicitly market imperfections, institutional barriers, and traditional and informal sectors);
• Integrated assessment models, well reflecting the specific social and economic dynamics of the developing and transition economies (e.g. market imperfections, institutional barriers, or the operation of the informal sector in these countries).

In all cases it is recommended to model globally and adjust incentives accordingly.

Areas of Research

Land use and land cover change

• comparative case study analysis in land-use dynamics for model building and prediction: developing a global sampling and study framework; identification, description, and qualitative modelling of the role of key driving forces of land-use maintenance and change; assessing the dynamics of change and stability in systems of land use; analysing land-cover consequences.

Demographic and social dimensions of resource use

• research on the relations between global environmental change in natural resources and each of the following putative driving forces: production and consumption of goods and services, technology, demographics and health, institutional arrangements and organisations, international economic forces including trade and finance, societal conflicts, social organisation and cultural systems;
• research on the implications of this understanding of the relationship of global environmental change and human resource use about the organisation of human responses in order to monitor, adapt to, prevent or mitigate global environmental changes in natural resources;
• research on situations where demand (either subsistence or commercial) becomes large relative to the maximum sustainable yield of the resource, or where the regenerative capacity of the resource is relatively low, or where the incentives and restraints facing the exploiters of the resource are such as to induce them to value present gains much more highly than future gains;
• research on the interrelations between the substantial differences in vulnerability, wealth, capacity, resource endowment of countries and questions of equity as the costs of the damages, adaptation, and mitigation might be borne inequitably.

Industrial transformation

• research on the role of technology, institutions, spatial configurations of technologies, enterprises, and activities, the structure of production and consumption in industrial development and its relation to global environmental change;
• research on the perspectives to reduce the environmental impacts of industrial processes and products through technological innovations, through changes in the organisation of production and/or changes in strategies and policies of government actors, academics, financial institutions, and other economic actors, through changes in spatial distributions of production and consumption which relate to transport flows and technology diffusion, through structural changes in the composition of economic activities;
• research on possible realisations of these changes, taking into account changes in trade patterns, in consumption patterns, and in relative shares of capital, labour, and natural resources in production;
• research on linkages between technological, institutional, spatial and structural aspects of industrial transformation.

Technology

• addressing policies and institutions which promote access to (public domain and proprietary) scientific and technological information necessary to develop environmentally friendly systems of production, technological diversity and enhancing the technological capacity of developing countries; study of the social aspects of technology.

Energy

• research on the major institutional improvements in the management of the energy sector in developing countries (in the final analysis significant transfers of resources from North to South will also be required);
• designing policy instruments and institutions to address energy-related environmental problems.

Institutions

• addressing policies and institutions that promote access to (public domain and proprietary) scientific and technological information necessary to develop environmentally friendly systems of production;
• research on institutions, policies and instruments required by a sustainable development strategy;
• research on the environmental impacts of institutional change;
• research on the scope for, and barriers to, a transition to sustainable development strategies, including the impediments or barriers to the adoption of sustainable development strategies, due to the cultural, institutional, informational, and economic conditions, paying special attention to the origins of price distortions, policy failures, problems in law enforcement, poverty and inequality, and the restrictions on the mobility of human populations and resources imposed by current political arrangements;
• research on the institutions, policies and instruments required by a sustainable development strategy;
• research on the determinants of private decisions on the use of environmental resources, and the factors leading private individuals to ignore the environmental costs these decisions have for others now and in the future;
• research on the problem of transferability of models and propositions from one institutional level to another ("scaling") as well as on the interplay of and linkages among institutions both horizontally and vertically;
• further understanding on the legal dimensions of environmental change and interactions between civil society and public administration;
• research identifying the mechanisms whereby loops connecting phenomena such as the link between the issues of consumption in developed countries and population in developing countries are perpetuated. This means crossing both socio-political borders in the real world and crossing disciplinary borders in the sciences.

