1. |
- Ahlborg, Helene, 1980, et al.
(författare)
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Mismatch Between Scales of Knowledge in Nepalese Forestry: Epistemology, Power, and Policy Implications
- 2012
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 17:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The importance of scale dynamics and scale mismatches for outcomes of natural resource management has been widely discussed. In this article we develop theoretically the concept of ‘knowledge scales’ and illustrate it through empirical examples. We define scales of knowledge as the temporal and spatial extent and character of knowledge held by individuals and collectives, and argue that disparate scales of knowledge are an important ‘scale mismatch,’ which together with scale politics, lead to conflicts in Nepalese forest management. We reveal how there are multiple positions within local knowledge systems and how these positions emerge through people’s use of and relations to the forest, in a dynamic interaction between the natural environment and relations of power such as gender, literacy, and caste. Nepalese forestry is a realm in which power and scales of knowledge are being coproduced in community forestry, at the interface of material and symbolic practices in use of forest resources, and in contestations of social-political relations. Further, we reflect upon the importance of clear and precise use of scale concepts and present a methodological approach using triangulation for divergence, enabling researchers and practitioners involved in natural resource management to reveal scale mismatches and politics.
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2. |
- Almedom, Astier, et al.
(författare)
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Principles of epistemological accountability with methodological implications for measuring, assessing, and profiling human resilience
- 2015
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Ingår i: Ecology & Society. - 1708-3087. ; 20:3, s. 9-9
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We propose two fundamental principles of epistemological accountability with critical methodological implications for studies designed to measure, assess, and/or profile human psychosocial resilience. Firstly, researchers involved in human psychosocial resilience studies owe it to the individuals and communities that they engage to disclose their motives and possible misreadings of the situations they enter, albeit with good intentions. Secondly, researchers and those individuals researched need to share a language of colearning and coproduction, and utilization of knowledge that is mutually intelligible. Again, the onus is on researchers and their funders to respect the researched and their particular epistemological sovereignties. As the number of published examples of authentic community-and/or needs-driven research and action to strengthen human psychosocial resilience increases, the sustainability of human social well-being and harmony may also be expected to rise. Psychosocial resilience encompasses a dynamic multidimensional set of personal capabilities as well as social and material assets/resources that individuals, families, and communities mobilize to mentally and emotionally embrace "turbulent" change and transformation while maintaining routine functioning without loss of identity, integrity, or core purpose in life that defines them as who they are individually as well as collectively. These proposed informed predictions are yet to be widely adopted and applied in the new paradigm for advancing this century of human psychosocial resilience, well-being, and sustainability.
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3. |
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4. |
- Anderies, John M., et al.
(författare)
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Aligning Key Concepts for Global Change Policy : Robustness, Resilience, and Sustainability
- 2013
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 18:2, s. 8-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Globalization, the process by which local social-ecological systems (SESs) are becoming linked in a global network, presents policy scientists and practitioners with unique and difficult challenges. Although local SESs can be extremely complex, when they become more tightly linked in the global system, complexity increases very rapidly as multi-scale and multi-level processes become more important. Here, we argue that addressing these multi-scale and multi-level challenges requires a collection of theories and models. We suggest that the conceptual domains of sustainability, resilience, and robustness provide a sufficiently rich collection of theories and models, but overlapping definitions and confusion about how these conceptual domains articulate with one another reduces their utility. We attempt to eliminate this confusion and illustrate how sustainability, resilience, and robustness can be used in tandem to address the multi-scale and multi-level challenges associated with global change.
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5. |
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6. |
- Andersson, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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A context-sensitive systems approach for understanding and enabling ecosystem service realization in cities
- 2021
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - : Resilience Alliance, Inc.. - 1708-3087. ; 26:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Understanding opportunities as well as constraints for people to benefit from and take care of urban nature is an important step toward more sustainable cities. In order to explore, engage, and enable strategies to improve urban quality of life, we combine a social-ecological-technological systems framework with a flexible methodological approach to urban studies. The framework focuses on context dependencies in the flow and distribution of ecosystem service benefits within cities. The shared conceptual system framework supports a clear positioning of individual cases and integration of multiple methods, while still allowing for flexibility for aligning with local circumstances and ensuring context-relevant knowledge. To illustrate this framework, we draw on insights from a set of exploratory case studies used to develop and test how the framework could guide research design and synthesis across multiple heterogeneous cases. Relying on transdisciplinary multi- and mixed methods research designs, our approach seeks to both enable within-case analyses and support and gradually build a cumulative understanding across cases and city contexts. Finally, we conclude by discussing key questions about green and blue infrastructure and its contributions to urban quality of life that the approach can help address, as well as remaining knowledge gaps both in our understanding of urban systems and of the methodological approaches we use to fill these gaps.
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7. |
- Andersson, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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Urban resilience thinking in practice : ensuring flows of benefit from green and blue infrastructure
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - : Resilience Alliance, Inc.. - 1708-3087. ; 26:4
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Present and future urbanization together with climate change and other uncertainties make urban quality of life a criticalissue, and one that will need constant attention and deliberation. Across cities and contexts, urban ecosystems in the form of greenand blue infrastructure, have the potential to contribute to human well-being as well as supporting biodiversity, and to do so underdiverse conditions. However, the realization of this potential depends not only on the green and blue infrastructure itself, the well-beingbenefits are outcomes of the structures and processes of the entire urban system. Drawing on theory and insights from social-ecologicaltechnological systems (SETS) research and resilience assessments, we describe how a systemic understanding of the generation anddelivery of green and blue infrastructure benefits may inform cross-sectoral strategies and interventions for building resilience aroundthis particular aspect of human well-being. Connecting SETS to non-academic discourse and practice, we describe the urban systemin terms of three systemic controlling variables: infrastructure, institutions, and the perceptions of individual beneficiaries, which wecall filters, and how these can be used in different participatory processes to assess and build resilience around green and blueinfrastructure and its benefits.To ground the conceptual and theoretical framework in real world complexity and make it operational in practice we discuss three casestudies applying the framework in Barcelona, Halle, and Stockholm. All cases share the same general three-step process but theirindividual combinations of methods and adaptions of the filters framework are designed to fit with three necessarily unique collaborative,transdisciplinary processes. The cases are discussed in terms of outcomes and output, the ways they made use of the conceptualframework, and the challenges they faced. This exploratory work points to a new way of engaging with urban resilience—the strengthof the approach is that it is not limited to the identification of specific interventions or policy options, nor trying to prevent change;rather it focuses on how to move with change and build resilience through constant balancing of different types of SETS change. Ourstudy reinforces the growing understanding of how well-being benefits positioned as emergent outcomes of internal SETS interactionsoffers leverage for mainstreaming green and blue infrastructure throughout diverse governance processes and sectors.
