| 1. |
- 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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| 2. |
- Andersson, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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Cultural ecosystem services as a gateway for improving urban sustainability
- 2015
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Ingår i: Ecosystem Services. - : Elsevier BV. - 2212-0416 .- 2212-0416. ; 12, s. 165-168
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Quality of life in cities depends, among other things, on ecosystem services (ES) generated locally within the cities by multifunctional blue and green infrastructure. Successfully protecting green infrastructure in locations also attractive for urban development requires deliberate processes of planning and policy formulation as well as broad public support. We propose that cultural ecosystem services (CES) may serve as a useful gateway for addressing and managing nature in cities. CES can help embed multifunctional ecosystems and the services they generate in urban landscapes and in the minds of urbanites and planners, and thus serve an important role in addressing urban sustainability. In the city, CES may be more directly experienced, their benefits more readily appreciated, and the environment-to-benefit linkages more easily and intuitively understood by the beneficiaries relative to many material ES. Thus, we suggest that a focus on CES supply can be a good starting point for increasing the awareness among urban residents also of the importance of ES. Furthermore, CES are often generated interdependently with other critical ES and engaging people in the stewardship of CES could provide increased awareness of the benefits of a larger group of urban non-cultural ES.
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| 3. |
- Andersson, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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Double Insurance in Dealing with Extremes:Ecological and Social Factors for MakingNature-Based Solutions Last
- 2017
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Ingår i: Nature‐based Solutions to Climate Change Adaptationin Urban Areas. - Germany : Springer. ; , s. 51-64
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Global urbanisation has led to extreme population densities often in areasprone to problems such as extreme heat, storm surges, coastal and surface flooding,droughts and fires. Although nature based solutions (NBS) often have specifictargets,one of the overarching objectives with NBS design and implementation is toprotect human livelihoods and well-being, not least by protecting real estate andbuilt infrastructure. However, NBS need to be integrated and spatially and functionallymatched with other land uses, which requires that their contribution to societyis recognised. This chapter will present an ecologically grounded, resilience theoryand social-ecological systems perspective on NBS, with a main focus on how functioningecosystems contribute to the ‘solutions’. We will outline some of the basicprinciples and frameworks for studying and including insurance value in worktowards climate change adaptation and resilience, with a special emphasis on theneed to address both internal and external insurance. As we will demonstratethrough real world examples as well as theory, NBS should be treated as dynamiccomponents nested within larger systems and influenced by social as well as ecologicalfactors. Governance processes seeking to build urban resilience to climatechange in cities and other urban dynamics will need to consider both layers of insurancein order to utilize the powerful role NBS can play in creating sustainable,healthy, and liveable urban systems.
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| 4. |
- Andersson, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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Enabling Green and Blue Infrastructure to Improve Contributions to Human Well-Being and Equity in Urban Systems
- 2019
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Ingår i: BioScience. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0006-3568 .- 1525-3244. ; 69:7, s. 566-574
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The circumstances under which different ecosystem service benefits can be realized differ. The benefits tend to be coproduced and to be enabled by multiple interacting social, ecological, and technological factors, which is particularly evident in cities. As many cities are undergoing rapid change, these factors need to be better understood and accounted for, especially for those most in need of benefits. We propose a framework of three systemic filters that affect the flow of ecosystem service benefits: the interactions among green, blue, and built infrastructures; the regulatory power and governance of institutions; and people's individual and shared perceptions and values. We argue that more fully connecting green and blue infrastructure to its urban systems context and highlighting dynamic interactions among the three filters are key to understanding how and why ecosystem services have variable distribution, continuing inequities in who benefits, and the long-term resilience of the flows of benefits.
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| 5. |
- Andersson, Erik, 1978-, et al.
(författare)
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From urban ecology to urban enquiry : How to build cumulative and context-sensitive understandings
- 2024
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Ingår i: Ambio. - 0044-7447 .- 1654-7209. ; 53:6, s. 813-825
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper positions urban ecology as increasingly conversant with multiple perspectives and methods for understanding the functions and qualities of diverse cities and urban situations. Despite progress in the field, we need clear pathways for positioning, connecting and synthesising specific knowledge and to make it speak to more systemic questions about cities and the life within them. These pathways need to be able to make use of diverse sources of information to better account for the diverse relations between people, other species and the ecological, social, cultural, economic, technical and increasingly digital structures that they are embedded in. Grounded in a description of the systemic knowledge needed, we propose five complementary and often connected approaches for building cumulative systemic understandings, and a framework for connecting and combining different methods and evidence. The approaches and the framework help position urban ecology and other fields of study as entry points to further advance interdisciplinary synthesis and open up new fields of research.