In all cases it is recommended that research be at a geographical or spatial level that is compatible with the environmental effects of interest. It is important that research be at a sufficiently disaggregated level to identify the often highly localised institutional and other causes of environmental degradation.

Perception, assessment, behaviour, quality of life

• important objects of future study in the area of perception and assessment include: mediated information about global change; personal knowledge systems; mental representations; the degree of awareness and concern; assignments of values; actual behaviour records; elites as models of behaviour; importance of co-variants; open-ended, modular design of research; unit of study and analysis; need for pilot studies and pre-tests; international collaboration in instrument construction;
• new intra- and interdisciplinary knowledge about nature and culture, physical flows of material and chemicals, allocation mechanisms on global (and other) scales, human values, and consumption patterns - essential for an understanding of how sustainability could be obtained;
• research on the understanding of material and non-material consumption patterns and the development of sustainable consumption patterns;
• research on the understanding how life styles emerge and change;
• research on local perceptions and assessments on environmental transformations especially in relation to the costs and benefits which people believe they will have to bear in changes of livelihood or life style. Also, their views on the relative advantages that other local, ethnic, national or international groups have in losing actual or potential benefits;
• research into the way in which environmental or developmental proposals are filtered through cognitive, philosophical, theological or other values and which may be entirely different in diverse social and national contexts;
• examination of the philosophical underpinnings of science, complementing empirical observation with a rethinking of our scientific world view (science as an instrument for mastering the biophysical universe rather than for co-habiting it; the deep cleavage between the natural and social sciences; disciplinary boundaries, especially in the social sciences, which are based on arbitrary divisions);
• research into social technology and social intervention planning.

Environmental security

• research on the link between environment and human security: Assessing impacts, vulnerability, and adaptation to global changes;
• research on the ecological impacts of large refugee movements, i.e. the environmental implication of large influxes of people for the receiving region and the possible resulting conflicts.

Policy Formation and Implementation

• formulation of laws and policies; designing policy instruments and institutions to address energy-related environmental problems; research on the political decision making process; interdependency between the implementation of mitigation and adaptation measures; implementation of regional and national agreements; subsidiarity and sustainability;
• research on the implications of world view (globalisation, growth policies, mass consumption; mobility, tourism; living standards; role of ideologies such as utilitarianism, individualism, communitarianism, collectivism etc.) for global environmental change.

Economic globalisation and global change

• international economic activities, trade, finance and their environmental and societal implications; impact of globalisation and North-South-relations on the environment;
• research on the interrelations between the substantial differences in vulnerability, wealth, capacity, resource endowment of countries and questions of equity.

Environmental economics

• national environmental accounting; analyses on the impacts of potential response strategies on Gross National Product, employment, inflation, competition in trade (and other questions of public interest).

Ethical Dimension

• Research into the ethical dimension of global environmental change.

Tourism

• research into the impact of still increasing world-wide tourism on global environmental change and possible intervention models.

Transport

• research aiming at a better understanding of mobility; research into economics of transport systems; developing intermodality; research into system organisation and interpretability; integration of new technologies; assessment of transport policies.

Education

• priorities in the area of education include:
  • examining perceptions and attitudes transmitted in school curricula about the Earth system and desirable consumption patterns and life styles
  • programmes that have successfully incorporated environmental and population questions into school and university curricula
  • analysing gender differences in schooling which may lead to differential perceptions and attitudes between men and women towards population and resource use
  • understanding the links between educational systems and social, ethnic, political and governmental groups with different perceptions and attitudes towards development and environment policies
  • recovering useful traditional knowledge and technologies transmitted through informal education, especially in the fields of agronomy, botany, zoology and related subjects, and mechanisms to blend it with new technologies and give its widespread use.

Capacity Building

• launch ing of an international "capacity" audit to assess the present state of capacity for environmentally tolerant development in every country which will be more comprehensive than preceding audits, including indigenous expertise, extenting to all the relevant sciences, and covering people as well as institutions and organisations.

Other important needs applying to all research areas include: the integration of the conceptual and methodological perspectives of the natural and social sciences to explain global environmental changes in natural resources; the enhancement of multidisciplinary co-operation (especially by strengthening the social science and economics components of existing institutes and networks) and the dissemination of knowledge (North-South, South-South, East-West).

4.2 Future directions in Swiss research

4.2.1 Encouraging global environmental change research in the social sciences and humanities

Major research needs have been identified by the IHDP and various scientific and technical panels so far. But as the material collected in this report shows, the social sciences and the humanities need special attention to encourage and foster their contributions to the understanding of the human dimension of global environmental change. Research into the human dimensions of global environmental change has not reached its full potential so far (Section 1.2). Social-scientific and humanities' research yet has to take its share in the scientific responsibility in understanding the different impacts of human beings on global environmental change and vice versa.

As the discussion has been started by the natural sciences, the natural sciences still heavily influence the setting of the global change research agenda. The International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP) itself is a reflex of this circumstance (Section 1.3). As its task is to complement the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), the IHDP worked mainly towards their research questions so far. Its questions tend to focus on human beings and their activities as major human driving forces of global environmental change. Aspects such as human beings perceiving and valuing their environment, the ethical dimension, human beings as carriers of responsive action as well as human beings and their activities as affected by global environmental change tend to get neglected.

The social sciences and humanities themselves have to take a more active part in the shaping of national and international research agendas. For any science plan dealing with the human dimensions of global environmental change should focus on themes or problems that are not only of obvious and central relevance to the international effort to understand global environmental change but which are also sufficiently central to basic concerns of the social sciences and the humanities to be capable of raising the interest of social scientists and scholars from the humanities on an ongoing systematic basis and continuing epistemological curiosity. Also, the topics must be tractable or ripe for study during the near future in both analytical and empirical terms. All these considerations are critical to the success of any national and international research plan incorporating the human dimensions of global environmental change.

Swiss contributions to the IHDP

As regards possible Swiss contributions to such an international research programme, two questions will have to be addressed:

• How can social scientific and the humanities' research on global environmental change be strengthened a) in Switzerland and b) by making a strong Swiss contribution to the further global development of the IHDP?
• How can research not yet covered by fully established IHDP-core projects or not yet addressed by IHDP be encouraged and co-ordinated?

As concerns the first question, there obviously needs to be a fuller awareness within the social scientific and humanities' research community. There are vital questions to be addressed on the understanding and responding to global environmental change which fall into their competence. The social sciences and the humanities thus would have to take fuller account not only of the social environment but also of processes and changes in the natural environment (such as climate change, ozone depletion, loss of biodiversity).To create such a heightened awareness and to encourage already ongoing research the communication and dialogue between the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP) and the Swiss research community need to be intensified. This would entail two aspects:

• the diffusion of IHDP information and research concepts into the research community should be mediated and assisted so that researchers learn about the aims of the international programme on the one hand, but can also enter into a feedback process concerning the formulation of future research projects. This would also entail the organisation of fora of discussion and symposiums as well as providing the human dimensions contributions to various existing publications such as the ProClim- Flash or the Global Change Abstracts;
• the relevant project information should be compiled and regularly included into the ProClim- database just as their counterparts studying physical or biogeochemical processes. This would assist the strengthening of the human dimensions component in ProClim-'s work. This in turn would be of important service to the IHDP and its Swiss National Committee by rendering detailed information on the contribution of the Swiss research community to global environmental change research considering the human dimensions.

The need of a mediating position

One might envision, therefore, the creation of a position whose task would be to build up the human dimension part of the ProClim-InfoSystem. This would involve close contact to the respective research community as well as to IHDP activities to encourage and enable mutual communication. The position would serve as a mediator between the global and the local research community, creating better awareness on both sides and preparing the researchers for investigating topics of global environmental relevance. By working closely together with the Swiss National IHDP-Committee the position would strengthen the Committee and, thereby, also strengthen the work of IHDP. Moreover the set-up of the data gathered in the ProClim- InfoSystem could serve as an example for other National Committees, and make a strong contribution to the management of international project data concerning the human dimensions of global environmental change in Switzerland.

