C-BASC's research and innovation axes

The individual and collective appropriation of solutions for sustainability transitions are frequently hindered by unwillingness or incapacity of actors to change, and public policy incentives that are too weak or too broad to be effective. Overarching questions addressed in this axis include:

• What leeway is there for socio-ecological systems to evolve, and what transitions need to be organized to encourage the development of sustainable land management and food systems?
• On what criteria should public incentives be based, and should they focus on results (e.g., ecosystem services, social benefits) or means (e.g., conservation actions, cropping practices, etc.)?
• How do global drivers, such as climate change, global markets and international policy, interact with local drivers, such as land use planning and regulations by local governments, to influence local and global sustainability?

Research and innovation activities in C-BASC that address ecological and agroecological transitions at the organisational level of socio-ecological systems include the:

- Study and design of response options that contribute to sustainability at local to regional scales including: land use planning; diversification of agricultural production; protection and restoration of natural habitats; creating the conditions that lead to reductions in food waste and transitions to healthy and sustainable diets – including innovation in food processing and distribution, policy, education, labeling and economic incentives; and creating a circular economy with our work focusing on use of organic residues as agricultural fertilizer and building local food supply chains. 

- Study of feedbacks and interactions between local and global drivers especially those related to land use. This includes the study of how local and global drivers influence land use at local scales and in how in turn land use effects regional climate, biodiversity and pollution. Economic costs of land use change and its impacts are evaluated through effects on land managers’ income, costs of production, prices of agricultural goods and changes in consumer prices.

- Understanding and evaluation of the conditions of emergence as well as the effects of individual behaviors, social organization, public policies and corporate strategies in favor of public goods especially biodiversity and ecosystem services. We seek to understand decision processes (which result from private agents, including self-organized initiatives, and from public decision makers at various temporal and spatial scales) and their interactions to accelerate the movement towards more resilient socio-ecological systems. We also assess the expected and unintended effects of public policy instruments such as subsidies and other incentives. 

Understanding  how ecosystems respond to environmental change and management, as well as the obstacles to implementing sound ecosystem management are a critical component of the study and design of socio-ecological transitions.

• How can agricultural ecosystems be managed to be more biodiversity and environmentally friendly?
• How can biodiversity contribute to the agroecological transition?
• How can food processing, distribution and consumption contribute to the agroecological transition?
• How can agricultural and natural ecosystems be managed to increase their contribution to climate mitigation and capacity to adapt to climate change?
• What are the barriers to and opportunities for implementing these management measures and how can obstacles such as insufficient knowledge transfer and lack of suitable management alternatives be overcome?

To address these questions at the level of practitioners activities in C-BASC include the:

- Study and design of agroecological responses at farm, field and landscape levels including: i) biodiversity-based measures (see Box 1), and ii) changes in soil management, with a particular focus on tillage, pesticide and fertilizer use and soil organic matter amendments and their effects on soil carbon storage and greenhouse gas emissions, pollution, soil fertility, and soil biodiversity.

- Study and design of food system transformations including food transformation, distribution and consumption that facilitate the adoption of agroecological production practices. This will include, for example, overcoming barriers to greater incorporation of legumes in diets.

- Study of management strategies for forests and other natural ecosystems for climate mitigation – especially bioenergy and ecosystem carbon sequestration – and climate adaptation by favoring climate resilient tree species, increasing tree diversity, and thinning of forest stands.

- Understanding and prediction of climate change impacts on agricultural and natural systems and development of climate indicators for the agricultural and forest sectors.

- Evaluation of the multifunctionality of mixed-use landscapes in particular through innovative multicriteria approaches analyzed in collaboration with stakeholders. This includes the study and design – including through scenario development – of spatial patterns for agricultural and natural areas and of practices that connect biological populations, promote ecosystem services provision and support multifunctionality for economic, social, climatic and cultural benefits.

Biodiversity-based agroecological measures 

Reinforcing biological diversity at the level of fields, farms and landscapes can potentially address multiple environmental challenges by reducing pesticide use, fertilizer use, soil erosion and nutrient losses, while at the same time enhancing biodiversity, resilience in the face of climate change, and biocontrol of insect pests. But there are often technical impediments, and biodiversity-based measures sometimes result in reduction in yields and increases in agricultural pests, weeds and diseases. Scientists in the C-BASC consortium study a wide range of biodiversity-based measures including on-farm selection of crops, varietal mixtures of crops, inter-cropping, diversification of crop rotations – especially by including leguminous crops, planting of flower strips and hedges and agroforestry. Overcoming reluctance to adopt these measures will require demonstrating their efficacy across multiple criteria with experiments, observations and models; overcoming economic and socio-technical barriers to transformation, distribution and consumption in food systems; and co-designing viable means of implementation.

