The THRESHOLDS IP will develop an innovative target-setting procedure, encompassing both the environmental and the socio-economic dimensions required to formulate robust policies ensuring sustainable development.
Research on sustainability thresholds is still in its pioneering phase. In fact the assumption that ecosystem responses to pressures are often non-linear, while conceptually recognised as plausible, has not so far been validated on a sufficiently large scale to trigger a change of attitude in policy making. The study of ecological discontinuities and thresholds effects as the consequence of human perturbations on ecological systems will be at the core of this Integrated Project. THRESHOLDS will provide theoretical framework and operational definitions to the concepts of Threshold and Point of No Return, together with scientific evidence to critically examine complex behaviour of ecosystems and non-linearities.
Methodologies for evaluating environmental pressures and impacts must be adapted to the complexity of the ecosystems and the non-linearity of its responses: within THRESHOLDS, externalities valuation will take account of non linear phenomena and discontinuity in valuation functions, so as to allow for the accurate estimation of the socio-economic costs of exceeding sustainability thresholds.
Policy strategies aimed at avoiding the trespassing of thresholds or the achievement of a point of no return will be identified and the costs and benefits of their implementation assessed against those of thresholds exceeding.
The benefits of the innovative integrated scientific approach will be tangible through a wide array of case studies in coastal areas at scales ranging from local to pan-European. Coastal areas meet a complex convergence of socio-economic interests and environmental pressures (land-ocean-atmosphere) together with intense population growth and welfare accumulation with a pressing need for policy formulation at the European scale, thereby providing a challenging test bench for THRESHOLDS.
In addition to “traditional”, one-way dissemination of results, a dialogue with potential users will be initiated and actively pursued during the whole project. In fact detailed research questions can be guided by the needs of the users, whose observations also become part of the data collection and analysis.
THRESHOLDS is structured along 7 Research Streams: