
Rob Alistair MarchantUniversity of York · Environment Department
Rob Alistair Marchant
PhD
About
372
Publications
273,730
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
14,817
Citations
Introduction
Additional affiliations
July 2017 - October 2017
Publications
Publications (372)
The concepts of planetary boundaries are influential in the sustainability literature and assist in delineating the ‘safe operating spaces’ beyond which critical Earth system processes could collapse. Moving away from our current trajectory towards ‘hothouse Earth’ will require knowledge of how Earth systems have varied throughout the Holocene, and...
Mountain regions are particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts. Yet, little is known about local adaptation responses in African mountain regions, especially if these are incremental or transformational. First, using household questionnaires, we interviewed 1,500 farmers across ten African mountain regions to investigate perceived climate c...
The analysis of fossil pollen from sediments is used to understand past vegetation and land cover variability. The observations of multiporate Poaceae pollen from sediments have received little attention in the literature and causes and rates of occurrence have few estimates, and the rates observed in the sediments are much lower than estimates obs...
Societal Impact Statement
Highland forests of Mozambique have been strongly modified by human activities for millennia. Some highlands have sheer rock cliffs and are highly inaccessible to people and appear relatively undisturbed. Evidence from the forest and soils of inaccessible Mount Lico show that the fire regime has changed over the recent mil...
Development corridors are linear programmes of infrastructure and agriculture aiming to facilitate rapid socio-economic development. In Africa, they are a major development activity, with 88 underway or planned corridors. Drawing from extensive literature and insights gleaned from a 4 year research programme, this review scrutinizes the impacts of...
The Maasai Mara and the wider Mau River Basin in East Africa provide fundamental ecosystem services that support people, wildlife, livestock and agriculture. The historical indigenous land use of the Mara and wider Mau basin was wildlife conservation and pastoralism with highland agriculture. However, land policy changes, the rise of community cons...
The near-coast environments where oysters occur are among the most impacted by humans globally, especially during the Late-Holocene. Yet, in West Africa, there is no documented historical record of change in these environments. We provide insight into the changing geochemical conditions of two oyster environments through high-resolution analysis of...
Open access article, free to download directly from the journal's website: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003101822400292X?via%3Dihub
You can also access to the paper using the DOI above
Most emissions scenarios suggest temperature and precipitation regimes will change dramatically across the globe over the next 500 years. These changes will have large impacts on the biosphere, with species forced to migrate to follow their preferred environmental conditions, therefore moving and fragmenting ecosystems. However, most projections of...
Despite three decades of policies discouraging biomass-based cooking in Africa, demand for fuelwood continues to rise. Several studies focus on household energy use, but few consider the role of commercial premises such as bakeries in deforestation, despite growing demand for bread. This study examines bread production by commercial bakeries in for...
Sub-Saharan Africa is under-represented in global biodiversity datasets, particularly regarding the impact of land use on species’ population abundances. Drawing on recent advances in expert elicitation to ensure data consistency, 200 experts were convened using a modified-Delphi process to estimate ‘intactness scores’: the remaining proportion of...
Drawing on collective experience from ten collaborative research projects focused on the Global South, we identify three major challenges that impede the translation of research on sustainability and resilience into better-informed choices by individuals and policy-makers that in turn can support transformation to a sustainable future. The three ch...
Citation: Newman, R.J.S.; Enns, C.; Capitani, C.; Thorn, J.P.R.; Courtney-Mustaphi, C.J.; Buckton, S.J.; Om, S.; Fazey, I.; Haji, T.A.; Nchimbi, A.Y.; et al. 'Kesho' Scenario Development for Supporting Water-Energy Food Security under Future Conditions in Zanzibar. Land 2024, 13, 195. https://doi. Abstract: Social-ecological interactions mediate wa...
Small developing islands demonstrate strong social–ecological interactions as well as a high level of exposure to climate-related effects, which can result in intense land use pressures. Scenario methodologies are useful for reflecting on how competing pressures interact when planning for a more sustainable future. In small islands, local knowledge...
Agriculture is extremely vulnerable to climate change. Changes in precipitation and temperature patterns will result in long-term declines in production and short-term crop failures. These short- and long-run impacts are projected to be particularly severe in developing countries because of high exposure to climate change impacts and dependence on...
A billion rural people live near tropical forests. Urban populations need them for water, energy and timber. Global society benefits from climate regulation and knowledge embodied in tropical biodiversity. Ecosystem service valuations can incentivise conservation, but determining costs and benefits across multiple stakeholders and interacting servi...
Small developing islands face a number of environmental and social pressures which impact resource security. This study uses a people-centred framework to investigate social-ecological interactions for water, energy and food security. Ten semi-structured focus group discussions were conducted in Pemba and Unguja islands with village elders and lead...
