11. Transformations in risk: Tipping points of sustainability or humanitarian crisis? Chair: Thomas Downing, Stockholm Environment Institute, Sweden Panel members: Dr. Melissa Leach, Institute of Development Studies, The STEPS Centre, Brighton, UK Dr Koko Warner, programme officer at UNU EHS, not confirmed Dr Mohamed Hamza, Stockholm Environment Institute, Oxford, UK, not confirmed Dr. Andrew Stirling, SPRU, Sussex University, Brighton, UK Dr. Adrian Smith, SPRU, Sussex University, Brighton, UK Description: The multiple stresses of dynamic vulnerability are embedded in coupled socio-ecological systems. The nature of complexity—cross-scale interactions, impossibility of predicting futures, potential for flips in quasi-equilibrium states—demands an assessment of regions at-risk. Antecedent efforts, such as mapping syndromes (e.g., the work of PIK) or using vulnerability archetypes to assessment environment and development trends (as in the ongoing GEO assessment), explicitly adopt a multi-stressor approach. While multi-attribute analyses of vulnerability, risk and 'hot spots' are common, the anticipation of new vulnerabilities, and new environment-development interactions, has not been demonstrated. The tendency has been to assume that one complex of vulnerability persists into the future without the sort of transformation of structure and function that would imply a shift to a very different complex. Yet, the literature recognises that vulnerability (and even more so resilience) are dynamic, the outcomes of interactions between social agents and the environment, across scales. Our concern is to explore plausible futures where a complex of vulnerability tips into a humanitarian crisis. Conversely, we also intend to explore the potential for scaled up improvements in livelihoods, those plausible futures that achieve sustainability and a substantial reduction in vulnerability. Understanding the conditions for interventions in regions at risk—the path breaks, scale-free solutions, transformations—that induce resilience and sustainability require dialogue with stakeholders at several scales. Central questions that underline the assessment include: Are regions of risk approaching tipping points of social, institutional and environmental vulnerability that might lead to widespread crises? Or, are transformations in process that scale beyond the individual or community to resilient development? Four analytical objectives structure the planned assessment: 1. To compile a baseline of current critical regions at risk. The mapping of the current nominations for 'hot spots' of humanitarian crises, collapse of productive environments and impoverishment relies on understanding multiple stresses and their interactions to produce criticality. 2. To compare the inventory of hot spots from the 1980s and 1990s with the present baseline. Concern over potential crises of environmental-development interactions is not new, and insight from previous assessments would identify analytical typologies, historical processes and policy frameworks. 3. To describe pathways of transformations in risk, including tipping points. An analytical framework and language of pathways, recognising actors and structure, status and transitions, and multi-scale processes, is required to understand the historical changes as well as evaluate potential interventions. 4. To evaluate case studies of present complexes as the foundation for examining diverging outcomes in the future. Selection criteria include a focus on displaced populations, longstanding field competence with partners, and potential for successful interventions, as well as a significant environmental concern. The conference session would focus on the first round of assessment from this SEI Strategic Initiative, as well as inviting related research. Specific outputs planned by early 2008 are: - A background paper on environment and forced migration including an inventory of 'hot spots'. - A background paper on formal frameworks to describe dynamic, actor-structure pathways. - A background paper on policy issues and interventions to anticipate tipping points and emerging humanitarian crises. The session will help shape the agenda for a major international conference on environment and forced migration, to be held in Bonn in October 2008.