Why 'Future Earth' needs lake sediment studies
Lake sediment records can provide time-series of data that give long term perspectives for complex socio-ecological systems
Abstract
The new ‘Future Earth’ Framework and International Council of Science (ICSU) Grand Challenges highlight the need to combine environmental and complexity sciences. An improved understanding of trajectories, interactions, fast and slow processes, alternate steady states and thresholds in key natural and social phenomena are vital to the design of sustainable management strategies.
Lake sediment records can provide highly resolved time-series of data that give essential long term perspectives for complex socio-ecological systems, especially at regional scales. This means that these records have important roles in addressing the ‘Future Earth’ agenda, especially for ‘Forecasting’, ‘Observing’ and ‘Confining’ environmental change within the proposed interdisciplinary themes of Dynamic Planet and Global Development.
This work was supported by the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) programme
Citation
Dearing, J.A., Why ‘Future Earth’ needs lake sediment studies, Journal of Paleolimnology, vol.49, issue3, pp.537-545, 2013