IHRR Spring newsletter - Bitly

Spring 2012 Director of IHRR: David Petley

Editors: Brett Cherry and Krysia Johnson

From the Executive Director In December, the BBC dedicated a full edition of the Radio 4 programme ‘Thinking Allowed’ to the Tipping Points project. The p r o g r a m m e featured a panel discussion with three academics on the Tipping Points team (Tim Clark, Pat Waugh and Alex Bentley), and allowed a wide ranging discussion of the term, the phenomenon, the impacts of the tipping point concept, and the implications of living in a tipping point world. The programme, which was extremely well-received, highlighted the importance of the tipping point concept, and the wider relevance of our on-going Leverhulme Trust project. However, over the last few months we have recognised that to allow the Institute to develop further, we need to slightly change the structure within which it operates. At present we have two main project types – Programmes of Work, which are specific areas in which we are seeking to build strength to take advantage of forthcoming opportunities, and Flagship Projects, which are large, externally-funded research programmes on specific themes. Instead, we plan to base our activities around the three broad themes of Hazard, Risk and Resilience, and the links between them. Within this we will seek to provide assistance to all research projects within these broad themes, whether they are funded, unfunded or planned. We will place much more emphasis on running events to build links between groups of researchers, both within Durham and more widely, and we are setting up a Postgraduate forum to provide support to this key part of the Durham research community. Finally, we have instigated a small grants scheme to provide seedcorn funding for new research initiatives. We hope that this new structure will provide much better support to researchers in hazard, risk and resilience across the university, and will help us to build strong partnerships with external organisations. David Petley Executive Director of IHRR

Volume 5, Number 2 Layout: Cartographic Unit (Geography)

Postgraduate Research Spotlight Pastoralist Communities Adapting to Climate Change in Northern Kenya Carla S. Handley, Department of Anthropology

In 2007, the IPCC reported that climate change will increase violent conflict within the developing world leaving communities less resilient and less able to cope with the negative effects of environmental degradation 1.

Herders moving livestock through grazed-out area.

The real impacts of climate change in light of limited human adaptations have remained unclear and unpredictable as it is necessary to explore the adverse consequences of conflict within communities learning to cope with a changing environment. With a focus on resilience, many development institutions commonly support the idea that the wealth of the industrialised world provides stability against environmental change, while the developing world is often left vulnerable to similar climatic events that can devastate any existing cultural adaptations, thus rendering them ineffective 2. Although this statement may not necessarily be untrue, this doctoral project aims to challenge concepts of vulnerability by asking whether subsistence populations, such as East African pastoralists, are in fact uniquely and aptly suited to adapting within a changing climate as pastoral production is itself an adaptation in utilising non-agricultural, marginal land that may hold very few economic alternatives. Although, in light of increased frequency of extreme climatic events, as we have recently seen in the 2009 – 2011 East African drought, there is a

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into resource-abundant areas as movement is necessary to support herd numbers adequate to sustain communities. The analysis of data collected in northern Kenya demonstrates that the potential threat of violence in hotly-contested, resource-rich border areas creates an altered type of migration pattern for pastoralists. Instead of dispersing over a range in order to exploit all possible resources at low densities, it is necessary for individual herds to wait until members of their community progressively move from the interior towards the borders of their territory in order to ensure that by the time the border is reached, settlements are fortified with high concentrations of people of the same ethnic group providing security for one another. These artificially high concentrations of pastoralists into buffer zones are having extreme adverse effects in areas that are traditionally dry season refuges used to sustain populations during times of climatic stress, namely almost immediate trampling of pastureland and grazing areas, therefore greatly reducing the effective period of time that a dry season refuge can support the communities who are relying on these resources.

Carla with two young Sambaru ladies.

concern whether pastoralists can continue to cope and adapt to prolonged periods of increased drought and resulting land degradation. The strategies utilised by pastoralists in order to cope with environmental uncertainty are diversified and well-documented: high levels of mobility, communal use of rangelands, preventing livestock disease and appropriate herd management, dispersal / conflict

Dead cow that suffered from starvation. Boy herding cattle with carved gun.

avoidance, social networks and stock alliances over varying ecological zones, diversification in herd composition, herd accumulation and diversification in livelihoods. However, many of these coping mechanisms are simply becoming less viable for pastoralists subsisting in regions under extreme environmental pressure due to the real and perceived threat of conflict amongst neighbouring ethnic groups.

