Globalisation and Sustainable Development: Environmental Agendas

325 Pages·2007·18.06 MB·English

by  Vladimir F. Krapivin

Globalization and Sustainable Development
Environmental Agendas
Vladimir F. Krapivin and Costas A. Varotsos
Globalization and
Sustainable
Development
Environmental Agendas
Published in association with
£j Springer Praxis Publishing PRAXI
Chichester, UK
Professor Dr. Vladimir F. Krapivin
Institute of Radioengineering and Electronics
Russian Academy of Sciences
Moscow
Russia
Associate Professor Costas A. Varotsos
University of Athens
Department of Applied Physics
Laboratory of Upper Air
Athens
Greece
SPRINGER-PRAXIS BOOKS IN ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
SUBJECT ADVISORY EDITOR: John Mason B.Sc, M.Sc, Ph.D.
ISBN 978-3-540-70661-8 Springer Berlin Heidelberg New York
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Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgment and dedication xi
List of figures xiii
List of tables xv
List of abbreviations and acronyms xvii
About the authors xxv
Summary xxvii
1 Problems of globalization and sustainable development 1
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Globalization and trends in civilization development 4
1.3 Sustainable development 20
1.3.1 Formation of the sustainable development conception . . 23
1.3.2 Sustainable development and public health 28
1.3.3 Sustainable development and spiritual aspects of life ... 29
1.4 Global change: priorities 32
1.5 Global dynamics of ecosystems: natural and anthropogenic im
pacts 39
1.5.1 Introduction to the global ecodynamics theory 39
1.5.2 Present state of global ecosystems 43
1.5.3 Scenarios for possible evolution of global ecosystems. . . 49
1.5.4 Preliminary assessments and conclusions 51
1.6 Present global ecodynamics 52
1.6.1 Global demography 53
1.6.2 Consumption society: ecological restrictions 60
vi Contents
1.6.3 Freshwater problems 65
1.6.4 Energy production and consumption 69
1.6.5 Conflict, cooperation, and the global nature-society
system 77
1.7 Prospects for global energetics development in the context of
global ecodynamics 79
1.7.1 Resources and ecodynamics: present state and future per
spectives 79
1.7.2 Energy and the greenhouse effect 82
1.7.3 Numerical modeling results 87
1.7.4 Preliminary conclusions 90
2 Globalization and biogeochemical cycles in the environment 93
2.1 Parametrization of global geochemical cycles 93
2.2 Interactivity of globalization processes and biogeochemical cycles 97
2.2.1 Anomalous phenomena in the environment and climate
change 97
2.2.2 Climate change, forests, and agriculture 103
2.2.3 Observational data 103
2.2.4 Climate formation factors 110
2.2.5 Inconsistency in climate change studies 118
2.3 Long-range transport of pollutants 123
2.4 Global energetics and biogeochemical cycles 130
3 Numerical modeling of the nature/society system 139
3.1 Global ecoinformatics as a science for nature/society system mod
eling 139
3.1.1 Development of ecoinformatics 140
3.1.2 The basic model of ecoinformatics 141
3.1.3 Global models 142
3.1.4 Survivability criterion 143
3.2 Problem of global change 146
3.3 A new information technology in global modeling 147
3.4 Global climate change modeling 149
3.4.1 Subjects of climate studies 151
3.4.2 Climate models 154
3.5 Biocomplexity problem in global ecoinformatics 157
3.5.1 Biocomplexity indicator 158
3.5.2 Model of nature/society system biocomplexity 160
3.5.3 Nature/society system modeling 162
3.5.4 Models in biocenology 163
3.6 Improvement of global model structure 166
Contents vii
4 Global change and geoinformation monitoring 181
4.1 Information provision for global ecological studies 181
4.1.1 Key problems of geoinformation monitoring 182
4.1.2 Integration of information about the environment 183
4.1.3 Systematic approach to information provision in extreme
situation identification 183
4.1.4 Ecological monitoring 184
4.2 Open systems in global ecoinformatics 187
4.3 Technologies and systems of global monitoring 190
4.3.1 Space-borne information systems 190
4.3.2 General conception of geoinformation monitoring 196
4.3.3 Evolutionary technology of modeling 204
4.4 Coordination of the global model with databases 207
4.5 The GIMS-based effect in monitoring regime control 212
4.6 The GIMS-based method of vegetative microwave monitoring . . 216
4.6.1 Introduction 216
4.6.2 Vegetation media as the object under study of electromag
netic wave attenuation 218
4.6.3 Links between experiments, algorithms, and models. . . . 219
4.6.4 Microwave model of vegetation cover 220
4.6.5 The greenhouse effect and forest ecosystems 224
5 Decision-making risks in global ecodynamics 227
5.1 Risk control and sustainable development 227
5.2 Indicators of the efficiency of risk control in cases of natural
disasters 230
5.3 Social and human dimensions of risk 236
5.4 Estimation of risk in the monitoring regime 237
5.4.1 Decision-making in risk assessment 237
5.4.2 Scheme of observation planning when using sequential
data analysis 240
5.4.3 Elements of the system of the automated procedure for
making statistical decisions 241
5.5 Predicted risks of global change 243
5.5.1 Biospheric evolution and natural disasters 244
5.5.2 Problem of global warming and natural disasters 247
5.5.3 An adaptive geoinformation technology-based approach
to the monitoring and prediction of natural disasters . . . 250
5.5.4 Potential future natural disasters 259
5.5.5 Assessments of the accomplishment of some scenarios . . 261
5.5.6 Concluding remarks 268
References 271
Preface
A characteristic of the present global ecological situation is increasing instability or—
put another way—a crisis in the civilization system, the global scale of which is
expressed through a deterioration of human and animal habitats. The most sub
stantial features of global ecodynamics of the late 20th and early 21st centuries
include the rapid increase in world population (mainly in developing countries),
increase in the size of the urban population (considerable growth in the number of
megalopolises), and increase in the scales of such dangerous diseases as HIV/AIDS,
hepatitis, tuberculosis, etc. With growing population size the problems of providing
people with food and improving their living conditions in many regions will not only
not be resolved but will become even more urgent. Any possible benefit from decrease
in per capita consumption as a result of increased efficiency of technologies will be
outweighed by the impact of such a growth in population size. Despite the predom
