Award details

Quantifying Sustainable Systems

Reference	BBS/E/C/00005198
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor Andrew Whitmore
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors	Professor John Crawford
Institution	Rothamsted Research
Department	Rothamsted Research Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	2,177,096
Status	Completed
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/04/2012
End date	31/03/2017
Duration	59 months

Abstract

Existing approaches to sustainability do not integrate the interactions between aspects of sustainability well. Also, we need to address the sustainability of modern agriculture and the impact on it of climate change and assess the developments that will accrue from other projects undertaken by Rothamsted. We propose to adopt an ecosystem services approach (ES), including crop production, to develop methods to determine the trade-offs and synergies between services in agroecosystems, e.g. between yield and GHG emission and to quantify the overall sustainability of agricultural practices. Building on existing research, we will develop a mathematical framework to quantify, value and compare the provision of goods and environmental services. This project will liaise closely with others in the Rothamsted programmes (Delivering Sustainable Systems, 20:20 Wheat®, Designer Seeds and Carbon Capture), as well as with external research, to derive the necessary mechanistic understanding but also to obtain the data needed. We will quantify sustainability by first exploring exemplars and generalise later to other areas. Sustainable crop protection, including sustainable use of crop protection chemicals and the role of farmer choice, will be one of the key examplars. To make progress we need to address 4 major challenges: 1) trade-offs- optimising production and environment or provisioning and other services 2) valuation of all ES not just production 3) resilience - consistent delivery of all services 4) spatial and temporal balance - ensuring that services are balanced locally, regionally and globally, now and for the foreseeable future General Principle: A sustainable system, comprising multiple aims, is one in which no single aim is compromised by attainment of another and where perturbation, as a result of environmental or management change, results in either improvement or a rapid return to the initial state and not system failure.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Not funded via Committee
Research Topics	Crop Science, Plant Science
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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