Alternatively, the threat of inter-ethnic conflict in northern Kenya border regions is forcing herders into sub-prime grazing areas during times of resource scarcity. These areas are characterised mainly by thick bush, which are typically avoided during prosperous years as they have high concentrations of wildlife and the threat of insect-borne diseases. Exposure to disease and predators can just as effectively reduce livestock populations as can the effects of starvation via drought.

This research makes an in-depth examination of the benefits of unrestricted movement of people 2

New Risk-based mapping tool for targeting river pollution: SCIMAP

Augmented mobility within the pastoral populations has resulted in over-grazing, increased dependence on government aid,

The software tool called ‘SCIMAP’ was developed by scientists at IHRR including Dr Sim Reaney, Dr David Milledge and Professor Stuart Lane (former Executive Director of IHRR) and Lancaster University. It can be used to manage non-point source (diffuse) pollution that originates from agriculture. The software was officially launched at the 2011 American Geophysical Union Meeting in December.

Family migrating household in search of pasture. SCIMAP identifies where the source of river pollution exists and prioritises high risk areas where diffuse pollution from the landscape can enter rivers. It produces high resolution maps based on both a set of risk weightings that calculate the probability that nutrients will leave a point in the landscape and the probability that these points will connect to the river channels, exporting the nutrients.

higher incidence of veterinary diseases, and increases in human-wildlife conflict that only further reinforces the effects of resource scarcity rather than upholding the intrinsic value of mobility as an adaptation to environmental stress. Ultimately, this research provides a window into the climatic hazards that north Kenyan pastoralists are facing and the compounding, disruptive effects that conflict has on traditional adaptation strategies for coping with resource scarcity.

SCIMAP is currently available to download from the project’s website:http://www.scimap.org.uk/2011/12/scimap-2011-dow

IHRR in the media

References 1. Galvin KA et al., 2004. ‘Climate Variability and Impacts on East African Livestock Herders: the Maasai of Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania’. African Journal of Range & Forage Science 21(3): 183–189. 2. Smith D. and J Vivekananda, 2007. ‘A Climate of Conflict: The Links Between Climate Change, Peace and War’. 2007 IPCC Report.

Carla’s PhD research focuses on analysing human behavioural adaptations in response to changing landscapes and environmental / climatic changes. Specifically, she is trying to understand correlations between environmental degradation and levels of interpersonal conflict amongst pastoral populations in northern Kenya, where she conducted fieldwork for a period of 18 months among the Samburu, Borana, and Rendille pastoral ethnic groups. [email protected] Critical Risk Research: Practices, Politics and Ethics An exciting new volume from IHRR published by Wiley is now available. Edited by Professor Stuart Lane, Dr Francisco Klauser and Dr Matthew B Kearnes, Critical Risk Research: Practices, Politics

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Ohlemüller R, Huntley B, Normand S, Svenning JS. ‘Potential source and sink locations for climate-driven species range shifts in Europe since the Last Glacial Maximum’. Global Ecology and Biogeography. 21, 2:152-163

and Ethics offers a collection of essays, written by a wide variety of international researchers in risk, about what it means to do risk research, and about how – and with what effects – risk research is practiced, articulated and exploited. This approach is based upon the core assumption that: to make a difference in the study of risk, we must move beyond what we usually do, challenging the core assumptions, scientific, economic and social, about how we study, frame, exploit and govern risk. Hence, through a series of essays, the book aims to challenge the current ways in which risk-problems are approached and presented, both conceptually by academics and through the framings that are encoded in the technologies and socio-political and institutional practices used to manage risk. Authors from Durham include Professor Louise Bracken, Dr Claudia Merli, Professor Lena Dominelli, Professor Phil Macnaghten, Professor Jonathan Rigg, Dr Katie Oven and many others. The book is available in hardcover and as an eBook.

Huntley B. ‘Reconstructing palaeoclimates from biological proxies: Some often overlooked sources of uncertainty’. Quaternary Science Reviews. 31, 12:1-16 Wall D, Jordan P, Melland AR, Mellander PE, Buckley C, Reaney SM. ‘Using the nutrient transfer continuum concept to evaluate the European Union Nitrates Directive National Action Programme’. Environmental Science & Policy. 14, 6: 664-674 Special Issue of Urban Studies: ‘Security and Surveillance at Sport Mega Events’. One of the main outputs from IHRR’s Risk and Security programme was published in a special issue of Urban Studies edited by Dr Francisco Klauser and Dr Richard Giulianotti whose work was based in IHRR.