The second question takes account of the presently transient situation of IHDP by pointing out two aspects:

• research in the projected IHDP core projects should be strengthened even if there are no Science/Research Plans yet approved;
• the presently open situation of IHDP and its concentration on Land Use and Land Cover Change and Industrial Transformation and Energy Use in its initial phase should not result in a neglect of research in Switzerland into the other topics identified. Research into questions of the Social and Demographic Dimensions of Resource Use, Perception, Assessment and Behaviour, Institutions as well as Environmental Security should be further encouraged to help the social sciences and humanities establish a "tradition" of global environmental research.

The same holds true for the acceptance of different methodological approaches or the study of questions of collective social intervention. The methodological approaches assigned priority by the IHDP so far - mostly for pragmatical reasons - need to be sided by alternative approaches. The IHDP is well aware of this, too, and recognises the valuable effects of a richer variety of inputs and perspective to bring knowledge and insights from other traditions. (HDP 1996i, 14-15) In order for the IHDP to be able to draw on these kinds of approaches in later years, they have to be developed and worked on now. This would at the same time assist the building of a strong IHDP.

Building on areas of national strength

In shaping and strengthening its future role the Swiss National IHDP-Committee could follow the Dutch example by developing a research agenda which builds on the existing strengths of the Swiss research community with respect to the human dimensions of environmental change by concentrating on one broad "umbrella" theme which can cover various related in-depth themes. In this way, it may be possible to guarantee coherence, diversity and continuity. In view of available research potential and clear policy needs, it seems a feasible strategy to start with a cover theme which has a broad thematic and methodological perspective, and which can next be tested by promising case studies with high political relevance. (NL HDP 1995, 4)

As regards the above mentioned four aspects of human interaction regarding global environmental change (Section2.1), namely

• to human beings and their activities as major driving forces of global environmental change;
• to human beings and their activities as being affected by global environmental change;
• to human beings as perceiving and valuing the world around them;
• to human beings as carriers of responsive action,

the overall picture shows that the analysed social science and humanities' research in Switzerland addresses all aspects. The figures in Table 2 (Section 3.1) indicate, however, that the percentage of projects involving the study of Social Processes and Institutions (65.5%) and within this theme especially the study of Public Perception, Assessment and Behaviour (25.6%) rank highest. Switzerland also has quite an impressive performance as regards the study of Responsive Policy Formation and Implementation (34%) and the study of Major Human Driving Forces of global environmental change (32%). Switzerland could further strengthen research here and also build upon existing research into social intervention, its planning and monitoring, as well as research in the area of environment and development and capacity building.

Strengthening IHDP co-operation

The building on research areas of national strength should be accompanied by an increased effort towards the international integration of Swiss research. This would entail the fostering of a strong international integration of individual Swiss research activities of great excellence and recognition on the one hand but also an opening of strong national research programmes to the international research community to enable the creation of international "clusters" of research. This would be all the more important with regard to the International Human Dimensions Programme's (IHDP) plans to encourage such a direction and to foster it by offering help in international co-ordination.

The IHDP has expressed its hope and scientific interest to co-operate with the Swiss social science and humanities' research community not only because of their impressive scientific performance so far, but also because of Switzerland's substantial support of the IHDP in the past. It would, therefore, seem to be a good strategy to have as many Swiss representatives in the future IHDP Working Groups as possible.

To promote the fostering of research into the human dimensions of global environmental change in Switzerland one might also discuss further institutional arrangements such as the establishment of centres of competence for the environment.

4.2.2 Research and monitoring needs

As in Parts I and II of this study, this report provides background information and analysis of ongoing Swiss research activities. It is not intended to develop specific recommendations on future research and monitoring priorities. Nonetheless, while preparing the report, a number of research and monitoring needs were identified by the author or by the members of the Advisory Group for this report - in many cases, from existing sources - as being of high priority for research into the human dimensions of global environmental change. These research and monitoring needs have been collected and are summarised here merely as input for future efforts to identify Swiss research priorities. As such, the following list is by no means comprehensive and should not be regarded as recommended research priorities.