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| 6. |
- Andersson, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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Making Sense of Biodiversity : The Affordances of Systems Ecology
- 2018
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Psychology. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 1664-1078. ; 9
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- We see two related, but not well-linked fields that together could help us better understand biodiversity and how it, over time, provides benefits to people. The affordances approach in environmental psychology offers a way to understand our perceptual appraisal of landscapes and biodiversity and, to some extent, intentional choice or behavior, i.e., a way of relating the individual to the system s/he/it lives in. In the field of ecology, organism-specific functional traits are similarly understood as the physiological and behavioral characteristics of an organism that informs the way it interacts with its surroundings. Here, we review the often overlooked role of traits in the provisioning of ecosystem services as a potential bridge between affordance theory and applied systems ecology. We propose that many traits can be understood as the basis for the affordances offered by biodiversity, and that they offer a more fruitful way to discuss human-biodiversity relations than do the taxonomic information most often used. Moreover, as emerging transdisciplinary studies indicate, connecting affordances to functional traits allows us to ask questions about the temporal and two-way nature of affordances and perhaps most importantly, can serve as a starting point for more fully bridging the fields of ecology and environmental psychology with respect to how we understand human-biodiversity relationships.
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| 7. |
- Andersson, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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Scale and context dependence of ecosystem service providing units
- 2015
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Ingår i: Ecosystem Services. - : Elsevier BV. - 2212-0416 .- 2212-0416. ; 12, s. 157-164
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Ecosystem services (ES) have been broadly adopted as a conceptual framing for addressing human nature interactions and to illustrate the ways in which humans depend on ecosystems for sustained life and well-being. Additionally, ES are being increasingly included in urban planning and management as a way to create multi-functional landscapes able to meet the needs of expanding urban populations. However, while ES are generated and utilized within landscapes we still have limited understanding of the relationship between ES and spatial structure and dynamics. Here, we offer an expanded conceptualization of these relationships through the concept of service providing units (SPUs) as a way to plan and manage the structures and preconditions that are needed for, and in different ways influence, provisioning of ES. The SPU approach has two parts: the first deals with internal dimensions of the SPUs themselves, i.e, spatial and temporal scale and organizational level, and the second outlines how context and presence of external structures (e.g, built infrastructure or larger ecosystems) affect the performance of SPUs. In doing so, SPUs enable a more nuanced and comprehensive approach to managing and designing multi-functional landscapes and achieving multiple ES goals.
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| 8. |
- Andersson, Erik, et al.
(författare)
-
Urban resilience thinking in practice : ensuring flows of benefit from green and blue infrastructure
- 2021
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - : Resilience Alliance, Inc.. - 1708-3087. ; 26:4
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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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| 9. |
- Andersson, Erik, et al.
(författare)
-
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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| 10. |
- Bai, Xuemei, et al.
(författare)
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Networking urban science, policy and practice for sustainability
- 2019
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Ingår i: Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. - : Elsevier BV. - 1877-3435 .- 1877-3443. ; 39, s. 114-122
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Networks are increasingly important for advancing urban science, policy and practice. The complexity that cities present to stakeholders of all kinds demands systems-based and networked approaches to solving sustainability challenges. This article analyses the contemporary rise of global networks of urban science, policy, and practice. We provide an overview of urban science, policy, and practice networks followed by a detailed case study of the emerging Future Earth Urban Knowledge Action Network (Urban KAN), highlighting its vision, initial activities and impacts, and challenges and remaining tasks. Findings from the case study reveal that a network across science, policy and practice can make significant contribution in cutting-edge knowledge generation, global research agenda setting, timely contribution to global policy processes, catalyzing the formation of new national and thematic research-action networks, among others. In contrast, such a network also faces challenges, in terms of attraction and representation of the composition, maintaining initial momentum, turning the science-policy integration and collaboration into reality, and obtaining strong and continued financial and institutional support. We conclude that networks across the boundaries of science-policy-practice are still in their infancy, and deeper collaborations across sector, scale, and networks that enable the implementation of effective new actions will be key indicator in measuring the success of these networks.
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