Ensuring the secure supply of the
provisioning ecosystem services food and water is a pre-requisite
for human well-being. This AGS flagship program, known as secure
ecoservices, will identify development paths for social and
technical systems which aim for a nourished world in balance with
the provisioning ecosystem. Secure ecoservices is poised to provide
us with a unique outlook for food and water in the 5 to 15 year
near-term future, while considering changes in the
long-term.
The heart of secure ecoservices will be data and
knowledge bases where we will collate global information, both
internally stored and externally linked. The data and knowledge
bases will reflect requirements of the AGS integrated model system,
the latter including biophysical, economic and geographic models.
Models of the complex and dynamic nature of food and water systems
will provide a solid foundation for descriptions of the future, a
future which we will foresee through social and technical
development paths. Development paths will be tracked by combining
stakeholder dialogue with the modeling results to provide a combined
actor-modeling procedure. The procedure will be integrated into a
form suitable for projecting and shaping social and technical
systems.
Although the AGS integrated model system and
development paths procedure are core integration activities for
secure ecoservices, supporting projects have been identified in two
areas: security and human well-being, and ecosystem services. The
first area, security and human well-being, includes supporting
projects within the risk management of food, safe and sustainable
food production, and sustainable food producing strategies for Asia.
The second area, ecosystem services, includes supporting projects
such as strategies to decrease land use, diets related to land-use
requirements, innovation and decreased resource pressure for the
water sector and the consumer perspective.
Secure ecoservices
will also have an important education and outreach role that will be
fulfilled through the organization of high-level symposia and
workshops and by producing AGS learning products aimed for an
audience beyond the partner
schools.
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