Reconfiguring Water Governance for Resilient Social-Ecological Systems in South America

2020 ◽  
pp. 113-135
Author(s):  
Micaela Trimble ◽  
Pedro R. Jacobi ◽  
Tomás Olivier ◽  
Miguel Pascual ◽  
Cristina Zurbriggen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
Water Governance ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological

scholarly journals Water ethics, justice, and equity in social-ecological systems conservation: lessons from the Queensland Wild Rivers Act

Water Policy ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 933-952 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sameer H. Shah ◽  
Lucy Rodina
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resource Management ◽  
Water Governance ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Resource Governance ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Water Ethics ◽  
Natural Rivers

Abstract The protection of natural rivers and watersheds face important concerns related to environmental (in)justice and (in)equity. Using the Queensland Wild Rivers Act as a case study, we advocate that ethical water governance attends to multiple and diverse values, specifically in ways that: (i) locate them within stakeholders' claims of inequality that emerge from a given or practiced water ethic; and (ii) historicize and understand them as resonating or reflecting natural resource management frameworks that have led to structural injustices. This approach, combined with adaptive co-governance, can contribute to more inclusive water ethics and even support reflexive spaces where radical change in social-ecological resource governance can be imagined.

scholarly journals Explaining and Measuring Social-Ecological Pathways: The Case of Global Changes and Water Security

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Bolognesi ◽  
Andrea K. Gerlak ◽  
Gregory Giuliani
Keyword(s):  
Water Governance ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Water Security ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Data Cube ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
Time Data ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Technical Requirements ◽  
Social Ecological

The Social-Ecological Systems (SES) framework serves as a valuable framework to explore and understand social and ecological interactions, and pathways in water governance. Yet, it lacks a robust understanding of change. We argue an analytical and methodological approach to engaging global changes in SES is critical to strengthening the scope and relevance of the SES framework. Relying on SES and resilience thinking, we propose an institutional and cognitive model of change that institutions and natural resources systems co-evolve to provide a dynamic understanding of SES that stands on three causal mechanisms: institutional complexity trap, rigidity trap, and learning processes. We illustrate how Data Cube technology could overcome current limitations and offer reliable avenues to test hypothesis about the dynamics of social-ecological systems and water security by offering to combine spatial and time data with no major technical requirements for users.

Polycentricity of urban watershed governance: Towards a methodological approach

Urban Studies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (16) ◽  
pp. 3525-3544 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Frimpong Boamah
Keyword(s):  
Water Governance ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Urban Water ◽  
Urban Watershed ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Governing System ◽  
Watershed Governance ◽  
Middle Rio Grande

This paper makes an initial contribution towards building a polycentricity index to account for the governing of social–ecological systems. It develops three indices and an overall index, using an approach based on network science, to measure the extent to which actors develop ordered relationships to address scale mismatches in urban water governance. These indices are discussed with respect to the overarching system of rules governing actors’ decisions within the Middle Rio Grande (MRG) urban watershed. The analysis and discussions herein suggest that the governance of the MRG is a predominantly monocentric governing system with elements of polycentricity. They also suggest that polycentricity in governing the MRG urban water commons could primarily be about the politics of power and resource distribution as actors reconfigure their positionalities and align themselves and their interests strategically. The paper concludes with a succinct discussion about how quantitative measures of an overarching system of rules could be incorporated into future indices.

scholarly journals A social-ecological approach to identify and quantify biodiversity tipping points in South America's seasonal dry ecosystems

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsten Thonicke ◽  
Fanny Langerwisch ◽  
Matthias Baumann ◽  
Pedro J. Leitão ◽  
Tomáš Václavík ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
Ecological Integrity ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Natural Vegetation ◽  
Sustainable Land Use ◽  
Tipping Points ◽  
Dry Forests ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological