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8. |
- Andersson, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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Urban resilience thinking in practice: ensuring flows of benefit from green and blue infrastructure
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - : Resilience Alliance, Inc.. - 1708-3087. ; 26:4
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Present and future urbanization together with climate change and other uncertainties make urban quality of life a critical issue, and one that will need constant attention and deliberation. Across cities and contexts, urban ecosystems in the form of green and blue infrastructure, have the potential to contribute to human well-being as well as supporting biodiversity, and to do so under diverse conditions. However, the realization of this potential depends not only on the green and blue infrastructure itself, the well-being benefits are outcomes of the structures and processes of the entire urban system. Drawing on theory and insights from social-ecological-technological systems (SETS) research and resilience assessments, we describe how a systemic understanding of the generation and delivery of green and blue infrastructure benefits may inform cross-sectoral strategies and interventions for building resilience around this particular aspect of human well-being. Connecting SETS to non-academic discourse and practice, we describe the urban system in terms of three systemic controlling variables: infrastructure, institutions, and the perceptions of individual beneficiaries, which we call filters, and how these can be used in different participatory processes to assess and build resilience around green and blue infrastructure and its benefits.To ground the conceptual and theoretical framework in real world complexity and make it operational in practice we discuss three case studies applying the framework in Barcelona, Halle, and Stockholm. All cases share the same general three-step process but their individual combinations of methods and adaptions of the filters framework are designed to fit with three necessarily unique collaborative, transdisciplinary processes. The cases are discussed in terms of outcomes and output, the ways they made use of the conceptual framework, and the challenges they faced. This exploratory work points to a new way of engaging with urban resilience—the strength of the approach is that it is not limited to the identification of specific interventions or policy options, nor trying to prevent change; rather it focuses on how to move with change and build resilience through constant balancing of different types of SETS change. Our study reinforces the growing understanding of how well-being benefits positioned as emergent outcomes of internal SETS interactions offers leverage for mainstreaming green and blue infrastructure throughout diverse governance processes and sectors.
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9. |
- Angeler, David
(författare)
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Coerced regimes: management challenges in the Anthropocene
- 2020
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 25
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Management frequently creates system conditions that poorly mimic the conditions of a desirable self-organizing regime. Such management is ubiquitous across complex systems of people and nature and will likely intensify as these systems face rapid change. However, it is highly uncertain whether the costs (unintended consequences, including negative side effects) of management but also social dynamics can eventually outweigh benefits in the long term. We introduce the term "coerced regime" to conceptualize this management form and tie it into resilience theory. The concept encompasses proactive and reactive management to maintain desirable and mitigate undesirable regime conditions, respectively. A coerced regime can be quantified through a measure of the amount of management required to artificially maintain its desirable conditions. Coerced regimes comprise "ghosts" of self-sustaining desirable system regimes but ultimately become "dead regimes walking" when these regimes collapse as soon as management is discontinued. We demonstrate the broad application of coerced regimes using distinct complex systems of humans and nature (human subjects, aquatic and terrestrial environments, agriculture, and global climate). We discuss commonalities and differences between these examples to identify trade-offs between benefits and harms of management. The concept of coerced regimes can spur thinking and inform management about the duality of what we know and can envision versus what we do not know and therefore cannot envision: a pervasive sustainability conundrum as planet Earth swiftly moves toward a future without historical analogue.
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10. |
- Angeler, David
(författare)
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Collapse, reorganization, and regime identity: breaking down past management paradigms in a forest-grassland ecotone
- 2021
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 26
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The identity of an ecological regime is central to modern resilience theory and our understanding of how systems collapse and reorganize following disturbance. However, resilience-based models used in ecosystem management have been criticized for their failure to integrate disturbance outcomes into regime identity. Assessments are needed to understand how well these classifications represent ecosystem responses that occur over management relevant time scales. We tracked post-wildfire forest and grassland dynamics 27 years after wildfire in eastern ponderosa pine savanna. We tested for differences between the assigned identity of a site (forest or grassland) versus classifications based on the site's disturbance history (burned/unburned and fire severity). Under current ecosystem models used to manage these forest-grassland ecotones, forests that experience high severity fire are expected to resemble an unburned grassland following fire, while forests and grasslands that experience low severity fire are expected to resemble unburned forests and grasslands, respectively. Twenty-seven years after wildfire, burned forests and grasslands displayed a high degree of departure from their expected regime identity. Plant and bird communities deviated significantly on sites that experienced low severity fire from undisturbed sites classified under the same ecological regime (grassland or forest). Forest sites that experienced high severity fire were the most unique of all disturbance history classes. Our results demonstrate that structures and communities predicted under resilience-based models used for eastern ponderosa pine management do not emerge over management relevant time scales following disturbance. Over 20% of variation in ecological structures and communities was explained by a single, 27-year-old disturbance. Integrating disturbance legacies will help improve applied models of ecosystem dynamics.
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11. |
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12. |
- Angeler, David
(författare)
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Iterative scenarios for social-ecological systems
- 2021
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 26
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Managing social-ecological systems toward desirable regimes requires learning about the system being managed while preparing for many possible futures. Adaptive management (AM) and scenario planning (SP) are two systems management approaches that separately use learning to reduce uncertainties and employ planning to manage irreducible uncertainties, respectively. However, each of these approaches have limitations that confound management of social-ecological systems. Here, we introduce iterative scenarios (IS), a systems management approach that is a hybrid of the scopes and relationships to uncertainty and controllability of AM and SP that combines the "iterativeness" of AM and futures planning of SP. Iterative scenarios is appropriate for situations with high uncertainty about whether a management action will lead to intended outcomes, the desired benefits are numerous and cross-scale, and it is difficult to account for the social implications around the natural resource management options. The value of iterative scenarios is demonstrated by applying the approach to green infrastructure futures for a neighborhood in the city of Cleveland, Ohio, U.S., that had experienced long-term, systemic disinvestment. The Cleveland green infrastructure project was particularly well suited to the IS approach given that learning about environmental factors was necessary and achievable, but what would be socially desirable and possible was unknown. However, iterative scenarios is appropriate for many social-ecological systems where uncertainty is high as IS accommodates real-world complexity faced by management.
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13. |
- Angeler, David, et al.
(författare)
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Managing ecosystems without prior knowledge: pathological outcomes of lake liming
- 2017
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 22
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Management actions often need to be taken in the absence of ecological information to mitigate the impact of pressing environmental problems. Managers counteracted the detrimental effects of cultural acidification on aquatic ecosystems during the industrial era using liming to salvage biodiversity and ecosystem services. However, historical contingencies, i.e., whether lakes were naturally acidic or degraded because of acidification, were largely unknown and therefore not accounted for in management. It is uncertain whether liming outcomes had a potentially detrimental effect on naturally acidic lakes. Evidence from paleolimnological reconstructions allowed us to analyze community structure in limed acidified and naturally acidic lakes, and acidified and circumneutral references. We analyzed community structure of phytoplankton, zooplankton, macroinvertebrates (littoral, sublittoral, profundal), and fish between 2000 and 2004. Naturally acidic limed lakes formed communities that were not representative of the other lake types. The occurrence of fish species relevant for ecosystem service provisioning (fisheries potential) in naturally acidic limed lakes were confounded by biogeographical factors. In addition, sustained changes in water quality were conducive to harmful algal blooms. This highlights a pathological outcome of liming lakes when their naturally acidic conditions are not accounted for. Because liming is an important social-ecological system, sustained ecological change of lakes might incur undesired costs for societies in the long term.
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14. |
- Angeler, David, et al.
(författare)
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Panarchy and management of lake ecosystems
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 26
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A key challenge of the Anthropocene is to confront the dynamic complexity of systems of people and nature to guide robust interventions and adaptations across spatiotemporal scales. Panarchy, a concept rooted in resilience theory, accounts for this complexity, having at its core multiscale organization, interconnectedness of scales, and dynamic system structure at each scale. Despite the increasing use of panarchy in sustainability research, quantitative tests of its premises are scarce, particularly as they pertain to management consequences in ecosystems. In this study we compared the physicochemical environment of managed (limed) and minimally disturbed reference lakes and used time series modeling and correlation analyses to test the premises of panarchy theory: (1) that both lake types show dynamic structure at multiple temporal scales, (2) that this structure differs between lake types due to liming interacting with the natural disturbance regime of lakes, and (3) that liming manifests across temporal scales due to cross-scale connectivity. Hypotheses 1 and 3 were verified whereas support for hypothesis 2 was ambiguous. The literature suggests that liming is a “command-and-control” management form that fails to foster self-organization manifested in lakes returning to pre-liming conditions once management is ceased. In this context, our results suggest that redundance of liming footprints across scales, a feature contributing to resilience, in the physicochemical environment alone may not be enough to create a self-organizing limed lake regime. Further research studying the broader biophysical lake environment, including ecological communities of pelagic and benthic habitats, will contribute to a better understanding of managed lake panarchies. Such insight may further our knowledge of ecosystem management in general and of limed lakes in particular.
