QUEST Theme 3: The implications of global environmental changes for the sustainable use of resources

Human activities depend on marketed and non-marketed "services" provided by the terrestrial and marine biosphere. There is an urgent need to understand the responses of ecosystem services to a changing environment and to quantify the implications of such changes for human activities in a globally consistent way. Typical issues for QUEST therefore include:

The consequences of a changing climate for global patterns of freshwater availability, taking into account potential changes in demand.
The consequences of a changing environment for global patterns of agriculture and forestry, taking into account economic drivers and their response to changes in supply.
The degree of threat posed to global biodiversity by a rapidly changing climate, and the potential effectiveness of strategies to mitigate the loss of biodiversity due to changes in climate and land use.
The potential efficacy and cost-effectiveness of measures designed to mitigate global climate change through terrestrial and marine ecosystem management.

Projects that have been funded in this theme are:

QUEST GSI: Global- scale impacts of climate change: an integrated multi-sectoral assessment
QUATERMASS: Quantifying the potential of terrestrial biomass to mitigate climate change
JIFor: Joint Implementation initiative for forestry-based climate mitigation
QUEST Fish: Predicting impacts and consequences of climate change on fisheries
FireMAFS: Fire Modelling and Forecasting System

Details of NERC funded applications for this theme are available HERE.

Back to QUEST Home page