MyAV·¶

Module DescriptionÌý

This module explores the effects of future climate change, demographic shifts, and land use, on ecosystems and human health, influencing global and regional policy planning. As ecosystems, climate, and human health are interconnected, changes in land use and climate change, will alter many of the interactions between components of ecosystems and human health. For example, impacting the prevalence of mosquito-borne human disease through the increasing availability of suitable climatic niches and the opening up of local habitat patches. The module examines how scenarios of climate change, land use change, demographic change are constructed from environmental data. Using cutting-edge statistical and AI methods, the module then explores how ecosystems and human health may respond, employing counterfactual analysis and intervention-based testing to develop One Health solutions amid global change.

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Module Aim

This module aims to provide students with an understanding of future scenarios and how they are generated through projection and forecasting. Students will then be supported to explore how systems respond to change under various future scenarios using real-world data using AI & other advanced spatiotemporal statistical tools in R and Python.

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Learning Objectives
At the end of the module students will be able to:

• Summarise the need for scenarios of global futures, what they might represent and how they can be used.
• Explain the role of One Health approaches in addressing human health and other challenges under possible future scenarios.
• Assess primary scientific literature, reports, and other pertinent materials to understand the role nature and ecological underpinning for addressing global challenges under future global change.
• Identify key interactions within a system that are likely to be impacted by global change.
• Use available data on future scenarios to explore changes in global systems.

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Each week the module will cover an aspect of data analysis using examples and exercises drawing on environmental data. Topics will include:

• Understanding the role of scenarios using forecasting and future projection to present a range of possible futures. Examples will include climate change, land use change, demographic change and socio-economic change.
• The importance of future scenarios in the global policy and future planning context, including for action towards Sustainable Development Goals.
• How ecosystem and human health will be impacted by future change under various scenarios.
• How One Health solutions might play a key role in the design of resilient futures. Examples will include future cities and human health in the urban environment, reforestation and prevention of zoonotic disease emergence, future agriculture for food security, future nature conservation for carbon adaptation and mitigation targets.
• The use of counter factual analysis and intervention-based scenarios will show how alternative futures can be assessed under differing conditions, as well as consideration of costs and benefits of One Health compared to alternative approaches.

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There will be weekly office hours where students can attend to ask and get help with any coding/statistical issues they have encountered.