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	International Conference on
Climate Change and Social-Ecological-Economical Interface-Building: Modelling Approach to Exploring Potential Adaptation Strategies for Bio-resource Conservation and Livelihood Development 20-21 May, 2015

Among the greatest challenges to humanity in the future involve global environmental changes  in climate, urbanization, water availability, and loss of biological diversity etc., climate change will be the most dominant factor  having further adverse impacts on the rest. Climate Change and its manifestations, particularly through rising temperatures, changing rainfall, sea-level rise and increasing droughts and floods have the potential to adversely impact natural ecosystems (such as forests, grasslands, rivers and oceans) and socio-economic systems (such as food production, fisheries, and coastal settlements). This is adding additional stress to ecosystems services which form substantial source of income to the rural poor. It is most immediately and inextricably linked to well-being, development and economic growth which is in the ambit of eight Millennium Development Goals( MDG). Addressing Climate Change requires policy formulation, research, technology transfer and diffusion, financing and enhancing adaptive capacity of the poor at national, regional as well as local level. COP of UNFCCC stated that the vulnerable groups particularly in developing countries and whose livelihood is land use practices are the most victimised in present world as in most of the cases their activities are driven by climate. Therefore, solving climate dilemma through mitigation process and scientific research is an ethical concern.

According to the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2014), India's agricultural sector would be worst hit. Change in rainfall patterns would put millions of lives at stake, the IPCC report says. With erratic and extreme monsoon, the report states that by 2030 India would face an agricultural loss of over US $7 billion, affecting income of 10 per cent of the people. But if climate resilience measures in the form adaptive strategies are implemented, 80 per cent of the losses could be averted, the report adds. Several Missions and strategies (Green India Mission, REDD+ etc) have been implemented at various levels under International initiatives. It is very much crucial to look at the need of those initiatives and mould accordingly to satisfy the demand for climate change adaptation and sustainable development at local level. UNFCCC has also given startegies the on the development of national adaptation  and programmes and the support by regional centres; which endows a platform for a bottom up approach to confer and adapt with climate change impacts at regional level. Strengthening livelihoods, developing sustainable land use policy etc have been increasingly seen as a critical strategy for supporting adaptation.

Holistic outlook: Integrated modelling

Anthropogenic changes in land use and land cover is  global phenomenon which is intensifying  consequences on food production, forest and water resources, coupled  with  climate change .. Understanding future vulnerability, exposure, and response required for interlinked human and natural systems using scenarios is critical and complex.  The challenge is to integrate  huge number of parameters interacting in and among social, economic, and cultural sub-systems, which are not included holistically in most of the cases.

Hence, Modelling the synergies beween human and biophysical environment with the intervention of climate change  will gives us better understanding of how the path is altered and rate of attainment of these goals. Hence, Integrated Modelling is in the forefront of research community.

The development of better land use policy (such as land use development at regional, state or national level) builds on the sectoral (micro study) perspectives depends on the perceived risks of uncertainties due to variety of factors –such as climate change, socioeconomic, ecological cultural characteristics of the regions involved, and the technical feasibility of policy measures (Klabbers et al., 1996). For effective implementation, the scientific and technological research should support the policy making processes. When science and policy differ then the outcome in the form of communication is often problematic. The research on land use and climate modeling (ex-post; ex-ante) will aid  in making effective science-policy recommendations for climate change, land use development (i.e. impact, causes, effects, adaptation and mitigation) at various spatial scales   which help to support better policy formulations and galvanize institutional innovations . The requirement is that the scientific information is as per the requirement of policy demand and should be easily accessible to policy makers and decision takers. The integrated modeling approach strongly supports this viewpoint (Schaldach et al., 2010; Nautiyal et al., 2010). On the other hand, policy makers and decision takers should formulate requisite information such a way that is easily understandable for researchers to provide available scientific information in their deliberations (Van den Hove, 2007). Landscape modeling helps to construct framework and organize ideas and data to understand the complex human-ecological system and specially the spatial dynamics and processes over temporal scale. Scenarios used in modeling are hypothetical sequence of future events considering the trends of driving forces which are supposed to acknowledge the fundamental uncertainties regarding future development.  The research endeavors should focus on developing recommendations for micro levels depicting various geo-climatic regions in country. There is a need not only for developing strategies at regional or national level which is largely a top-down approach but more importantly, to develop a bottom up approach to address climate change, sustainable land-use and linked socio-ecological development

Integrated approach should be encouraged to aim at adopting a bottom up approach for sustainable land use development and to develop mitigation and adaptation strategies, programmes and projects and subsequently after the fruitful research results, to undertake pilot mitigation and adaptation projects in various agro-climatic regions.

Need of a proactive response to Climate Change and associated bioresources conservation 

 Thus the response to it cannot be left to the confines of the environment but needs to seek clarity and consolidate its response relating the agendas and interests of the multiple constituencies. Therefore, climate change assessment has to be done in viewpoint of impact, vulnerability and adaptation in different agro-ecological regions. The adaptation strategies are important to be evaluated for future sustainability.

As the scholarly fraternity are making  efforts at global, national, state and even at local level to address Climate Change in post 2015 agenda through mitigation and adaptation strategies, This  International Seminar invites participants working in relation to the arena of climate change and land use modeling for exploring the various modelling tools and frameworks developed to arrive at potential adaptation strategy. The aim is to enhance the information/knowledge base about ecosystem/ land use modeling in India for bio-resource conservation and sustainable livelihood development under the changing climate and further providing it for land use policy making. The Seminar is especially interested in encouraging presentations from researchers engaged with vulnerable geo-climatic areas and developing and using efficient computational or conceptual modeling for sustainable landscape development. This also encourages studies across the country on socio-ecological status of vulnerable biodiversity and human population in terms of sustainability. We anticipate that by bringing together experts in a range of research subjects, we can contribute to innovations in research. Research papers/articles are invited for the following topics:

Conference THEMES 

• Development of Social and ecological systems under changing climate

• Methodological Issues in Climate Research.

• Biodiversity Conservation, monitoring and mapping

• Natural capital: Resource use and management for sustainable livelihood; global climate change, mitigation and adaptability.

• Bio-economic and ecological modelling for predicting climate scenario for livelihood development and ecosystem management  

• Ecosystem services: monitoring and mapping

• Remote sensing, GIS and geo-statistics

• Demographics and Climate Change

• Philosophy of Climate Science

Please send the title and abstract (about 350– 400 words) of your lecture/presentation along with the Registration form (Registration form(.pdf)) on or before 7th May, 2015 to ceenrconf2015@gmail.com