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15. |
- Angeler, David
(författare)
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Quantifying uncertainty and trade-offs in resilience assessments
- 2018
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 23
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Several frameworks have been developed to assess the resilience of social-ecological systems, but most require substantial data inputs, time, and technical expertise. Stakeholders and practitioners often lack the resources for such intensive efforts. Furthermore, most end with problem framing and fail to explicitly address trade-offs and uncertainty. To remedy this gap, we developed a rapid survey assessment that compares the relative resilience of social-ecological systems with respect to a number of resilience properties. This approach generates large amounts of information relative to stakeholder inputs. We targeted four stakeholder categories: government (policy, regulation, management), end users (farmers, ranchers, landowners, industry), agency/public science (research, university, extension), and NGOs (environmental, citizen, social justice) in four North American watersheds, to assess social-ecological resilience through surveys. Conceptually, social-ecological systems are comprised of components ranging from strictly human to strictly ecological, but that relate directly or indirectly to one another. They have soft boundaries and several important dimensions or axes that together describe the nature of social-ecological interactions, e.g., variability, diversity, modularity, slow variables, feedbacks, capital, innovation, redundancy, and ecosystem services. There is no absolute measure of resilience, so our design takes advantage of cross-watershed comparisons and therefore focuses on relative resilience. Our approach quantifies and compares the relative resilience across watershed systems and potential trade-offs among different aspects of the social-ecological system, e.g., between social, economic, and ecological contributions. This approach permits explicit assessment of several types of uncertainty (e.g., self-assigned uncertainty for stakeholders; uncertainty across respondents, watersheds, and subsystems), and subjectivity in perceptions of resilience among key actors and decision makers and provides an efficient way to develop the mental models that inform our stakeholders and stakeholder categories.
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16. |
- Angeler, David, et al.
(författare)
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Revealing the organization of complex adaptive systems through multivarate time series modeling
- 2011
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 16, s. 5-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Revealing the adaptive responses of ecological, social, and economic systems to a transforming biosphere is crucial for understanding system resilience and preventing collapse. However, testing the theory that underpins complex adaptive system organization (e.g., panarchy theory) is challenging. We used multivariate time series modeling to identify scale-specific system organization and, by extension, apparent resilience mechanisms. We used a 20-year time series of invertebrates and phytoplankton from 26 Swedish lakes to test the proposition that a few key-structuring environmental variables at specific scales create discontinuities in community dynamics. Cross-scale structure was manifested in two independent species groups within both communities across lakes. The first species group showed patterns of directional temporal change, which was related to environmental variables that acted at broad spatiotemporal scales (reduced sulfate deposition, North Atlantic Oscillation). The second species group showed fluctuation patterns, which often could not be explained by environmental variables. However, when significant relationships were found, species–group trends were predicted by variables (total organic carbon, nutrients) that acted at narrower spatial scales (i.e., catchment and lake). Although the sets of environmental variables that predicted the species groups differed between phytoplankton and invertebrates, the scale-specific imprints of keystone environmental variables for creating cross-scale structure were clear for both communities. Temporal trends of functional groups did not track the observed structural changes, suggesting functional stability despite structural change. Our approach allows for identifying scale-specific patterns and processes, thus providing opportunities for better characterization of complex adaptive systems organization and dynamics. This, in turn, holds potential for more accurate evaluation of resilience in disparate system types (ecological, social, economic)
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17. |
- Angeler, David
(författare)
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Sonifying social-ecological change: A wetland laments agricultural transformation
- 2018
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 23
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Art-science approaches are mounting to increase public literacy about sustainability challenges as planet Earth swiftly moves to an uncertain future. We use data sonification, an approach that allows converting scientific data into music, to document the large-scale transformation of the agricultural sector in central Spain during the 1970s. We converted 71-year time series of inundation area and rainfall data from the freshwater marsh Las Tablas de Daimiel into a soprano and bass voice, respectively. We composed "The Lament of Las Tablas de Daimiel," which sings the biophysical disruption of the wetland due to the agricultural transformation. More generally, the song testifies to the demise of the natural aquatic environment due to unsustainable use of limited water resources in dryland countries and elsewhere. Making the mute voices of ecosystem heard may have potential to increase awareness about the unsustainable use of short water supplies and other social-ecological challenges. In the age of big data in science, data sonification may be a useful tool to represent and communicate such challenges.
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18. |
- Angelstam, Per, et al.
(författare)
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Meeting places and social capital supporting rural landscape stewardship : A Pan-European horizon scanning
- 2021
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - : Resilience Alliance. - 1708-3087. ; 26:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Achieving sustainable development as an inclusive societal process in rural landscapes, and sustainability in terms of functional green infrastructures for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services, are wicked challenges. Competing claims from various sectors call for evidence-based adaptive collaborative governance. Leveraging such approaches requires maintenance of several forms of social interactions and capitals. Focusing on Pan-European regions with different environmental histories and cultures, we estimate the state and trends of two groups of factors underpinning rural landscape stewardship, namely, (1) traditional rural landscape and novel face-to-face as well as virtual fora for social interaction, and (2) bonding, bridging, and linking forms of social capital. We applied horizon scanning to 16 local landscapes located in 18 countries, representing Pan-European social-ecological and cultural gradients. The resulting narratives, and rapid appraisal knowledge, were used to estimate portfolios of different fora for social interactions and forms of social capital supporting landscape stewardship. The portfolios of fora for social interactions were linked to societal cultures across the European continent: "self-expression and secular-rational values" in the northwest, "Catholic" in the south, and "survival and traditional authority values" in the East. This was explained by the role of traditional secular and religious local meeting places. Virtual internet-based fora were most widespread. Bonding social capitals were the strongest across the case study landscapes, and linking social capitals were the weakest. This applied to all three groups of fora. Pan-European social-ecological contexts can be divided into distinct clusters with respect to the portfolios of different fora supporting landscape stewardship, which draw mostly on bonding and bridging forms of social capital. This emphasizes the need for regionally and culturally adapted approaches to landscape stewardship, which are underpinned by evidence-based knowledge about how to sustain green infrastructures based on both forest naturalness and cultural landscape values. Sharing knowledge from comparative studies can strengthen linking social capital.
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19. |
- Ango, Tola Gemechu, et al.
(författare)
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Balancing Ecosystem Services and Disservices : Smallholder Farmers' Use and Management of Forest and Trees in an Agricultural Landscape in Southwestern Ethiopia
- 2014
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 19:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Farmers' practices in the management of agricultural landscapes influence biodiversity with implications for livelihoods, ecosystem service provision, and biodiversity conservation. In this study, we examined how smallholding farmers in an agriculture-forest mosaic landscape in southwestern Ethiopia manage trees and forests with regard to a few selected ecosystem services and disservices that they highlighted as beneficial or problematic. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected from six villages, located both near and far from forest, using participatory field mapping and semistructured interviews, tree species inventory, focus group discussions, and observation. The study showed that farmers' management practices, i.e., the planting of trees on field boundaries amid their removal from inside arable fields, preservation of trees in semimanaged forest coffee, maintenance of patches of shade coffee fields in the agricultural landscape, and establishment of woodlots with exotic trees result in a restructuring of the forest-agriculture mosaic. In addition, the strategies farmers employed to mitigate crop damage by wild mammals such as baboons and bush pigs, e. g., migration and allocation of migrants on lands along forests, have contributed to a reduction in forest and tree cover in the agricultural landscape. Because farmers' management practices were overall geared toward mitigating the negative impact of disservices and to augment positive services, we conclude that it is important to operationalize ecosystem processes as both services and disservices in studies related to agricultural landscapes.
