Svalbard Global Seed Vault:

Biodiversity 'Doomsday Vault'
Comes to Life in Arctic

PIERRE-HENRY DESHAYES / Agence France Presse 24feb2008

Aimed at providing mankind with a Noah's Ark of food in the event of a global catastrophe, an Arctic "doomsday vault" filled with samples of the world's most important seeds will be inaugurated here Tuesday.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Nobel Peace Prize winning environmentalist Wangari Matai will be among the personalities present at the inauguration of the vault, which has been carved into the permafrost of a remote Arctic mountain, just some 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from the North Pole.

The vault, made up of three spacious cold chambers each measuring 27 x 10 metres (89 x 33 feet), create a long trident-shaped tunnel bored into the sandstone and limestone.

It has the capacity to hold up to 4.5 million batches of seeds from all known varieties of the planet's main food crops, making it possible to re-establish plants if they disappear from their natural environment or are obliterated by major disasters.

"The facility is built to hold twice as many varieties of agricultural crops as we think exist," explained Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust and project mastermind.

"It will not be filled up in my lifetime, nor in my grandchildren's lifetime," he predicted in a phone interview with AFP.

Norway has assumed the six million euro (8.9 million dollar) charge for building the vault in its Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, where ironically no crops grow.

Secured behind an airlock door, the three airtight chambers have the capacity to house duplicates of samples from all the world's more than 1,400 existing seed banks.

Many of the more vulnerable seed banks have begun contributing to the "doomsday vault" collection, but some of the world's biodiversity has already disappeared, with gene vaults in both Iraq and Afghanistan destroyed by war and a seed bank in the Philippines annihilated by a typhoon.

By the time of the inauguration on Tuesday, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault should hold some 250,000 samples, which will remain the property of their countries of origin.

Pakistan and Kenya, both undergoing periods of serious unrest, have sent seed collections, while samples sent from Colombia have been closely scrutinised by police to avoid the project becoming a vehicle for drug trafficking.

"I've been working in this field for 30 years and I thought I knew at least all the crops," Fowler said.

After receiving a list of all the different seeds in the vault, however, "I must admit there are a number of crops I've never heard of before," he said.

That's a spectacular amount of diversity for Svalbard, where no trees can grow due to the permafrost and where the mercury plummets to an average 14 degrees Celsius below zero (6.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in winter.

The Norwegian archipelago, which is home to some 2,300 people, was selected not despite but because of its inhospitable climate, as well as its remote location far from civil strife.

The seeds of wheat, maize, oats and other crops will be stored at a constant temperature of minus 18 degrees Celsius, and even if the freezer system fails the permafrost will ensure that temperatures never rise above 3.5 degrees Celsius below freezing.

"Svalbard really met all the criteria," Fowler said.

Protected by high walls of fortified concrete, an armoured door, a sensor alarm and the native polar bears that roam the region, the "doomsday vault" has been built 130 metres (425 feet) above current sea level -- high enough that it would not flood if the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets melt entirely due to global warming.

The concrete cocoon has also been built to withstand nuclear missile attacks or a plunging plane, something that could come in handy in light of the 6.4-scale tremor -- the biggest earthquake in Norway's history -- registered near the archipelago on Thursday.

source: 24feb2008

Description of the facility

Svalbard Global Seed Vault lies about 1 kilometre from Longyearbyen Airport as the crow flies, at about 130 metres above sea level and consists entirely of an underground facility, blasted out of the permafrost (at about minus 3-4 degrees Celsius). The facility is designed to have an almost “endless” lifetime.

Takes climate change into account The location takes into account all known scenarios for rising sea level caused by global climate changes. The facility has also been located so deep inside the mountain that any possible changes to Svalbard’s climate, which we know about today, will not affect the efficacy of the permafrost. This will be a temporary temperature back up in the event of technical failure, such as loss of power supplies for a period.

Three underground chambers The facility consists of three separate underground chambers. Each chamber has the capacity to store 1,5 million different seed samples. With the aid of its own electric machinery, powered by electricity from the local power station, it will maintain a constant interior temperature of minus 18 degrees Celsius. The chambers will have storage shelving for prepacked examples of food seeds from the depositors (donor countries).

The storage chambers themselves are reached via an access tunnel about 100 metres long, with an entrance portal on its outside. The entrance portal will be the only visible part of the facility. It is in the form of a long, narrow concrete “fin”, with an entrance of brushed steel. An artistic decoration on the outer roof surface and on the upper part of the front will partly reflect the polar light and partly give off a muted, glowing light.

source: 24feb2008

plan source: 24feb2008

photo source: 24feb2008

 

Prioritizing Climate Change Adaptation Needs for Food Security in 2030

David B. Lobell,1,2* Marshall B. Burke,1 Claudia Tebaldi,3 Michael D. Mastrandrea,4 Walter P. Falcon,1 Rosamond L. Naylor1 

Investments aimed at improving agricultural adaptation to climate change inevitably favor some crops and regions over others. An analysis of climate risks for crops in 12 food-insecure regions was conducted to identify adaptation priorities, based on statistical crop models and climate projections for 2030 from 20 general circulation models. Results indicate South Asia and Southern Africa as two regions that, without sufficient adaptation measures, will likely suffer negative impacts on several crops that are important to large food-insecure human populations. We also find that uncertainties vary widely by crop, and therefore priorities will depend on the risk attitudes of investment institutions. 

1 Food Security and Environment Program, Woods Institute for the Environment and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
2 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA 94550, USA.
3 National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO 80305, USA.
4 Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. 


* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: dlobell@stanford.edu  

source: 24feb2008