| 1. |
- Ahlborg, Helene, 1980, et al.
(author)
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Mismatch Between Scales of Knowledge in Nepalese Forestry: Epistemology, Power, and Policy Implications
- 2012
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In: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 17:4
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)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.
(author)
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Principles of epistemological accountability with methodological implications for measuring, assessing, and profiling human resilience
- 2015
-
In: Ecology & Society. - 1708-3087. ; 20:3, s. 9-9
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)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.
(author)
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Aligning Key Concepts for Global Change Policy : Robustness, Resilience, and Sustainability
- 2013
-
In: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 18:2, s. 8-
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)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.
(author)
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A context-sensitive systems approach for understanding and enabling ecosystem service realization in cities
- 2021
-
In: Ecology and Society. - : Resilience Alliance, Inc.. - 1708-3087. ; 26:2
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)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.
(author)
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Urban resilience thinking in practice : ensuring flows of benefit from green and blue infrastructure
- 2021
-
In: Ecology and Society. - : Resilience Alliance, Inc.. - 1708-3087. ; 26:4
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)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.
(author)
-
Urban resilience thinking in practice: ensuring flows of benefit from green and blue infrastructure
- 2021
-
In: Ecology and Society. - : Resilience Alliance, Inc.. - 1708-3087. ; 26:4
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)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
(author)
-
Coerced regimes: management challenges in the Anthropocene
- 2020
-
In: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 25
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)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
(author)
-
Collapse, reorganization, and regime identity: breaking down past management paradigms in a forest-grassland ecotone
- 2021
-
In: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 26
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)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
(author)
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Iterative scenarios for social-ecological systems
- 2021
-
In: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 26
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)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.
(author)
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Managing ecosystems without prior knowledge: pathological outcomes of lake liming
- 2017
-
In: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 22
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)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.
(author)
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Panarchy and management of lake ecosystems
- 2021
-
In: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 26
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)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
(author)
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Quantifying uncertainty and trade-offs in resilience assessments
- 2018
-
In: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 23
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)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.
(author)
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Revealing the organization of complex adaptive systems through multivarate time series modeling
- 2011
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In: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 16, s. 5-
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)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
(author)
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Sonifying social-ecological change: A wetland laments agricultural transformation
- 2018
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In: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 23
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)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.
(author)
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Meeting places and social capital supporting rural landscape stewardship : A Pan-European horizon scanning
- 2021
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In: Ecology and Society. - : Resilience Alliance. - 1708-3087. ; 26:1
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)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.
(author)
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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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In: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 19:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)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.
(author)
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Emergence of social-psychological barriers to social-ecological resilience : from causes to solutions
- 2024
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In: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 29:2
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)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.
(author)
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A quantitative framework for assessing ecological resilience
- 2017
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In: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 22
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)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.
(author)
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A policy analysis perspective on ecological restoration
- 2013
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In: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 18:2
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)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.
(author)
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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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In: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 24:2
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)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.
(author)
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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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In: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 22:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)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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- Ban, Natalie C., et al.
(author)
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Linking classroom learning and research to advance ideas about social-ecological resilience
- 2015
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In: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 20:3
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)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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