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20. |
- Athias, Jean -Denis, et al.
(författare)
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Emergence of social-psychological barriers to social-ecological resilience : from causes to solutions
- 2024
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 29:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study explores social-psychological barriers that may affect resilience in the context of sustainability. These barriers can be understood as unobserved processes that reduce the capacity of a social-ecological system to recover after a perturbation or transformation. Analyzing social-psychological processes enables us to distinguish passive and active processes, at the individual and collective levels. Our work suggests that interacting social and psychological processes should be considered as dynamically evolving determinants of resilience, especially when perturbations can change the psychology of individuals, and thus the underlying dynamics of social-ecological systems. Hence, considering social-psychological barriers and the conditions under which they emerge may provide decision makers with useful insights for coping with ineluctable uncertainties that reduce systems' transformative capacity and thus their general resilience.
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21. |
- Baho, Didier Ludovic, et al.
(författare)
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A quantitative framework for assessing ecological resilience
- 2017
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 22
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Quantitative approaches to measure and assess resilience are needed to bridge gaps between science, policy, and management. In this paper, we suggest a quantitative framework for assessing ecological resilience. Ecological resilience as an emergent ecosystem phenomenon can be decomposed into complementary attributes (scales, adaptive capacity, thresholds, and alternative regimes) that embrace the complexity inherent to ecosystems. Quantifying these attributes simultaneously provides opportunities to move from the assessment of specific resilience within an ecosystem toward a broader measurement of its general resilience. We provide a framework that is based on reiterative testing and recalibration of hypotheses that assess complementary attributes of ecological resilience. By implementing the framework in adaptive approaches to management, inference, and modeling, key uncertainties can be reduced incrementally over time and learning about the general resilience of dynamic ecosystems maximized. Such improvements are needed because uncertainty about global environmental change impacts and their effects on resilience is high. Improved resilience assessments will ultimately facilitate an optimized use of limited resources for management.
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22. |
- Baker, Susan, 1954-, et al.
(författare)
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A policy analysis perspective on ecological restoration
- 2013
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 18:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Using a simple stages model of the policy process, we explore the politics of ecological restoration using an array of examples drawn across sector, different size and scale, and from different countries. A policy analysis perspective reveals how, at both the program and project levels, ecological restoration operates within a complex and dynamic interplay between technical decision making, ideologies, and interest politics. Viewed through the stages model, restoration policy involves negotiating nature across stages in the policy making process, including agenda setting, policy formulation, implementation, and evaluation. The stages model is a useful heuristic devise; however, this linear model assumes that policy makers approach the issue rationally. In practice, ecological restoration policy takes place in the context of different distributions of power between the various public and private actors involved at the different stages of restoration policy making. This allows us to reiterate the point that ecological restoration is best seen not only as a technical task but as a social and political project.
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23. |
- Baltutis, William Jesse, et al.
(författare)
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Degrees of change toward polycentric transboundary water governance : exploring the Columbia river and the lesotho highlands water project
- 2019
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 24:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Complex challenges emerging in transboundary river basins reveal a need to include a range of interests and actors in governance processes. Polycentric governance is one framework that can address this need and inform adaptive and resilient governance processes in transboundary basins as linked social and ecological systems. Here, we explore whether and how nonstate actors might be contributing to a shift in governance toward polycentric systems for the Columbia River (Canada/USA) and the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (Lesotho/South Africa). Using data gathered from 60 in-depth interviews, our empirical results illustrate four governance themes relevant to the emergence of polycentricity in the case study basins: Authority, flexibility, coordination activities, and information sharing. Although the emergence of polycentricity is limited by existing state-centric governance regimes, these regimes show evidence that polycentric traits are supplementing existing governance systems, influencing policy processes, and introducing a range of management values.
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24. |
- Balvanera, Patricia, et al.
(författare)
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Key features for more successful place-based sustainability research on social-ecological systems : a Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS) perspective
- 2017
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 22:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The emerging discipline of sustainability science is focused explicitly on the dynamic interactions between nature and society and is committed to research that spans multiple scales and can support transitions toward greater sustainability. Because a growing body of place-based social-ecological sustainability research (PBSESR) has emerged in recent decades, there is a growing need to understand better how to maximize the effectiveness of this work. The Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS) provides a unique opportunity for synthesizing insights gained from this research community on key features that may contribute to the relative success of PBSESR. We surveyed the leaders of PECS-affiliated projects using a combination of open, closed, and semistructured questions to identify which features of a research project are perceived to contribute to successful research design and implementation. We assessed six types of research features: problem orientation, research team, and contextual, conceptual, methodological, and evaluative features. We examined the desirable and undesirable aspects of each feature, the enabling factors and obstacles associated with project implementation, and asked respondents to assess the performance of their own projects in relation to these features. Responses were obtained from 25 projects working in 42 social-ecological study cases within 25 countries. Factors that contribute to the overall success of PBSESR included: explicitly addressing integrated social-ecological systems; a focus on solutionand transformation-oriented research; adaptation of studies to their local context; trusted, long-term, and frequent engagement with stakeholders and partners; and an early definition of the purpose and scope of research. Factors that hindered the success of PBSESR included: the complexities inherent to social-ecological systems, the imposition of particular epistemologies and methods on the wider research group, the need for long periods of time to initiate and conduct this kind of research, and power asymmetries both within the research team and among stakeholders. In the self-assessment exercise, performance relating to team and context-related features was ranked higher than performance relating to methodological, evaluation, and problem orientation features. We discuss how these insights are relevant for balancing place-based and global perspectives in sustainability science, fostering more rapid progress toward inter-and transdisciplinary integration, redefining and measuring the success of PBSESR, and facing the challenges of academic and research funding institutions. These results highlight the valuable opportunity that the PECS community provides in helping build a community of practice for PBSESR.
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25. |
- Ban, Natalie C., et al.
(författare)
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Linking classroom learning and research to advance ideas about social-ecological resilience
- 2015
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 20:3
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- There is an increasing demand in higher education institutions for training in complex environmental problems. Such training requires a careful mix of conventional methods and innovative solutions, a task not always easy to accomplish. In this paper we review literature on this theme, highlight relevant advances in the pedagogical literature, and report on some examples resulting from our recent efforts to teach complex environmental issues. The examples range from full credit courses in sustainable development and research methods to project-based and in-class activity units. A consensus from the literature is that lectures are not sufficient to fully engage students in these issues. A conclusion from the review of examples is that problem-based and project-based, e.g., through case studies, experiential learning opportunities, or real-world applications, learning offers much promise. This could greatly be facilitated by online hubs through which teachers, students, and other members of the practitioner and academic community share experiences in teaching and research, the way that we have done here.
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26. |
- Banitz, Thomas, et al.
