DATE / TIME:

2021/07/19    14:50 - 16:20

Location:

Online

Lecturer: Dr Lulu Zhang, Associate Programme Officer, UNU-FLORES

Managed watersheds provide many ecosystem services to meet human needs for water, food, timber, and energy while supporting critical ecological functions that benefit humanity. These benefits, for example, include nutrient cycling, water filtering and purifying, carbon storage, flood and erosion/sedimentation control, and biodiversity preservation. The quality and quantity of ecosystem services provided by a watershed significantly depend on land-use decisions involving soil, vegetation, and water conservation at a landscape scale. Due to environmental, social, and economic concerns, watershed management strategies have to consider complex scientific and public policy issues.

Environmental resources are not isolated from one another but exist in an interconnected manner. This interconnectedness is particularly evident when resource management practices are applied in watersheds. In regions with natural constraints, such as drylands, sector-oriented resource management may substantially decrease ecosystem services. The specific case of integrated watershed management in China will cover monitoring data, consolidating process-based knowledge, and translating evidence into policy-relevant recommendations to policymakers, which showcase a successful example of how science informs policy.

In conclusion, multifunctional land-use is proposed as a holistic watershed management approach to balance and manage competition of ecosystem services and minimise dysfunctions with minimum trade-offs through working on the nexus of environmental resources or the Resource Nexus.

Nexus Seminar Series

UNU-FLORES, in collaboration with PRISMA – Centre for Sustainability Assessment and Policy on behalf of TU Dresden, is delighted to present the Nexus Seminar Series. The joint seminar series, which launched in 2015, features lectures by senior scholars that highlight all dimensions of research on the Nexus Approach, ranging from hands-on implementation strategies to theoretical debates. The Nexus Seminars serve not only as a platform for scientific exchange and cooperation between UNU-FLORES and TU Dresden but also as a medium for the partner institutions to discuss their research with a broader audience.

Taking place once a month, each seminar is open to the public and under the current circumstances will be delivered via a virtual Zoom videoconference.

See all Nexus Seminars