It can currently be pre-ordered online from Wiley: http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/produ ctCd-1119945267,descCd-tableOfContents.html

Make Your Research Open Access In Print and Online Durham Research Online (DRO) allows researchers to upload their papers to Durham’s repository. This gives anyone with access to the web the capability to view your publications via the University Library website pending upon copyright agreements Durham has made with publishers.

Books Kipping M and Clark T (eds). The Oxford Handbook of Management Consulting. Oxford University Press Avakian S and Clark T (eds). Management Consulting (The International Library of Critical Writings on Business and Management). Cheltenham, England: Edward Elgar

This is a huge opportunity for researchers across the university to make their research available to a much wider community. It can increase your citation ratings as well as the impact of your research in academia, government, public engagement and a number of other areas.

Articles Macnaghten P and Owen R. ‘Environmental science: Good governing for geoengineering’. Nature 479, 293.

For more information on the benefits of depositing your papers in DRO, including instructions on how to addpublications go to http://dro.dur.ac.uk/depositors/ or contact [email protected].

Dominelli L. ‘Climate Change: Social Workers' Roles and Contributions to Policy Debates and Interventions’, International Journal of Social Welfare. 20(4): 430-438. Hillman SE, Horwell CJ, Densmore AL, Damby DE, Fubini B, Ishimine Y and Tomatis M. ‘Sakurajima volcano: a physico-chemical study of the health consequences of long-term exposure to volcanic ash’. Bulletin of Volcanology. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00445-012-0575-3

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Media Coverage

2011 AGU Meeting

Professor Phil Macnaghten’s research on the geoengineering project Spice was featured in The Guardian. Phil was also a guest on BBC Radio 4’s Material World that is available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0175293.

A number of researchers with IHRR attended the American Geophysical Union Meeting last December. As usual, there were a large number of exciting events, seminars, press conferences and sessions at the meeting. The following researchers with IHRR gave seminars and/or posters at AGU:

Researchers from the Tipping Points project: Professor Alex Bentley, Professor Patricia Waugh and Professor Tim Clark were featured on a special edition BBC Radio 4’s Thinking Allowed focused on tipping points. Available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0184s2x/ Thinking_Allowed_Tipping_points/ via iPlayer. Professor Dave Petley was quoted in several news media including WalesOnline and BBC Wales on the 45 th anniversary of the Aberfan Disaster. Dave co-authored an article with Brett Cherry that reviews the disaster and its aftermath. It is available on IHRR’s blog: http://ihrrblog.org/2011/10/21/remembering-ab erfan/. A schools visit to Durham University organised by the Climate Change Schools Project and Tipping Points led by Dr Helen Ranner, Dr Eleanor Maddison and Dr Krista McKinzey was featured in local newspapers including The Journal, The Advertiser, Sunderland Echo and Northern Echo. Young people who participated had the opportunity to learn about the science of past climate change that included hands-on activities and presentation of a sediment core used to study the climate of the past.

Professor Antony Long ‘Smoking guns: Polar ice sheets as potential drivers of late Holocene sea-level

 %; Professor Dave Petley ‘The relationship for landslide fatality data’

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Dr Sim Reaney ‘A framework to understand spatial and temporal connectivity dynamics at hill slope and catchment scales’ and ‘Understanding nutrient connectivity at the landscape scale: The use of the SCIMAP approach in the UK and Ireland’

A new video introducing the field research in Greenland from WP1 of the Tipping Points project is now available online: http://bit.ly/ye7LvT. It features members of the research team that travelled to Greenland including Professor

Dr Sarah Woodroffe ‘Mid-late Holocene sea-level changes in the central Indian Ocean’ Dr David Milledge and Anna Coles 'Density and orientation of upland open drains: critical        %! Dr Matthew Brain ‘Compression of low energy intertidal sediments: controls, effects and solutions’ Dr Natasha Barlow ‘Assessing modes of North Atlantic sea-level change during the last two millennia’ Professor Dave Petley and Brett Cherry were blogging at the AGU meeting and posted regularly on some of the session there:

Antony Long, Dr Sarah Woodroffe, Holly Stewart, Rob Barnett, Dr Helen Ranner and Dr Eleanor Maddison.

AGU lecture series on Tohoku earthquake AGU days 2 and 3: some notable talks Inside AGU 2011   

          % Great Disasters of the 21st Century