OBSERVI NG, P REDICTING AND P ROJECTING CLIMATE CONDITIO NS

AsiaFlux - sustaining ecosystems
and eople through resilience thinking
Joon Kim, A siaFlux Main Office, Global Environment Laboratory, Yonsei University, Korea;
Yu Guirui, A siaFlux Beijing Office, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research,
Chinese Academy of Science; Akira Miyata , AsiaFlux Tsukuba Office,National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences, JapanT

here are very few people in this world who ever ask
the right questions of science, but they are the ones
who affect its future most profoundly. Great thinkingprecedes great achievement and the right question gives birth
to a vision that is greater than the visionary. Vision is the key
to unity, the magnet for commitment, and the determinant ofour destiny.

The vision of World Climate Conference-3 is a global framework
for climate services that link climate predictions and information
with risk management and adaptation, towards sustainability.
What does it mean to be sustainable? What kind of management and adaptation do we need towards sustainability? Even
more important questions would be sustainability of what and towhat? Why are current approaches to sustainable natural resource

management failing us despite a plethora of information? Are we properly acknowledging how the world
actually works?
Defining and understanding the system
Some available definitions of sustainability are:
• The use of environment and resources to meetthe needs of the present without compromising
the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs• The likelihood an existing system of resource-use
will persist indefinitely without a decline in thesocial welfare it delivers• A cultural adaptation made by society as it becomesaware of the emerging necessity of non-growth.

Soclal-ecologlcal system with the focus on adaptive capacity for sustainabillty

Climate variability and change

Sustainability

Social-ecological system (SES)At each scale, the social-ecological system moves through its own adaptive cycles. These recurring cycles consist of four phases: rapid growth (r),conservation (K), release (0), and reorganization/renewal (a). The adaptive cycles are pictured in three dimensions: (1) X axis - the degree of connectedness
among controlling variables; (2) Yaxis - the ca pital (or potential) that is inherent in the accumulated resources; and (3) Z axis - resilience. the capacity of asystem to absorb disturbance and remain within the same regime. retaining the same function, structure, and feedbacks. The structure and dynamics of thesystem at each scale is driven by a small set of key processes and. in turn. these linked set of hierarchies govern the behaviour of the whole system

Source: Gunderson and Holling (2002 ) and Berkes et al. (2003)[ 165]OBSERV l NG, P REDlCTlNG AND P ROJECTl N G C LlMATE CONDlTlONSof climate change , and of reducing greenhouse gasemissions. 3 While the details are still debatable , themain thrust of the report is clear and compelling- the expected benefits of tackling climate change
surpass the expec ted costs. The qu estion is no longer
whether we can afford to act , but whether we canafford not to . And ye t, with less than six months to
go to Copenhagen and little communal action, mostcountries are h esitant to move forward .
Lance Gunderson and C.S. Holling condensed themajor obstacles to sustainability into the lack of threebasic categories : understanding of the dynamics ofcomplex systems; willingness to implement; and capacity to perform the actions and changes needed .4 The
pursuit of services linking climate information withmanagement and adaptation towards sustainability posenew challenges to the ways we define problems , identify
solutions and implement actions.

A simple representation and variants of the adaptive cycle

Source: Adapted from Walker and Salt (2006)

These d efinitions make clear that sustainability is not an end
product but a dynamic process that requires adaptive capacity
for social and ecological systems to deal with change. Here , adynamic process features the relationships between the motion(towards sustainability) and properties of a complex system,(social and ecological systems) and the forces (climate variability and change) acting on it. When considering the earth
climate system, a complex social-ecological system, it is important to consider it as a whole. This 'human-in-ecosystems' (nothuman-and-ecosystems) perspective is a way to think about therelationship between nature and society and all the interfaces
between the two. I
Worldview and global trajectoryWorldview is a term taken from the German weltanschauung,meaning 'look onto the world'. It refers to the framework throughwhich an individual interprets the world and interacts in it. It is
communal in scope and structure, and provides a view by which
the world can be ordered and illumined. A diversity of world views
linked to cultural diversity and evolution provides social-ecologicalsystems with the ability to persist in the face of change. Such socialand ecological memory bridges the values and truths of a society
and the social-ecological environment. In opposition, modern belief
systems and institutional frameworks seem to create homogenizedand optimized social-ecological systems. Such systems lack diversity
and the capacity to adapt to change and crisis, thereby creating theirown vulnerability.
The consideration of worldviews naturally leads us to anotherimportant question of global trajectory , namely, whether
humanity at the global scale is currently on a sustainable orunsustainable path. As was pointed out by the global thinktank 'the Club of Rome' almost four decades ago, the current
global trajectory is unsustainable for both ecological and socialsystems 2 More recently , the Stern Review of the Economics of
Climate Change provided rigorous analysis of the costs and risks[ 166]

