9. What does the changing environment mean? Summary

Most environmental policy in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and Australia is based on a desire that the relationships between people, the economy and the environment will lead to the sustainable use of resources in ways that meet our ethical and moral obligations to other species and maintain a high quality of life for humans.

This report explores the interactions between humans and the environment, and attempts to answer:

• What impacts do humans have on ecological systems?
• What benefits do humans derive from these systems?
• How susceptible are coupled socioecological systems to shocks, which might mean they could no longer function in ‘desirable’ ways?

Guided by a series of community and expert workshops, the 2015 ACT State of the Environment Report answers these questions through indicative and preliminary assessments on:

• livability – how attractive the ACT is compared with other places in terms of the perceived quality of life
• ecosystem services – the ways in which the environment provides goods and benefits to people in the ACT, which support and fulfil their lives
• resilience – how well the coupled socioecological systems in the ACT might be able to cope with expected and unexpected pressures and shocks without losing the essential characteristics of those systems.

Livability

Livability is the combination of factors that contribute to people’s quality of life and wellbeing.  A city is livable if there are high levels of health and welfare, safety, economic and recreation opportunities, access to transport, attractiveness, and low levels of pollution.

The report considers overall indices of liveability, including:

• access to green infrastructure and open space
• the built environment, such as housing, connectivity, transport and congestion
• human health as affected by the built physical and natural environments
• government management of livability.

The report concludes that the ACT’s livability is high as measured by a number of international and national indices. The Territory has excellent access to open space, fresh air and water, good health outcomes and low congestion. The ACT is working to reduce urban sprawl. Green infrastructure is a major contributor to the livability of the ACT.

However, there are challenges in managing water quality to suit competing objectives, improving public and active transport alternatives, ensuring affordable housing for low-income residents, and maintaining good-quality urban spaces. The ACT Government has responded to these challenges by putting in place a number of important framework strategies including:

• ACT Planning Strategy (2012)
• Transport for Canberra: transport for a sustainable city 2012–2031
• ACT Nature Conservation Strategy 2013–23
• ACT Water Strategy 2014–2044
• ACT Government Infrastructure Plan 2011–2021.

The ACT Government has also made significant investments to address climate change, health, and public and active transport.

Ecosystem services

Ecosystem services are the ways in which processes in ecological systems (ecosystems) contribute to human social and economic wellbeing. These can be:

• provisioning services, such as food, water, fire and fuel
• regulating services, such as for climate, water and disease
• cultural services, such as aesthetic, recreation, education and spiritual provisions
• supporting services, such as primary production and soil formation.

The report’s assessment of the state of services for air, land, water, biodiversity and heritage shows a generally positive situation, largely because of the high proportion of land under conservation tenure. The ACT also has overall good air and surface water quality, and land and heritage protection. However, pressure on these ecosystem services from incremental change – such as urban development and degradation from pest species, fire and erosion – is potentially a concern and needs to be managed carefully, particularly for biodiversity-based services.

Resilience

Resilience is the ability of a system to cope with pressures and shocks while retaining key characteristics. A resilient ecosystem can withstand shocks and rebuild itself if necessary. A resilient social system also anticipates and plans for the future. So, a resilient socioecological system for the ACT would have the capacity to adapt to change while maintaining desirable and valued characteristics.

The resilience assessment introduced in this report used expert workshops to assess the:

• indicators of resilience
• broad community values and pressures that threaten these values
• resilience characteristics of our socioecological system.

The report asks the question ‘Does the ACT have the resources, monitoring, feedback and networks in place to respond rapidly, effectively and successfully to changes that threaten the things that ACT people value in their relationships with the environment?’.

Overall, the ACT is assessed as having good socioecological processes in place. These processes will be able to maintain much of what is valued, and the ACT has performed very well against targets for reserving comprehensive, adequate and representative samples of ecosystems, which is a significant risk mitigation strategy. However, there are important gaps in our ability to understand and adapt to change in our climate, land, biodiversity and human needs. The ACT is not alone in facing these challenges – they are issues for all jurisdictions within Australia, and most developed and developing countries around the world.