A high-resolution multiproxy sedimentary record comprising pollen, charcoal, trace element, stratigraphy and particle size data is used to reveal environmental changes from the mangrove ecosystem at Unguja Ukuu, Zanzibar, Tanzania, over the last 5000 years. Historical human–environment interactions over the last millennia are explored by a comparis...
Mountains play a crucial role for both the highlands and lowlands, but are particularly vulnerable to climate change and human interventions. This policy brief focuses on ecosystem restoration in the mountains. It highlights the role of healthy mountain ecosystems and their services and provides a set of recommendations to help design effective res...
The scale of climate migration across the Global South is expected to increase during this century. By 2050, millions of Africans are likely to consider, or be pushed into, migration because of climate hazards contributing to agricultural disruption, water and food scarcity, desertification, flooding, drought, coastal erosion, and heat waves. Howev...
The large-scale expansion of built infrastructure is profoundly reshaping the geographies of Africa, generating lock-in patterns of development for future generations. Understanding the impact of these massive investments can allow development opportunities to be maximised and therefore be critical for attaining the United Nations’ Sustainable Deve...
We examined the gastro-intestinal tracts (guts) of 160 fish species obtained from Nigerian coastal waters for microplastics and estimated annual microplastic intake by adult human population in the region from the fish species. A total of 5744 microplastics were recovered from the fish species analyzed with an average of 39.65 ± 5.67 items/individu...
Mining is important for economic development in many tropical countries, but mining can have serious impacts on biodiversity, both directly through operations at extraction sites, and indirectly via wider social-economic development. However, mitigation efforts by large-scale mining operators focus almost exclusively on extraction sites. We provide...
Rapid land use transformations and increased climatic uncertainties challenge potential sustainable development pathways for communities and wildlife in regions with strong economic reliance on natural resources. In response to the complex causes and consequences of land use change, participatory scenario development approaches have emerged as key...
Human beings are an active component of every terrestrial ecosystem on Earth. Although our local impact on the evolution of these ecosystems has been undeniable and extensively documented, it remains unclear precisely how our activities are altering them, in part because ecosystems are dynamic systems structured by complex, non-linear feedback proc...
Past forest fire events and fire frequencies are reconstructed with sediment–charcoal records at lake catchment spatial scales. Few quantitative palaeofire analyses exist in tropical montane forests, where fire return intervals are long (decadal and centennial scales) because of the infrequency of fire weather and fuel conditions. Fire return inter...
Globally, over 85% of oyster reefs have been lost, and the combined effects of climate change, ocean acidification, and environmental degradation, including pollution and mangrove overharvesting, could further reduce global oyster fisheries in the coming decades. To understand the level of impact of climate change on the oyster fishery in West Afri...
Mountains are highly significant regions in the context of climate change and sustainable development; they are situated at the intersection of accelerated climate warming, changes in moisture regime and support a large population that depends on mountains for their livelihoods, either directly or indirectly (Adler et al [...]
Whirlwinds and visible dust devils occur over semi-arid ecosystems and entrain particles from the ground surface. Fires produce abundant charcoal across savannahs and the resulting blackened surfaces create a large albedo contrast. Whirlwinds have been observed associated with active fires; yet, there are few published observations on post-fire lan...
Land cover has been modified by anthropogenic activities for thousands of years, although
the speed of change has increased in recent decades, particularly driven by socio-economic development. The development of transport infrastructure can accelerate land use land cover change, resulting in impacts on natural resources such as water, biodiversity...
Environmental changes and human activities in a mangrove ecosystem in Bang Khun Thian, south of Bangkok, the upper Gulf of Thailand were reconstructed through the analyses of pollen, charcoal, organic carbon, carbonate, particle size, heavy metals and radiocarbon dating. The results showed that fluctuating sea levels supported mangrove establishmen...
Mountains are highly significant regions in the context of climate change and sustainable development, at the intersection of accelerated warming and a large population depending directly or indirectly on them. They are regions of high biological and cultural diversity and provide vital goods and services to people living in and around mountain reg...
Environmental exposure to active pharmaceutical ingredients
(APIs) can have negative effects on the health of ecosystems and
humans. While numerous studies have monitored APIs in rivers,
these employ different analytical methods, measure different
APIs, and have ignored many of the countries of the world. This
makes it difficult to quantify the sca...
Environmental exposure to active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) can have negative effects on the health of ecosystems and humans. While numerous studies have monitored APIs in rivers, these employ different analytical methods, measure different APIs, and have ignored many of the countries of the world. This makes it difficult to quantify the sca...
Significance
Despite growing evidence of the deleterious effects on ecological and human health, little is known regarding the global occurrence of pharmaceuticals in rivers. Studies assessing their occurrence are available for 75 of 196 countries, with most research conducted in North America and Western Europe. This leaves large geographical regi...