Resilience thinking
C. S. Holling and his colleagues offer a new paradigm, theidea of resilience as a potential organizing concept andscoping device for understanding and managing our socialecological systems. 5 They define resilience as the amount ofchange a system can undergo before it crosses a threshold
and flips to an alternate stability regime of that system. In
resilience thinking, three main concepts need to be recognized. Firstly, complex adaptive systems are self-organizing.
Secondly, these systems are non-linear in their trajectories ofchange, which leads to their potential for alternative stability
regimes. Third, and finally, such systems go through adaptive cycles that describe a repeated process of four phases:
rapid growth (r) , conservation (K), release (n) , and reorganization and renewal (a)6
During the r phase resources are readily available
and species or actors exploit niches and opportunities.
During the K phase, resources become increasingly
locked up and the system becomes less flexible andresponsive to disturbance. When the n phase is reacheddisturbance causes a chaotic unravelling and releaseof resources. In a phase , system boundaries become
tenuous. New species, actors, and ideas can take hold ,and generally lead into another r phase. Taken as awhole, the r to K transition is referred to as a fore (ordevelopment) loop , whereas the n to a transition isreferred to as a back loop. Most systems move throughthis sequence of phases , but other transitions arepossible. The back loop , characterized by uncertainty,novelty, and experimentation, is the transition time ofgreatest potential for the initiation of either creative ordestructive change in the system.
Resilience thinking captures the dynamic nature ofthe world. It recognizes the dangers of optimizing forparticular states or products of a system , and explains
why current approaches to managing resou rces are
failing . It focuses on how the system changes and copeswith disturbances, not only anticipating and responding but also creating and shaping them. Su ccessful
management and adaptation for social-ecologicalO BSE RVING, P RED I CTING AND P ROJECTING C LIMATE C ONDITIONS

Tower flux observation sites in Asia Flux in different plant functional types in different phases( --Jl- --\-,,fi--I-1----..

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The various adaptive cycles illustrate that ecological and social memo!), is maintained in the system through the presence of different functional groups indifferent phases. Two local sites, a deciduous forest (right top) and a mixed farmland (right middle), are shown to highlight the importance of integrating crossscale ecosystem knowledge with social practices and the historical profile of disturbances (e.g., drought, fire, typhoon, and land use change)

Source: AsiaFlux (www.asiaflux.org) and Mizoguchi et al. (2009)12

sustainability requires resilience thinking - institutional capacity
to respond to environmental feedback , to learn and store understanding, and be prepared and adaptive to allow for change. In anutshell , resilience is the key property of sustainability and themeasure of vulnerability and adaptability.1
AsiaFlux - science frontier
AsiaFlux is a science community with a mission to 'bring Asia's
key ecosystems under observation to develop and transfer scientificknowledge to ensure sustainability of life on earth'. It is the Asianarm of Fluxnet, the worldwide flux research network, and one of thekey components of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems(GEOSS). The GEOSS vision is to provide the right information to theright people at the right time to make the right decisions. The purposeof AsiaFlux is to develop collaborative research and data sets on thecycles of carbon, water, and energy in key Asian ecosystems. It also aims
to provide workshops and training on current and related global climatechange science and technology. Finally, AsiaFlux seeks to cultivate thenext generation of scientists with skills and perspectives to address
global climate change as informed leaders and stewards.
AsiaFlux has grown from a small network of independent flux
monitoring groups in 1999 to a multi-national science community with 449 members from 28 countries. Currently, there are[ 167]

109 tower flux observation sites in Asia and moresites are on the way. The biomes covered in AsiaFlux
range from rainforest near the equator to tundrain the Arctic and Antarctic , and from wetland nearsea level to grassland in high altitudes such as theTibetan Plateau.
AsiaFlux celebrated its ten-year science , service ,and stewardship in November 2008 by hosting the7th International AsiaFlux Workshop in Seoul ,Korea. During this workshop , 'Re-thinking globalchange science: from knowledge to policy', therefined vision of AsiaFlux was launched to serve as'science frontier' in carbon , water and energy cycles.
It aims to develop and transfer scientific knowledge
characterized by:• Consilience - the synthesis of knowledge in holistic,
exploratory, pluralistic and perspectival ways• Contextualization - the reformulation of scientificknowledge in social and pedagogical context byembracing its implications as well as the applications• Cultural diversity - building resilience by welcoming diversity and conflict, tolerating ambiguity, andembracing paradox through teaching and learning.