(författare)
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Visualization of causation in social-ecological systems
- 2022
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - : Resilience Alliance, Inc.. - 1708-3087. ; 27:1
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In social-ecological systems (SES), where social and ecological processes are intertwined, phenomena are usually complex and involve multiple interdependent causes. Figuring out causal relationships is thus challenging but needed to better understand and then affect or manage such systems. One important and widely used tool to identify and communicate causal relationships is visualization. Here, we present several common visualization types: diagrams of objects and arrows, X-Y plots, and X-Y-Z plots, and discuss them in view of the particular challenges of visualizing causation in complex systems such as SES. We use a simple demonstration model to create and compare exemplary visualizations and add more elaborate examples from the literature. This highlights implicit strengths and limitations of widely used visualization types and facilitates adequate choices when visualizing causation in SES. Thereupon, we recommend further suitable ways to account for complex causation, such as figures with multiple panels, or merging different visualization types in one figure. This provides caveats against oversimplifications. Yet, any single figure can rarely capture all relevant causal relationships in an SES. We therefore need to focus on specific questions, phenomena, or subsystems, and often also on specific causes and effects that shall be visualized. Our recommendations allow for selecting and combining visualizations such that they complement each other, support comprehensive understanding, and do justice to the existing complexity in SES. This lets visualizations realize their potential and play an important role in identifying and communicating causation.
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27. |
- Barnes, Michele L., et al.
(författare)
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The social structural foundations of adaptation and transformation in social-ecological systems
- 2017
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 22:4
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Social networks are frequently cited as vital for facilitating successful adaptation and transformation in linked social-ecological systems to overcome pressing resource management challenges. Yet confusion remains over the precise nature of adaptation vs. transformation and the specific social network structures that facilitate these processes. Here, we adopt a network perspective to theorize a continuum of structural capacities in social-ecological systems that set the stage for effective adaptation and transformation. We begin by drawing on the resilience literature and the multilayered action situation to link processes of change in social-ecological systems to decision making across multiple layers of rules underpinning societal organization. We then present a framework that hypothesizes seven specific social-ecological network configurations that lay the structural foundation necessary for facilitating adaptation and transformation, given the type and magnitude of human action required. A key contribution of the framework is explicit consideration of how social networks relate to ecological structures and the particular environmental problem at hand. Of the seven configurations identified, three are linked to capacities conducive to adaptation and three to transformation, and one is hypothesized to be important for facilitating both processes. We discuss how our theoretical framework can be applied in practice by highlighting existing empirical examples from related environmental governance contexts. Further extension of our hypotheses, particularly as more data become available, can ultimately help guide the design of institutional arrangements to be more effective at dealing with change.
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28. |
- Barthel, Stephan, 1968-, et al.
(författare)
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Biocultural Refugia : Combating the Erosion of Diversity in Landscapes of Food Production
- 2013
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 18:4, s. UNSP 71-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- There is urgent need to both reduce the rate of biodiversity loss caused by industrialized agriculture and feed morepeople. The aim of this paper is to highlight the role of places that harbor traditional ecological knowledge, artifacts, and methodswhen preserving biodiversity and ecosystem services in landscapes of food production. We use three examples in Europe ofbiocultural refugia, defined as the physical places that not only shelter farm biodiversity, but also carry knowledge and experiencesabout practical management of how to produce food while stewarding biodiversity and ecosystem services. Memory carriersinclude genotypes, landscape features, oral, and artistic traditions and self-organized systems of rules, and as such reflect adiverse portfolio of practices on how to deal with unpredictable change. We find that the rich biodiversity of many regionallydistinct cultural landscapes has been maintained through different smallholder practices developed in relation to localenvironmental fluctuations and carried within biocultural refugia for as long as millennia. Places that transmit traditionalecological knowledge and practices hold important lessons for policy makers since they may provide genetic and culturalreservoirs — refugia — for the wide array of species that have co-evolved with humans in Europe for more than 6000 thousandyrs. Biodiversity restoration projects in domesticated landscapes can employ the biophysical elements and cultural practicesembedded in biocultural refugia to create locally adapted small-scale mosaics of habitats that allow species to flourish and adaptto change. We conclude that such insights must be included in discussions of land-sparing vs. land-sharing when producingmore food while combating loss of biodiversity. We found the latter strategy rational in domesticated landscapes with a longhistory of agriculture
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29. |
- Barthel, Stephan, 1968-, et al.
(författare)
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History and local management of a biodiversity-rich, urban cultural landscape
- 2005
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - : The Resilience Alliance. - 1708-3087. ; 10:2
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Urban green spaces provide socially valuable ecosystem services. Through an historical analysis of the development of the National Urban Park (NUP) of Stockholm, we illustrate how the coevolutionary process of humans and nature has resulted in the high level of biological diversity and associated recreational services found in the park. The ecological values of the area are generated in the cultural landscape. External pressures resulting in urban sprawl in the Stockholm metropolitan region increasingly challenge the capacity of the NUP to continue to generate valuable ecosystem services. Setting aside protected areas, without accounting for the role of human stewardship of the cultural landscape, will most likely fail. In a social inventory of the area, we identify 69 local user and interest groups currently involved in the NUP area. Of these, 25 are local stewardship associations that have a direct role in managing habitats within the park that sustain such services as recreational landscapes, seed dispersal, and pollination. We propose that incentives should be created to widen the current biodiversity management paradigm, and actively engage local stewardship associations in adaptive co-management processes of the park and surrounding green spaces. Copyright © 2005 by the author(s). Published here under license by the Resilience Alliance.
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30. |
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31. |
- Becker, Per
(författare)
-
Tightly coupled policies and loosely coupled networks in the governing of flood risk mitigation in municipal administrations
- 2021
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - : Resilience Alliance. - 1708-3087. ; 26:2
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Flood risk is a complex and transboundary issue that is expected to escalate with climate change and requires to be governed by collaborative networks of actors. Municipal administrations have been suggested to have a particularly important and challenging role in such governance. Although collaborative governance has attracted intense scientific attention, empirical studies generally focus either on the macro-level institutions per se, or on the meso-level interaction between organizations, without corresponding attention to the micro-level interactions between the individual actors constituting the organizations and reproducing the institutions. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of how flood risk is governed within municipal administrations, by studying how actors interact within them when implementing tightly coupled policies. The paper draws on comparative case study research of three Swedish municipal administrations (Lomma, Lund, and Staffanstorp). Data were collected through interviews with all 143 actors actively contributing to mitigating flood risk within the municipal administrations, and analyzed structurally and interpretatively using social network analysis and qualitative analysis. Although the Swedish legal framework consists of tightly coupled policies demanding coordination between the actors implementing them, there is a recurrent pattern of relative integration between actors implementing policies for planning and water and sewage, and substantial separation between them and actors implementing policy for risk and vulnerability. This cinderellic fragmentation generates a “problem of fit” between the legal framework and the collaborative networks implementing it, which undermines the effectiveness of flood risk mitigation in municipal administrations. It is not accidental but a consequence of a directional separation of institutionalization, where the more bottom-up and problem-oriented institutionalization of practices in planning and water and sewage, and the more top-down and compliance- oriented institutionalization of practices in risk and vulnerability pull the network of actors apart. I demonstrate how the mechanisms of increasing returns, commitments, and objectification may all operate simultaneously but to various degrees in different practices across any collaborative governance network. Hence, potentially undermining policy coherence, policy integration, and collaborative governance.
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32. |
- Bennett, Nathan J., et al.
