A legacy of the global industrialisation, urbanisation and human population expansion characterising the twentieth century has been the creation of a host of environmental issues such as climate change, food security, biodiversity loss, over-exploitation of resources and ocean acidification. The challenge in the twenty-first century is to properly understand and mitigate these issues to ensure provision of safe and sustainable ecosystem services to support human well being. These issues will dominate the social, political and research agendas for the foreseeable future.
The EFS Theme is a platform to bridge our areas of excellence, providing added value, capacity building and new synergies. It presents a vehicle for dialogue between science and end-users (incorporating government, NGOs, private sector and communities) to identify and address relevant questions, then helping translate the science into policy to deliver real economic and societal impact.
The unique Aberdeen dimension in tackling these grand challenges lies in our geographical location where food production and natural resources are key to the national economy and livelihoods, coupled with our long associations with numerous local, regional, national and international stakeholder groups, particularly our established successful interactions with other Institutions, Schools and Industry, and our strong infrastructure and facilities base upon which we can build. This positions us to be a global driver in defining new research priorities in environment and food security, places us at the forefront of new and emerging areas, and provides a mechanism to ensure science impact.
- Food security. How can we sustainably feed 9 billion people by 2050 whilst, at the same time, reducing the environmental footprint of food production?
- Environmental change. What are the biotic and abiotic causes and consequences of environmental change, particularly driven by climate and land use change?
- Sustainable natural resource management. How can we sustainably manage our terrestrial, freshwater and marine habitats to conserve biodiversity and maintain the ecosystem services these habitats provide?