OBSERVING, P REDICTING AND P ROJECTI NG CLIMATE CONDITIONSNet ecosystem carbon exchange (NEE) In a deciduous forest and amixed farmland In Korea

4r------------------------------------;
Deciduous Foresto ~"'_"",-4

Overall, building resilience will require dynamic interplay
between diversity and disturbance, along with recognitionof cross-scale dependencies. Resilience thinking encourages scientists and practitioners to work together with thepublic to produce trustworthy knowledge and judgmentthat is scientifically sound and socially robust. The science,service, and stewardship of AsiaFlux are complementarywith resilience thinking. It provides qualitative monitoring,management, and long time series of local observation andecological and social memory for understanding ecosystemchange throughout the adaptive cycle.

~ Rainy season~ +-~--r__r--r--r--r_~--r-_r~r-~_;4 ~--------------------------------_,
Mixed Farmlando-4
Rice planting

Rice harvest•• • • Crop rotation . .. ..... :~ +-~--+--+--r__+--r__r--r_~--r-_r~

January

July

DecemberPositive NEE indicates carbon release and negative NEE indicates carbon
uptake. Terrestrial ecosystems are strong sinks of at mospheric CO 2 , Climatic
disturbances such as monsoon, typhoons and ma nagement pract ices can,however. dra matica lly change t he ecosyst em processes and feed backs

Source: KoFlux (www.koftux.org)

Embracing resilience thinking
The idea of resilience thinking is deceptively simple, but its application has proven profound and there is much to learn. Walker and
Salt9 suggest a resilient world would be characterized by:• Diversity - promoting and sustaining all forms of diversity(biological, landscape, social and economic)• Ecological variability - embracing and working with ecologicalvariability rather than attempting to control and reduce it• Modularity - consisting of modular components• Acknowledging slow variables - having a policy focus on slow
controlling variables associated with thresholds• Tight feedbacks - possessing tight feedbacks, but not too tight• Social capital- promoting trust, well developed social networks
and leadership• Innovation - emphasizing learning, experimentation, locallydeveloped rules and embracing change• Overlap in governance - having institutions that include redundancy• Ecosystem services - including all the unpriced ecosystem services in development proposals and assessments.
Folke et al. proposed four principles for building resilience: learning tolive with change and uncertainty; nurturing diversity for reorganization
and renewal; combining different types of knowledge for learning; andcreating opportunity for self-organization. 9[ 168]

AsiaFlux entering the agora
By 2011 AsiaFlux hopes to provide a report on the Asiancarbon and water budget and develop infrastructure for an
Asian carbon and water tracking system. Furthermore, itaims to develop a synthesized measurement and modellingsystem that keeps track of emissions and removal of CO 2and H20 in Asia. Reliable knowledge can become sociallyrobust only if society perceives the production process to betransparent, open and participative. This, in turn, depends
on reciprocity in which the publiC understands how climatechange science works but, equally, climate change science
understands how the public works. The AsiaFlux vision will
guide such enhanced mutual understanding and communicate and demonstrate it by embracing resilience thinking.
AsiaFlux will continue to create space to deal with emerging paradigms for re-thinking science processes such as
cultural boundaries and authority of climate change science,
its co-evolution with risk society, context-sensitive science,and the challenge of nurturing diverse functional groupS.lO
The latter may include: knowledge carriers and retainers;
interpreters and sense makers; networkers and facilitators;
stewards and leaders; visionaries and inspirers; innovatorsand experimenters; entrepreneurs and implementers; andfollowers and reinforcers.u Such efforts guide AsiaFlux toenter a new community space, the agora. The agora was anopen place of assembly in ancient Greek city states, wherecitizens would gather for military duty, to hold markets or
to hear statements of the ruling king or council.
This October in the beautiful city of Hokkaido in northern Japan, AsiaFlux will host the 8th AsiaFlux Workshop
on 'Integrating cross-scale ecosystem knowledge: bridges andbarriers'. The workshop consists of a regular science session
and many special sessions such as 'CarboEastAsia', 'Global
biogeochemical cycles', 'Bridges between ecosystem observation and remote sensing', 'Barriers in flux measurements',
and 'Interfaces between carbon science and society'. Thesesessions consist of a diversity of individuals, workgroups,institutions, and organizations with different but overlapping roles within and between critical functional groups,
thereby building resilience. The workshop will not only
bring students, scientists, technologists, capitalists, entrepreneurs, diplomats, and policy-makers together, but also help
us cross cultural, disciplinary, geographic, and hierarchicalboundaries. Thus, we invite all to our new community spacein which science meets and interacts with others and whereinterests, values, and decisions are discussed, fought over, andperhaps settled. Welcome to the AsiaFlux agora.