inant increase of population in developing countries, their contribution to the impact
on the environment will not necessarily exceed that of developed countries. Key to
ensuring sustainable development of the nature/society system (NSS) is the relation
ship between production and consumption, as mentioned at the World Summit on
Sustainable Development in Johannesburg (2002).
As civilization has developed, so the problem of predicting the scale of expected
climate change and associated change in human habitats has become more urgent.
The matter primarily concerns the origin and propagation of natural phenomena
causing the death of many creatures and large-scale economic damage. In the his
torical past, natural anomalies at various spatio-temporal scales are known to have
played a certain role in the evolution of nature, causing and activating mechanisms
for natural system regulation. With the development of industry and growing popu
lation density, these mechanisms have suffered considerable changes and acquired a
life-threatening character. This is primarily connected with the growth and propaga
tion in the level of anthropogenic disturbances in the environment. Numerous studies
of resultant problems carried out in recent decades have shown that the frequency of
x Preface
catastrophic phenomena in nature and their scale have been continuously growing,
leading to a growing risk to human life, financial losses, and to a breakdown of social
infrastructure.
The search for a sustainable way for the NSS to develop depends on creating
information technologies that are capable of forecasting the likely consequences of
anthropogenic projects. In the absence of such technologies it will be difficult to im
prove predictions of the optimal conditions for human existence. One such approach
has been developed by the authors. It consists in creating a new geoinformation-
monitoring technology based on adaptively combining environmental observations
with the results of numerical modeling of processes taking place in the NSS.
The book contains five chapters. Chapter 1 gives a general description of the
notion of globalization and sets out the problems that need to be resolved to
determine the direction of future trends in the development of civilization. Estimates
are given of the state of energy resources of the biosphere and likely scenarios of how
global ecosystems might evolve. The growth of globalization in practically all spheres
of human activity is connected with numerous problems arising from the interaction
between man and nature. Biogeochemical cycles are given top priority in Chapter 2.
As a constructive approach to the solution of NSS contradictions, a simulation model
of the NSS is proposed and described in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 is dedicated to
technologies involved in collecting and processing information about the environ
ment, which serve as the basis for assessing the simulation model's parameters and
the consequences of various anthropogenic scenarios. Chapter 5 describes
approaches that assess the risk of decision-making for its impact on the environment.
By analyzing present trends in civilization development and assessing global
ecodynamics, the book considers the problem of global environmental change as
an interdisciplinary problem facing many scientific fields of study. The authors'
approach to solving this problem is based on GIMS technology, which can be used
to obtain information about the NSS and select the appropriate criteria for assess
ment of its state.
The problems facing civilization and the prospects for its future development are
so broad and comprise so many components that the aspects considered here are only
a small part of a vast field of scientific and methodical studies of NSS interaction
processes. The proposed adaptive-evolutionary scheme of combining monitoring
data with the results of numerical modeling raises the hope that a mechanism that
fully understands this interaction has been found, one that will ensure the transition
to sustainable development.
The book will be useful to specialists dealing with the development of informa
tion technologies for nature conservation, global modeling, study of climate change,
problems of NSS interaction, as well as geopolitics.
Acknowledgment and dedication
The motivation to write this book came from the well-known Russian scientist
Academician Kirill Ya. Kondratyev (1920-2006). In the process of preparing this
book he sadly passed away, having left unique material and multiple proposals that
were used in this book. The authors would like to express albeit posthumously their
deep gratitude to him and wish to dedicate this book to his memory.
The area of scientific interests of Professor Kirill Kondratyev was extremely
broad encompassing the theory of transfer of thermal radiation through the atmo
sphere, the greenhouse effect, natural and human-induced disasters and catastrophes,
remote-sensing of the environment, and global climate change. He was the initiator
and participant of numerous scientific projects that were related to the study of global
climate change as well as to the understanding of interactive processes in the nature/
society system (NSS).
Kirill Ya. Kondratyev received his PhD in 1956 at the University of Leningrad,
where he also became Professor in 1956 and was appointed Head of the Department
of Atmospheric Physics in 1958. He was Head of the Department of the Main
Geophysical Observatory (1978-1982) and Head of the Institute for Lake Research
(1982-1991), both in Leningrad. Since 1992, he was a Councilor of the Russian
Academy of Sciences. He published more than 100 books in the fields of atmospheric
physics and chemistry, remote-sensing, planetary atmospheres, and global change.
Kirill Kondratyev was elected an honorary member of the American Meteoro
logical Society, the Royal Meteorological Society of Great Britain, the Academy of
Natural Sciences "Leopoldina" (Germany), a foreign member of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the International Astronautic Academy,
honorary Doctor of Sciences of the Universities of Lille (France), Budapest (Hun
gary), and Athens (Greece). He was a long-time Editor-in-Chief of the Russian
journal Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, member of the editorial board of
a number of scientific journals: Optics of the Atmosphere and Ocean, Proceedings of
the Russian Geographical Society, Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics (Austria),