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Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment (AGWA)Documentation Version 2.0
Citation:
Mouat, D. A. AND W. G. KEPNER. Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment (AGWA)Documentation Version 2.0. Chapter 5, Science for Peace and Security Series. Springer Netherlands, , Netherlands, , 461-469, (2008).
Impact/Purpose:
This volume includes sections on recognizing environmental change, on subsequently identifying the key security challenges that face us in the early twenty-first century, on exploring common mechanisms to respond to global environmental change, and on responding to hazard impacts. Last, as environmental and human security are often inextricably interlinked and their common problem sets are often equal among all societies, this forum endeavors to explore these linkages, identify challenges, and seek solutions in a collaborative fashion across multiple scientific disciplines and geographies.
Description:
What are the human impacts of environmental change? How might land be used and what would be the potential benefits or consequences? Numerous questions arise as the world we know becomes smaller in our perception and the human population it supports becomes more dependent on the circumstances of a globalized economy. Increasingly, technology makes information instant and accessible to many. A first premise of the concept of security is that protection of human life from environmental, economic, food, health, personal, and political threats is a vital core value. A second argument is that actions that guard against environmental degradation represent a key element to security by ensuring sustainable resources and the continuation of providing ecosystem services that sustain human well-being. The human element of these premises, often partitioned as human security, and the ecosystem element is typically thought of as environmental security; both concepts, nonetheless, are so intrinsically interlinked that one term does not usually occur without the other.