(författare)
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The capacity to adapt?: Communities in a changing climate, environment, and economy on the northern Andaman coast of Thailand
- 2014
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087 .- 1708-3087. ; 19
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The health and productivity of marine ecosystems, habitats, and fisheries are deteriorating on the Andaman coast of Thailand. Because of their high dependence on natural resources and proximity to the ocean, coastal communities are particularly vulnerable to climate-induced changes in the marine environment. These communities must also adapt to the impacts of management interventions and conservation initiatives, including marine protected areas, which have livelihood implications. Further, communities on the Andaman coast are also experiencing a range of new economic opportunities associated in particular with tourism and agriculture. These complex and ongoing changes require integrated assessment of, and deliberate planning to increase, the adaptive capacity of communities so that they may respond to: (1) environmental degradation and fisheries declines through effective management interventions or conservation initiatives, (2) new economic opportunities to reduce dependence on fisheries, and (3) the increasing impacts of climate change. Our results are from a mixed methods study, which used surveys and interviews to examine multiple dimensions of the adaptive capacity of seven island communities near marine protected areas on the Andaman coast of Thailand. Results show that communities had low adaptive capacity with respect to environmental degradation and fisheries declines, and to management and conservation interventions, as well as uneven levels of adaptive capacity to economic opportunities. Though communities and households were experiencing the impacts of climate change, especially storm events, changing seasons and weather patterns, and erosion, they were reacting to these changes with limited knowledge of climate change per se. We recommend interventions, in the form of policies, programs, and actions, at multiple scales for increasing the adaptive capacity of Thailand's coastal communities to change. The analytical and methodological approach used for examining adaptive capacity could be easily modified and applied to other contexts and locales. © 2014 by the author(s).
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33. |
- Berbés-Blázquez, Marta, et al.
(författare)
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Resilience in the times of COVID : what the response to the COVID pandemic teaches us about resilience principles
- 2022
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 27:2
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Times of crisis offer a rare opportunity to understand the mechanisms underpinning the resilience of complex adaptive systems. The coronavirus pandemic that started in 2020 overwhelmed health systems worldwide and forced governments, businesses, and individuals to deploy a range of coping and adaptation strategies. Through an online survey targeting members of the Resilience Alliance and their collaborators, we examined 61 distinct strategies deployed in the initial months of the pandemic to assess empirically which resilience-building mechanisms were actually implemented to navigate the crisis. Our results show that managing connectivity, feedbacks, and learning were essential during the initial part of the pandemic. Other principles such as building diversity, redundancy, polycentricity, and inviting participation become important in rebuilding during the aftermath of a crisis, whereas keeping a systems view, monitoring slow variables, and practicing adaptive management are practices that should be incorporated during regular times.
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34. |
- Bergsten, Arvid, et al.
(författare)
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The problem of spatial fit in social-ecological systems : detecting mismatches between ecological connectivity and land management in an urban region
- 2014
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 19:4
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The problem of institutional fit in social-ecological systems has been empirically documented and conceptually discussed for decades, yet there is a shortage of approaches to systematically and quantitatively examine the level of fit. We address this gap, focusing on spatial fit in an urban and peri-urban regional landscape. Such landscapes typically exhibit significant fragmentation of remnant habitats, which can limit critical species dispersal. This may have detrimental effects on species persistence and ecosystem functioning if land use is planned without consideration of the spatial patterns of fragmentation. Managing habitat fragmentation is particularly challenging when the scale of fragmentation reaches beyond the control of single managers, thereby requiring different actors to coordinate their activities to address the problem at the appropriate scale. We present a research approach that maps patterns of collaborations between actors who manage different parts of a landscape, and then relates these patterns to structures of ecological connectivity. We applied our approach to evaluate the fit between a collaborative wetland management network comprising all 26 municipalities in the Stockholm County in Sweden and an ecologically defined network of dispersed but ecologically interconnected wetlands. Many wetlands in this landscape are either intersected by the boundary between two or more municipalities, or are located close to such boundaries, which implies a degree of ecological interconnectedness and a need for intermunicipal coordination related to wetland management across boundaries. We first estimated the level of ecological connectivity between wetlands in neighboring municipalities, and then used this estimate to elaborate the level of social-ecological fit vis-a-vis intermunicipal collaboration. We found that the level of fit was generally weak. Also, we identified critical misalignments of ecological connectivity and intermunicipal collaboration, respectively, as well as collaborations that represented an adequate alignment. These findings inform on where to most effectively allocate limited resources of collaborative capacity to enhance the level of social-ecological fit. Our approach and results are illustrated using maps, which facilitates the potential application of this method in land use planning practice.
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35. |
- Bergström, Johan, et al.
(författare)
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Bridging the macro and the micro by considering the meso: reflections on the fractal nature of resilience
- 2014
-
Ingår i: Ecology & Society. - 1708-3087. ; 19:4, s. 22-22
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We pursued the following three interconnected points: (1) there are unexplored opportunities for resilience scholars from different disciplines to cross-inspire and inform, (2) a systems perspective may enhance understanding of human resilience in health and social settings, and (3) resilience is often considered to be fractal, i.e., a phenomenon with recognizable or recurring features at a variety of scales. Following a consideration of resilience from a systems perspective, we explain how resilience can, for analytic purposes, be constructed at four scales: micro, meso, macro, and cross-scale. Adding to the cross-scale perspective of the social-ecological field, we have suggested an analytical framework for resilience studies of the health field, which incorporates holism and complexity by embracing an ecological model of cognition, something supported by epirical studies of organizations in crisis situations at various spatial as well as temporal scales.
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36. |
- Biggs, Duan, et al.
(författare)
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Are We Entering an Era of Concatenated Global Crises?
- 2011
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 16:2, s. 10-
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- An increase in the frequency and intensity of environmental crises associated with accelerating human-induced global change is of substantial concern to policy makers. The potential impacts, especially on the poor, are exacerbated in an increasingly connected world that enables the emergence of crises that are coupled in time and space. We discuss two factors that can interact to contribute to such an increased concatenation of crises: (1) the increasing strength of global vs. local drivers of change, so that changes become increasingly synchronized; and (2) unprecedented potential for the propagation of crises, and an enhanced risk of management interventions in one region becoming drivers elsewhere, because of increased connectivity. We discuss the oil-food-financial crisis of 2007 to 2008 as an example of a concatenated crisis with origin and ultimate impacts in far removed parts of the globe. The potential for a future of concatenated shocks requires adaptations in science and governance including (a) an increased tolerance of uncertainty and surprise, (b) strengthening capacity for early detection and response to shocks, and (c) flexibility in response to enable adaptation and learning.
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37. |
- Biggs, Reinette, et al.
(författare)
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Navigating the Back Loop : Fostering Social Innovation and Transformation in Ecosystem Management
- 2010
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 15:2, s. 9-
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Addressing the environmental challenges of the 21st century requires substantial changes to the way modern society views and manages ecosystems. In particular, many authors contend that fundamental transformation of the largely sectoral, expert-centered ecosystem-management institutions of modern, Western societies is needed. There is increasing agreement that more adaptive, integrated, collaborative ecosystem-management approaches, interlinked at multiple scales, would improve society's ability to sustainably manage complex social-ecological systems. Therefore, understanding processes of transformation, and factors that may enable transformation in ecosystem management, has become an active research area. We explore ecosystem-management transformations using a social-innovation framework. Based on three local-level case studies of transformation in freshwater management, we provide a pilot assessment of factors that may promote the emergence and adoption of integrated, collaborative ecosystem-management approaches. Our analysis suggests that ongoing environmental degradation, increasing environmental awareness, and shifting societal values are creating fertile ground for the emergence and adoption of new approaches to ecosystem management. Based on the case studies we examined, we suggest that initiatives that foster environmental awareness and attachment to local ecosystems, develop capacity for social entrepreneurship in the environmental arena, promote dialogue between key stakeholders, and provide institutional support to new institutions may facilitate the emergence of integrated, collaborative ecosystem-management approaches.
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38. |
- Biggs, Reinette (Oonsie), et al.
