Catalyzing action towards the sustainability of deltas

Abstract

Deltaic systems are among the most dynamic and productive environments on Earth and many have a high population density. Deltas play a central role in food and water security but are increasingly facing hazards such as submergence, riverine and coastal flooding, and coastal erosion. This paper synthesizes efforts of the Belmont Forum Deltas project, an international network of interdisciplinary research collaboration with focal areas in the Mekong, the Ganges Brahmaputra, and the Amazon deltas. The inherent complexity and dearth of knowledge about deltas require disciplinary expertise to advance jointly with interdisciplinary collaboration. An overarching research framework articulates focal research areas and collaborative modules, serving as an umbrella for both crosscutting and specific research questions. These modules have allowed for common definition of goals, responsibilities, and products, but flexible and decentralized disciplinary and interdisciplinary collaborations. Self-organization within and across areas of expertise has proven effective in bringing collaborators to commit to specific efforts. Knowledge co-production workshops focusing on vulnerability and risk have successfully strengthened interactions with regional organizations. As a distributed network, challenges remain in terms of type of and level of interaction and hands-on collaborative work among research partners, including joint fieldwork, but successes far outweigh difficulties. To illustrate these points, we present a review of three research domains built upon different arrangements of disciplinary and interdisciplinary collaborations: advancing biophysical classifications of deltas, understanding deltas as coupled socialecological systems, and analyzing and informing social and environmental vulnerabilities in delta regions. -Title change: we deleted 'BF-Deltas Project' from the title; -Editing section 2. We edited the section and included two paragraphs about how the project; came together and how the team responded to the funding call from the Belmont Forum program; -We added a discussion about funding to the conclusion; -We added annotated bibliographical notes to few specific references; Let me know if there are additional editing we would like us to make.On behalf of the co-authors, thanks for your consideration, -The inherent complexity and dearth of knowledge about deltas require disciplinary expertise to advance jointly with interdisciplinary collaboration, both involving teamwork.-A shared research framework has provided common language and goals, while allowing flexible and self-organizing collaborations.-Knowledge co-production workshops focusing on vulnerability and risk offer a productive venue for collaboration with regional partners and stakeholders.-Distributed research networks face challenges in terms of types of and level of interaction and hands-on collaborative work among research partners.-Deltas are sentinels of regional and global changes offering opportunities for new collaboration between and w...

Deltas in Crisis: From Systems to Sophisticated Conjunctions

“…The ambiguity of the social reappears in social-ecological studies of specific delta systems. This is exemplified by the previously mentioned large-scale interdisciplinary project, which, comparing the Mekong, the Ganges Brahmaputra and the Amazon deltas [21], alternates between taking the social as object of social-ecological analysis and as the problematic context of intervention. While the former calls for quantitative modeling, the latter entails managing complicated relations with regional organizations by hosting co-production workshops "focusing on vulnerability and risk" [21] (p. 182).…”

A Biophysical and Socioeconomic Review of the Volta Delta, Ghana

“…As a result of the issues stated above, the integrated assessment of deltas is now attracting the attention of the scientific research community to analyse and understand them as coupled biophysical and socioeconomic systems (Brondizio et al, 2016a(Brondizio et al, , 2016b. However, this attention has mainly been focussed on the major deltas including the Nile (Egypt), Ganges-Brahmaputra (Bangladesh/India), and the Yangtze (China) (Ericson et al, 2006;Milliman, Broadus, and Gable, 1989;Woodroffe et al, 2006), and smaller but regionally significant deltas are less understood.…”

Sustainable deltas: livelihoods, ecosystem services, and policy implications

“…Given the complexity of deltas' SES and multiple interactions and feedback loops between the components of these SES at multiple spatial scale, more multi-and interdisciplinary policy-relevant research programmes are needed with international teams of scientists, practitioners, members of regional organizations, representatives of civil society, and policymakers working closely together with populations locally and at river basins scales. As highlighted by Brondizio et al (2016), this will require innovative funding mechanisms. Such mechanisms should aim to support international partnerships with equitable funding streams for all involved and for longer periods of time than traditional project cycles of 3-4 years.…”

“…Nonetheless, the environmental vulnerability, combined with rapidly changing demographic dynamics in many river deltas, including often high rates of out-migration (Szabo et al 2015c), implies that an intensified effort will be required to ensure sustainable socio-economic development for delta populations. Therefore, despite increased global political and policy progress, multi-and inter-disciplinary research and multi-stakeholder engagement are and will continuously be critical to generate robust evidence for effective policy design (Brondizio et al 2016).…”

“…This special issue was developed as a contribution to the Sustainable Deltas 2015 initiative and draws on the work carried out within the BF-DELTAS project 4 ''Catalyzing action toward sustainability of deltaic systems with an integrated modeling framework for risk assessment'' which was granted by the Belmont Forum (BF) in 2013 (Foufoula-Georgiou et al 2013) and is executed by a consortium of 22 research partners globally (see also Brondizio et al 2016). The project allowed for a broad range of research teams covering different disciplines to work together and engage with stakeholders in various deltas.…”