Since entering the ‘Millennium of the cities’ omnipresent rapid urbanization has caused dramatic changes to ecosystem functions and generated huge ecological risks across city catchments. An understanding of how multiple ecosystem services are associated across complex social-ecological systems is required for urban sustainability. However, few stu...
Through the Development Corridors Partnership, researchers in the University of York, UK, WWF Tanzania, and Sokoine University of Agriculture – Tanzania worked in partnership with SAGCOT and diverse stakeholders across scales and sectors from the Kilombero cluster to envisage how the land may transform in the future under targeted investments, and...
Mountain social-ecological systems (MtSES) are vital to humanity, providing ecosystem services to over half the planet's human population. Despite their importance, there has been no global assessment of threats to MtSES, even as they face unprecedented challenges to their sustainability. With survey data from 57 MtSES sites worldwide, we test a co...
Despite a growing recognition of the importance of designing, rehabilitating, and maintaining green infrastructure to provide essential ecosystem services and adapt to climate change, many decision makers in sub-Saharan Africa continue to favour engineered solutions and short term economic growth at the expense of natural landscapes and longer term...
Local communities’ perceptions of climatic changes can be used to complement meteorological data-scarce areas and places where climate changes are spatially highly variable, such as mountain environments. Local perceptions can also help identify adaptation strategies which are acceptable within, and work for, local cultures. Focusing on two mountai...
A detailed analysis of distribution shifts in Pinus hartwegii Lindl. is provided across time for Izta-Popo National Park (México). Combining satellite images, species distribution models, and connectivity analysis we disentangled the effect of climate change and anthropogenic land use on the habitat availability. Twenty-four Maxent habitat suitabil...
Mountain environments and communities are disproportionately impacted by climate change. Changes in temperature are greater than at lower elevations, which affect the height of the cloud base and local rainfall patterns. While our knowledge of the biophysical nature of climate change in East Africa has increased in the past few years, research on I...
Tropical forests store 40-50% of terrestrial vegetation carbon. Spatial variations in aboveground live tree biomass carbon (AGC) stocks remain poorly understood, in particular in tropical montane forests. Because of climatic and soil changes with increasing elevation, AGC stocks are lower in tropical montane compared to lowland forests. Here we ass...
Our ecological understanding of tropical montane forests in Africa is still limited, particularly in the Albertine Rift. Because of a greater role of environmental filtering at higher elevations, tree species’ richness and aboveground biomass (AGB) is expected to decrease with increasing elevation. However, broader scale patterns are complex and di...
Fire is an important ecological disturbance in moist tropical forests influencing vegetation composition and structure. Contemporary and historical records of forest fires in mountain forests of Kenya are limited to the past decades and have a strong anthropogenic influence for ignition patterns and fire suppression activities. Palaeoenvironmental...
Mountain social-ecological systems (MtSES) are transforming rapidly due to changes in multiple environmental and socioeconomic drivers. However, the complexity and diversity of MtSES present challenges for local communities, researchers and decision makers seeking to anticipate change and promote action towards sustainable MtSES. Participatory scen...
In this session speakers will present their research covering a range of topics within the Nature-based solutions theme including, agriculture, biodiversity, REDD+, off-setting and water management.
This poster session complements the related session on the Land stage, and through poster presentations and discussion will explore how to promote action-orientated adaptation research in the Global South at the scale needed.
This session will explore how to promote action-orientated adaptation research in the Global South at the scale needed. Action-orientated research for adaptation is research that is iterative, transdisciplinary and co-produced, creating enhanced long-term understanding and mutually beneficial knowledge that is usable in practice. In this session, w...
East African ecosystems have been shaped by long-term socio-ecological–environmental interactions. Although much previous work on human–environment interrelationships have emphasised the negative impacts of human interventions, a growing body of work shows that there have also often been strong beneficial connections between people and ecosystems,...
Mountainous regions are globally important, in part because they support large populations and are biodiverse. They are also characterized by enhanced vulnerability to anthropogenic pressures and sensitivity to climate change. This importance necessitates the development of a global reference network of long-term environmental and socioeconomic mon...
Mountain environments experience more rapid changes in temperature than lower elevations. However, little is known about the climatic changes already observed in African mountains, or the adaptation strategies used by hunter-gatherer communities. Semi-structured interviews were administered to 100 Twa hunter-gatherers living around Mt Kahuzi in eas...
Transdisciplinary research is a promising approach to address sustainability challenges arising from global environmental change, as it is characterized by an iterative process that brings together actors from multiple academic fields and diverse sectors of society to engage in mutual learning with the intent to co-produce new knowledge. We present...
Societal Impact Statement
Large areas of tropical forest are degraded. While global tree cover is being mapped with increasing accuracy from space, much less is known about the quality of that tree cover. Here we present a field protocol for rapid assessments of forest condition. Using extensive field data from Tanzania, we show that a focus on rem...