(författare)
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Strategies for managing complex social-ecological systems in the face of uncertainty : examples from South Africa and beyond
- 2015
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 20:1
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Improving our ability to manage complex, rapidly changing social-ecological systems is one of the defining challenges of the 21st century. This is particularly crucial if large-scale poverty alleviation is to be secured without undermining the capacity of the environment to support future generations. To address this challenge, strategies that enable judicious management of socialecological systems in the face of substantive uncertainty are needed. Several such strategies are emerging from the developing body of work on complexity and resilience. We identify and discuss four strategies, providing practical examples of how each strategy has been applied in innovative ways to manage turbulent social-ecological change in South Africa and the broader region: (1) employ adaptive management or comanagement, (2) engage and integrate different perspectives, (3) facilitate self-organization, and (4) set safe boundaries to avoid system thresholds. Through these examples we aim to contribute a basis for further theoretical development, new teaching examples, and inspiration for developing innovative new management strategies in other regions that can help address the considerable sustainability challenges facing society globally.
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39. |
- Biggs, Reinette, et al.
(författare)
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The Regime Shifts Database : a framework for analyzing regime shifts in social-ecological systems
- 2018
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 23:3
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Regime shifts, i.e., large, persistent, and usually unexpected changes in ecosystems and social-ecological systems, can have major impacts on ecosystem services, and consequently, on human well-being. However, the vulnerability of different regions to various regime shifts is largely unknown because evidence for the existence of regime shifts in different ecosystems and parts of the world is scattered and highly uneven. Furthermore, research tends to focus on individual regime shifts rather than comparisons across regime shifts, limiting the potential for identifying common drivers that could reduce the risk of multiple regime shifts simultaneously. Here, we introduce the Regime Shifts Database, an open-access database that systematically synthesizes information on social-ecological regime shifts across a wide range of systems using a consistent, comparative framework, providing a wide-ranging information resource for environmental planning, assessment, research, and teaching initiatives. The database currently contains 28 generic types of regime shifts and > 300 specific case studies. Each entry provides a literature-based synthesis of the key drivers and feedbacks underlying the regime shift, as well as impacts on ecosystem services and human well-being, and possible management options. Across the 28 regime shifts, climate change and agriculture-related activities are the most prominent among a wide range of drivers. Biodiversity, fisheries, and aquatic ecosystems are particularly widely affected, as are key aspects of human well-being, including livelihoods, food and nutrition, and an array of cultural ecosystem services. We hope that the database will stimulate further research and teaching on regime shifts that can inform policy and practice and ultimately enhance our collective ability to manage and govern large, abrupt, systemic changes in the Anthropocene.
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40. |
- Björkvik, Emma, 1987-, et al.
(författare)
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Why fishers end up in social-ecological traps : a case study of Swedish eel fisheries in the Baltic Sea
- 2020
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 25:1
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Unsustainable fishing can be surprisingly persistent despite devastating social, economic, and ecological consequences. Sustainability science literature suggests that the persistence of unsustainable fisheries can be understood as a social-ecological trap. Few studies have explicitly acknowledged the role of historical legacies for the development of social-ecological traps. Here, we investigate why fishers sometimes end up in social-ecological traps through a reconstruction of the historical interplay between fishers’ motivations, capacities, and opportunities to fish. We focus on the case of a Swedish fishery targeting the critically endangered European eel (Anguilla Anguilla) in the Baltic Sea. We performed the case study using a unique quantitative data set of social and ecological variables that spans over eight decades, in combination with earlier literature and interviews with fishers and fisheries experts. Our analysis reveals that Swedish archipelago fishers are highly dependent on the eel to maintain their fishing livelihood. The dependence on the eel originates from the 1930s, when fishers chose to intensify fishing for this species to ensure future incomes. The dependence persisted over time because of a series of changes, including improved eel fishing technology, heightened competition over catch, reduced opportunities to target other species, implementation of an eel fishing license, and the fishers’ capacity and motivation to deal with dwindling catches. Our study confirms that social-ecological traps are path-dependent processes. In terms of management, this finding means that it becomes progressively more difficult to escape the social-ecological trap with the passage of time. The longer entrapment endures, the more effort it takes and the bigger change it requires to return to a situation where fishers have more options so that unsustainable practices can be avoided. We conclude that fisheries policies need to be based on the premise that unsustainable fishing emerges through multiple rather than single causes.
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41. |
- Blenckner, Thorsten, et al.
(författare)
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Past and future challenges in managing European seas
- 2015
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 20:1
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Marine environments have undergone large-scale changes in recent decades as a result of multiple anthropogenic pressures, such as overfishing, eutrophication, habitat fragmentation, etc., causing often nonlinear ecosystem responses. At the same time, management institutions lack the appropriate measures to address these abrupt transformations. We focus on existing examples from social-ecological systems of European seas that can be used to inform and advise future management. Examples from the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea on long-term ecosystem changes caused by eutrophication and fisheries, as well as changes in management institutions, illustrate nonlinear dynamics in social-ecological systems. Furthermore, we present two major future challenges, i.e., climate change and energy intensification, that could further increase the potential for nonlinear changes in the near future. Practical tools to address these challenges are presented, such as ensuring learning, flexibility, and networking in decision-making processes across sectors and scales. A combination of risk analysis with a scenario-planning approach might help to identify the risks of ecosystem changes early on and may frame societal changes to inform decision-making structures to proactively prevent drastic surprises in European seas.
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42. |
- Bodin, Örjan, et al.
(författare)
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Social networks in natural resource management : What is there to learn from a structural perspective?
- 2006
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - : Resilience Alliance, Inc.. - 1708-3087. ; 11:2, s. r2-
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Social networks among actors and stakeholders are gaining attention in studies of natural resource management, particularly those of adaptive management based on different forms of participation and co-management. In this sense, social networks have primarily been envisioned as enabling different actors to collaborate and coordinate management efforts. Here, we continue the discussion initiated by Newman and Dale (2005), which highlighted the fact that not all social networks are created equal. We discuss the relation between some structural characteristics and functions of social networks with respect to natural resource management, thus focusing on structural implications that are often overlooked when studying social networks within the context of natural resource management. We present several network measures used to quantify structural characteristics of social networks and link them to a number of features such as learning, leadership, and trust, which are identified as important in natural resource management. We show schematically that there may be inherent juxtapositions among different structural characteristics that need to be balanced in what we envision as social network structures conducive to adaptive co-management of natural resources. We argue that it is essential to develop an understanding of the effects that different structural characteristics of social networks have on natural resource management.
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43. |
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44. |
- Bodin, Örjan, et al.
(författare)
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Theorizing benefits and constraints in collaborative environmental governance : a transdisciplinary social-ecological network approach for empirical investigations
- 2016
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 21:1
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- When environmental processes cut across socioeconomic boundaries, traditional top-down government approaches struggle to effectively manage and conserve ecosystems. In such cases, governance arrangements that foster multiactor collaboration are needed. The effectiveness of such arrangements, however, depends on how well any ecological interdependencies across governed ecosystems are aligned with patterns of collaboration. This inherent interdisciplinary and complex problem has impeded progress in developing a better understanding of how to govern ecosystems for conservation in an increasingly interconnected world. We argue for the development of empirically informed theories, which are not only able to transcend disciplinary boundaries, but are also explicit in taking these complex social-ecological interdependences into account. We show how this emerging research frontier can be significantly improved by incorporating recent advances in stochastic modeling of multilevel social networks. An empirical case study from an agricultural landscape in Madagascar is reanalyzed to demonstrate these improvements.
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45. |
- Boonstra, Wiebren J.
(författare)
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Conceptualizing power to study social-ecological interactions
- 2016
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 21:1
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- My aim is to conceptualize power using social science theory and to demonstrate why and how the concept of power can complement resilience studies and other analyses of social-ecological interaction. Social power as a scientific concept refers to the ability to influence both conduct and context. These two dimensions of power (conduct and context) can be observed by differentiating between various sources of power, including, for example, technology or mental power. The relevance of the conceptualization of power presented here is illustrated with the example of fire as a source of social-ecological power. I conclude by discussing how attention to power can help to address issues of social justice and responsibility in social-ecological interactions.