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One of the objectives of C-BASC is to reinforce links in research, innovation and training across a gradient of human intervention ranging from intensively cultivated to natural ecosystems. Studies in C-BASC cover the full gradient from high input agricultural systems at one end of the spectrum, to lightly managed semi-natural ecosystems such as some forests and wetlands at the opposite end of the spectrum, with many ecosystems such as pastures, prairies and managed forests in the middle. C-BASC capitalizes on the tremendous potential for synergies due to the similarity in the tools and concepts used to study ecosystems across the full range of this gradient. In addition, the ecological and agroecological transitions are best addressed by treating the full gradient of these ecosystems and their interactions, and this is especially pertinent for the C-BASC project since most or our work is on multifunctional landscapes. Achieving this objective requires overcoming long-standing barriers that have separated policy and research on "agricultural" vs. "natural" systems.

To address the challenges of biodiversity loss and the contribution of biodiversity to the agroecological and ecological transitions, we need to better understand the mechanisms of rapid species adaptation at the population level, and species interactions at the ecological community level.

• How do species and ecological communities adapt to changing environmental pressures, such as climate change and habitat degradation, and biological pressures, such as diseases and changes in predator-prey relationships?
• How can analysis of genetics, genomics and the deep history of evolution contribute to understanding adaptation and natural and artificial selection in plants and animals?
• How can this understanding be used to better manage agricultural and "wild" biodiversity and their interactions?

Research focuses on:

- Understanding mechanisms of evolution, natural/artificial selection and domestication, relationships between genes and phenotypic traits, and the links between landscape structure, species community composition, population demography, management practices and characteristics of the ecosystems.

- Developing innovative fundamental approaches around questions related to the ability of populations or species communities, including domesticated ones, to survive and adapt to changing environments. This includes setting-up experimental designs to study species interactions including crop/insect or human/insect, as well as the role of social interactions.

- Monitoring and understanding the dynamics of biological diversity. This relies on (i) experimental designs that allow surveying spatial/generational changes of populations and communities, or on experimental evolution coupled with high-quality phenotyping; and (ii) the identification of molecular signatures of past demographic or selective events through molecular surveys of populations coupled with environmental measurements (i.e., molecular ecology).

We will also initiate a working group on methodological challenges such as genomics, phenotyping and the mathematical, statistical and computational modeling required to tackle the big-data associated with the analysis of high-throughput gene sequencing and phenotyping data.

This axis relies heavily on research carried out in the three hierarchical axes described above that addresses the specificities of periurban systems. Periurban systems are subject to new pressures and expectations that are particularly relevant to C-BASC objectives.

These include:

• new laws requiring for example farmland preservation in urban planning documents and the valorization of urban organic residues, and
• growing demand of urban dwellers for local food, periurban biodiversity, and reduction of air, soil and water pollution in the context of ongoing urbanization projects.

Activities in this axis include:

- Land use and land management impacts on the environment and societal demands – We are analyzing how land use and management in periurban contexts impact agricultural production, biodiversity, and air, soil and water quality. We also analyze the biophysical processes at the interface of urban, agricultural and natural areas such as atmospheric exchanges and hydrology. An important dimension is the understanding of societal demands: Which ecosystem services are expected? Which management practices are desired or not?

- Territorial metabolism - Our aims are to characterize and design methods for managing material and immaterial flows between urban, periurban and rural systems, and to analyze the organizational and technical changes needed to better manage the ecological transition in periurban areas. These include changes in agricultural practices, urban gardens, consumer supply chains, recycling and waste recovery.

- Study and design of sustainable food systems – This focuses on the levers that enhance the role local supply chains and create synergies between local and external food supply chains. This includes an emphasis on participatory design that mobilizes a wide range of actors such as farmers, consumers, local politicians, and scientists.       

- Adaptation of socioecological systems in periurban areas to global changes - This focuses on scenario development and prospective approaches in which we examine the vulnerability and resilience of periurban areas facing changes in demography, climate, land use, etc. This also involves analyzing the reaction of periurban areas to these changes using monitoring data and conceptual and numerical models. This axis includes biophysical and social science dimensions, and relies on strong interactions with territorial stakeholders.