Attaining Sustainable Services from Ecosystems through Trade-off Scenarios (ASSETS) & DELTAS programmes launch

Multidisciplinary Research Week 2013 at the University of Southampton

Ecosystem services is a term used to describe the multitude of resources humans benefit from nature such as clean air, water, and food. As human population grow so do the demands on resources.

Research currently being undertaken at Southampton seeks to improve the lives of more than one billion people living in poverty around the world by providing policy makers with tools to enable them to manage ecosystems sustainably, and reduce poverty.

Professor Guy Poppy discussed the Attaining Sustainable Services from Ecosystems through Trade-off Scenarios project which is developing modelling and risk management tools to address issues linked with food security and nutritional health for the millions of rural poor living in the forest and agriculture landscapes in Amazonia and Africa.

River deltas are home to an estimated 500 million people living in significant poverty, with particular concentrations in Asia and Africa. Working in close relationship with the government of Bangladesh and other global partners, Professor Robert Nicholls discussed the DELTAS Project and research that was being carried out to evaluate the effects of development policy decisions on people's living conditions.