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46. |
- Borgström, Sara, et al.
(författare)
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Retaining multi-functionality in a rapidly changing urban landscape : insights from a participatory, resilience thinking process in Stockholm, Sweden
- 2021
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - : Resilience Alliance, Inc.. - 1708-3087. ; 26:4
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Urban social-ecological resilience research has focused on conceptual explorations, while less attention has been paid to how resilience thinking in practice may inform urban development. Using the rapidly urbanizing landscape in Stockholm as a case, we explore the urban specifics of resilience thinking practice and thereby contribute to the development of knowledge and practice of social-ecological resilience thinking generally. The study addresses an urban wicked problem: how to ensure that people continue to have access to the means necessary to realize benefits from green blue infrastructure, when the city is changing and governance is fragmented. Drawing on insights from the design and implementation of a participatory dialogue process, we outline methodological adaptations to a resilience informed system exploration, to better accommodate the complexity of urban systems. The participatory process included three phases: basic system understanding, dealing with change over time, and identifying alternative ways forward. Different knowledge elicitation and deliberation methods were deployed within workshops, surveys, and interviews, and were paralleled by a thorough reflexive analysis of process outcomes. The main discussion points are stakeholder participation, the role of discourses, identities and mandates, agency, and adaptive capacity, and alternative strategies for dealing with change. Deep knowledge of the complexities of urban land use and governance requires the involvement of diverse stakeholders. Handling this diversity poses a challenge for process design: combining the ambition of an inclusive process and the need to be relevant with the use of bridging concepts increases the risk of reducing the level of complexity of the deliberative process. There is also a risk of participation bias, where stakeholders knowledgeable about the green blue infrastructure are easier to engage compared to stakeholders with knowledge about drivers of change and urban governance, which will influence the system understanding and envisioned alternative pathways for taking action.
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47. |
- Borgström, Sara, 1977-, et al.
(författare)
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Scale mismatches in management of urban landscapes
- 2006
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - : RESILIENCE ALLIANCE. - 1708-3087. ; 11:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Urban landscapes constitute the future environment for most of the world’s human population.An increased understanding of the urbanization process and of the effects of urbanization at multiple scalesis, therefore, key to ensuring human well-being. In many conventional natural resource managementregimes, incomplete knowledge of ecosystem dynamics and institutional constraints often leads toinstitutional management frameworks that do not match the scale of ecological patterns and processes. Inthis paper, we argue that scale mismatches are particularly pronounced in urban landscapes. Urban greenspaces provide numerous important ecosystem services to urban citizens, and the management of theseurban green spaces, including recognition of scales, is crucial to the well-being of the citizens. From aqualitative study of the current management practices in five urban green spaces within the GreaterStockholm Metropolitan Area, Sweden, we found that 1) several spatial, temporal, and functional scalesare recognized, but the cross-scale interactions are often neglected, and 2) spatial and temporal meso-scalesare seldom given priority. One potential effect of the neglect of ecological cross-scale interactions in thesehighly fragmented landscapes is a gradual reduction in the capacity of the ecosystems to provide ecosystemservices. Two important strategies for overcoming urban scale mismatches are suggested: 1) developmentof an integrative view of the whole urban social–ecological landscape, and 2) creation of adaptivegovernance systems to support practical management.
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48. |
- Bousquet, Francois, et al.
(författare)
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Resilience and development : mobilizing for transformation
- 2016
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 21:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In 2014, the Third International Conference on the resilience of social-ecological systems chose the theme resilience and development: mobilizing for transformation. The conference aimed specifically at fostering an encounter between the experiences and thinking focused on the issue of resilience through a social and ecological system perspective, and the experiences focused on the issue of resilience through a development perspective. In this perspectives piece, we reflect on the outcomes of the meeting and document the differences and similarities between the two perspectives as discussed during the conference, and identify bridging questions designed to guide future interactions. After the conference, we read the documents (abstracts, PowerPoints) that were prepared and left in the conference database by the participants (about 600 contributions), and searched the web for associated items, such as videos, blogs, and tweets from the conference participants. All of these documents were assessed through one lens: what do they say about resilience and development? Once the perspectives were established, we examined different themes that were significantly addressed during the conference. Our analysis paves the way for new collective developments on a set of issues: (1) Who declares/assign/cares for the resilience of what, of whom? (2) What are the models of transformations and how do they combine the respective role of agency and structure? (3) What are the combinations of measurement and assessment processes? (4) At what scale should resilience be studied? Social transformations and scientific approaches are coconstructed. For the last decades, development has been conceived as a modernization process supported by scientific rationality and technical expertise. The definition of a new perspective on development goes with a negotiation on a new scientific approach. Resilience is presently at the center of this negotiation on a new science for development.
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49. |
- Brelsford, Christa, et al.
(författare)
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Developing a sustainability science approach for water systems
- 2020
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 25:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We convened a workshop to enable scientists who study water systems from both social science and physical science perspectives to develop a shared language. This shared language is necessary to bridge a divide between these disciplines’ different conceptual frameworks. As a result of this workshop, we argue that we should view socio-hydrological systems as structurally co-constituted of social, engineered, and natural elements and study the “characteristic management challenges” that emerge from this structure and reoccur across time, space, and socioeconomic contexts. This approach is in contrast to theories that view these systems as separately conceptualized natural and social domains connected by bi-directional feedbacks, as is prevalent in much of the water systems research arising from the physical sciences. A focus on emergent characteristic management challenges encourages us to go beyond searching for evidence of feedbacks and instead ask questions such as: What types of innovations have successfully been used to address these challenges? What structural components of the system affect its resilience to hydrological events and through what mechanisms? Are there differences between successful and unsuccessful strategies to solve one of the characteristic management challenges? If so, how are these differences affected by institutional structure and ecological and economic contexts? To answer these questions, social processes must now take center stage in the study and practice of water management. We also argue that water systems are an important class of coupled systems with relevance for sustainability science because they are particularly amenable to the kinds of systematic comparisons that allow knowledge to accumulate. Indeed, the characteristic management challenges we identify are few in number and recur over most of human history and in most geographical locations. This recurrence should allow us to accumulate knowledge to answer the above questions by studying the long historical record of institutional innovations to manage water systems.
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50. |
- Bölscher, Tobias
(författare)
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Turning points in climate change adaptation
- 2015
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 20
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Concerned decision makers increasingly pose questions as to whether current management practices are able to cope with climate change and increased climate variability. This signifies a shift in the framing of climate change from asking what its potential impacts are to asking whether it induces policy failure and unacceptable change. In this paper, we explore the background, feasibility, and consequences of this new framing. We focus on the specific situation in which a social-political threshold of concern is likely to be exceeded as a result of climate change, requiring consideration of alternative strategies. Action is imperative when such a situation is conceivable, and at this point climate change becomes particularly relevant to decision makers. We call this situation an "adaptation turning point." The assessment of adaptation turning points converts uncertainty surrounding the extent of a climate impact into a time range over which it is likely that specific thresholds will be exceeded. This can then be used to take adaptive action. Despite the difficulty in identifying adaptation turning points and the relative newness of the approach, experience so far suggests that the assessment generates a meaningful dialogue between stakeholders and scientists. Discussion revolves around the amount of change that is acceptable; how likely it is that unacceptable, or more favorable, conditions will be reached; and the adaptation pathways that need to be considered under these circumstances. Defining and renegotiating policy objectives under climate change are important topics in the governance of adaptation.
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