Research needs

• research on institutions and policy questions related to sustainable development which are invoked in the context of the priority issues;
• research not mainly concentrated on human beings as driving global change but also addressing questions of social technology, social intervention etc.;
• development of various kinds of social intervention models and their testing in different countries;
• research into the development of societal-nature relations over time to enable the systematic study of change;
• modelling and scenario development of individual and collective changes in behaviour;
• standardised classification of land use and land cover;
• research on the institutional drivers of changes in patterns of land uses;
• research on human responses to change in land cover;
• research on difference in the success of various efforts to establish regimes to protect biodiversity;
• integrated assessments of global change impacts on the full range of direct and indirect effects of global environmental change on Switzerland itself;
• encouragement of alternative methodological approaches.

Monitoring needs

• monitoring and data collection of key parameters of major human driving forces such as land-use and degradation, greenhouse gas emissions, the release of pollutants into air, water and soil, etc.;
• data collection and monitoring on public environmental opinion, life styles, environmental behaviour, consumption patterns etc. as conceptualised by the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP) through its Working Groups on Public Assessment and Behaviour (PAGEC) and the Global Omnibus Environmental Survey (GOES);
• monitoring of social changes;
• collection and further monitoring of data collected within the context of the National Research Programmes and the Priority Programme Environment to serve as a common source for the national and international research community.

Collaboration, co-ordination and consistent funding

Monitoring requires a commitment to long-term funding that cannot be guaranteed through normal project funding. At the Swiss level, there is a need for better collaboration between individual researchers and the administration to: (i) identify monitoring needs and priorities (such as those stemming from international environmental agreements); (ii) identify and develop indicators; (iii) ensure adequate funding for priority monitoring activities that cannot be guaranteed through normal project funding; (iv) encourage Swiss participation in international monitoring activities; and (v) facilitate efficient institutional arrangements to support monitoring activities. (ProClim- & IGBP National Committee 1996, 28)

Improved data access

Even the best data series cannot contribute to a better understanding of global change if they are not readily accessible. Data from federal monitoring programmes are easily accessible, but links between databases are poorly developed. Data collected in the framework of co-ordinated research programmes and by individual scientists are disseminated in a variety of ways that are generally not co-ordinated. (ProClim- & IGBP National Committee 1996, 29)

4.3 Next steps

ProClim- plans to facilitate a inputs from the scientific community to the development of an environmental research strategy to be outlined by the Swiss Science Council as noted above (Section 1.1) on the key research needed to address global and regional environmental problems in the coming decades.

The Conference of the Scientific Academies (CASS) and ProClim- (in co-operation with the Commission on Climate and Atmosphere Research and the Swiss National Committees for the IGBP and the IHDP) then plan to develop a consensus vision of global change research priorities for Switzerland by soliciting and synthesising inputs from the Swiss scientific community. All principle investigators in the ProClim- InfoSystem who conduct global change research and other interested researchers have been invited to express their views on major needs, scientific challenges and priorities for Swiss research into sustainable development and global (and regional) change in the coming decades by mid-October 1996. The submissions will be evaluated and - along with other available information - synthesised in a series of brief statements on priorities for Swiss global change research. This task will be conducted by a series of ad hoc synthesis groups on specific topics. Their statements will be ready by the beginning of 1997, and will be available for comment at that time. A ProClim- Forum is planned for spring 1997 to allow the scientific community, funding agencies, policy makers and other interested parties to discuss and refine the results of this exercise.

Table of contents

Foreword Executive Summary 1. Purpose of the report and research framework 2. International research and monitoring activities 3. Ongoing Swiss research and monitoring activities 4. Future directions in Swiss research related to the human dimensions of global environmental change - A tentative summary References Annexes