Abstract. Tropical dry forests and savannas harbour unique biodiversity and provide critical ES, yet they are under severe pressure globally. We need to improve our understanding of how and when this pressure provokes tipping points in biodiversity and the associated social-ecological systems. We propose an approach to investigate how drivers leading to natural vegetation decline trigger biodiversity tipping and illustrate it using the example of the Dry Diagonal in South America, an understudied deforestation frontier. The Dry Diagonal represents the largest continuous area of dry forests and savannas in South America, extending over three million km² across Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay. Natural vegetation in the Dry Diagonal has been undergoing large-scale transformations for the past 30 years due to massive agricultural expansion and intensification. Many signs indicate that natural vegetation decline has reached critical levels. Major research gaps prevail, however, in our understanding of how these transformations affect the unique and rich biodiversity of the Dry Diagonal, and how this affects the ecological integrity and the provisioning of ES that are critical both for local livelihoods and commercial agriculture. Inspired by social-ecological systems theory, our approach helps to explain: (i) how drivers of natural vegetation decline affect the functioning of ecosystems, and thus ecological integrity, (ii) under which conditions, where, and at which scales the loss of ecological integrity may lead to biodiversity tipping points, and (iii) how these biodiversity tipping points may impact human well-being. Implementing such an approach with the greater aim of furthering more sustainable land use in the Dry Diagonal requires a transdisciplinary collaborative network, which in a first step integrates extensive observational data from the field and remote sensing with advanced ecosystem and biodiversity models. Secondly, it integrates knowledge obtained from dialogue processes with local and regional actors as well as meta-models describing the actor network. The co-designed methodological framework can be applied not only to define, detect, and map biodiversity tipping points across spatial and temporal scales, but also to evaluate the effects of tipping points on ES and livelihoods. This framework could be used to inform policy making, enrich planning processes at various levels of governance, and potentially contribute to prevent biodiversity tipping points in the Dry Diagonal and beyond.

scholarly journals Structural and Contentual Complexity in Water Governance

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (17) ◽  
pp. 9751
Author(s):  
Rudy Vannevel ◽  
Peter L. M. Goethals
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Environmental Analysis ◽  
Water Governance ◽  
Structural Complexity ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Organization And Management ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Institutional Organization

Social-ecological systems and governance are complex systems and crises that affect those systems are likely to be complex as well. Environmental topics are multi-faceted with respect to both structure and content. Structural complexity is about societal and institutional organization and management, whereas contentual complexity deals with environmental (or societal) analyses, knowledge, and problem-solving. Interactions between both are manifold, and it is essential they are included in decision-making. Describing these interactions results in a series of nineteen units, arranged in a matrix according to their prevailing mutual dependencies. These units show dominant processes and concepts, representative of environmental analysis. This approach, called ACCU (aggregation of concepts and complex adapted systems units), is provided with evidence through practices of, in particular, water governance.

scholarly journals Explaining and Measuring Social-Ecological Pathways: The Case of Global Changes and Water Security

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 4378 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Bolognesi ◽  
Andrea Gerlak ◽  
Gregory Giuliani
Keyword(s):  
Water Governance ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Water Security ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Data Cube ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
Time Data ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Technical Requirements ◽  
Social Ecological

The Social-Ecological Systems framework serves as a valuable framework to explore and understand social and ecological interactions, and pathways in water governance. However, it lacks a robust understanding of change. We argue an analytical and methodological approach to engaging global changes in SES is critical to strengthening the scope and relevance of the SES framework. Relying on SES and resilience thinking, we propose an institutional and cognitive model of change where institutions and natural resources systems co-evolve. Our model of change provides a dynamic understanding of SES that stands on three causal mechanisms: institutional complexity trap, rigidity trap, and learning processes. We illustrate how data cube technology could overcome current limitations and offer reliable avenues for testing hypotheses about the dynamics of Social-Ecological Systems and water security by offering to combine spatial and time data with no major technical requirements for users.

scholarly journals Applying the system viability framework for cross-scalar governance of nested social-ecological systems in the Guiana Shield, South America

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Berardi ◽  
Jayalaxshmi Mistry ◽  
Céline Tschirhart ◽  
Elisa Bignante ◽  
Odacy Davis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Guiana Shield ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological

scholarly journals Explaining and Measuring Social-Ecological Pathways: The Case of Global Changes and Water Security

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Bolognesi ◽  
Andrea K. Gerlak ◽  
Gregory Giuliani
Keyword(s):  
Water Governance ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Water Security ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Data Cube ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
Time Data ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Technical Requirements ◽  
Social Ecological

The Social-Ecological Systems (SES) framework serves as a valuable framework to explore and understand social and ecological interactions, and pathways in water governance. Yet, it lacks a robust understanding of change. We argue an analytical and methodological approach to engaging global changes in SES is critical to strengthening the scope and relevance of the SES framework. Relying on SES and resilience thinking, we propose an institutional and cognitive model of change that institutions and natural resources systems co-evolve to provide a dynamic understanding of SES that stands on three causal mechanisms: institutional complexity trap, rigidity trap, and learning processes. We illustrate how Data Cube technology could overcome current limitations and offer reliable avenues to test hypothesis about the dynamics of social-ecological systems and water security by offering to combine spatial and time data with no major technical requirements for users.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document