Geo-societal sense-making

2020 ◽  
pp. SP508-2019-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Bohle
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Psychology ◽  
Adaptive Dynamics ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Sense Making ◽  
Anthropogenic Pressure ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Human Sense

AbstractAt present, only geoscientists utilize geoethics. However, geoethics may have broader, societal use. To illustrate this option, one combines theoretical insights that stem from complex–adaptive dynamics, social–ecological systems, semiotic–cultural psychology and geoethics. The following qualitative framework appears. The human niche is a network of complex–adaptive social–ecological systems, which humans conceive and build to sustain themselves. Human sense-making and practices are intrinsic and non-separable parts of the human niche. The feedback of human sense-making and human practices is iterative. The resulting feedback loop is pivotal for the dynamics of social–ecological systems. Geosciences facilitate the understanding of the dynamics of social–ecological systems. Geoethics supports the sense-making of human agents, such as, currently, geoscientists acting in a professional capacity. However, geoethics is not geoscience-specific when promoting to act actor-centric, virtue-ethics-focused, responsibility-focused and knowledge-based. Therefore, geoethics may shape societal practices beyond professional geosciences. By delivering analytical insights as well as resources for affective sense-making, geoethics may enable citizens to mitigate the challenges to their sense-making that complex–adaptive social–ecological systems may pose. Hence, geoethics may offer cultural references (analytical and affective) when human agents (individual, collective and institutional) are facing the complex–adaptive (wicked) features of the human niche, such as anthropogenic pressure or participatory governance.

The Role of Evolutionary Studies in Education for Sustainable Development

2019 ◽  
pp. 249-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dustin Eirdosh ◽  
Susan Hanisch
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Education For Sustainable Development ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Evolutionary Studies ◽  
Complex Adaptive

Evolutionary Studies (EvoS) examines the emergence and persistence of complex adaptive systems, including human social-ecological systems. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) aims to empower students with the skills to develop and sustain human social-ecological systems that reflect the shared values of our species. The aims of EvoS and ESD have clear overlaps, and yet these two fields remain as distant islands of thought with few academic bridges between them. This chapter explores the connections between EvoS and ESD from historical, theoretical, and applied perspectives and presents the value of an integrated approach. The authors argue the strengths of this approach include its cumulative evidence base from wide-ranging disciplines, its explanatory power, and its overall simplicity.

Social-ecological systems as complex adaptive systems: modeling and policy implications

2012 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Levin ◽  
Tasos Xepapadeas ◽  
Anne-Sophie Crépin ◽  
Jon Norberg ◽  
Aart de Zeeuw ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Strategic Interactions ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems Modeling

AbstractSystems linking people and nature, known as social-ecological systems, are increasingly understood as complex adaptive systems. Essential features of these complex adaptive systems – such as nonlinear feedbacks, strategic interactions, individual and spatial heterogeneity, and varying time scales – pose substantial challenges for modeling. However, ignoring these characteristics can distort our picture of how these systems work, causing policies to be less effective or even counterproductive. In this paper we present recent developments in modeling social-ecological systems, illustrate some of these challenges with examples related to coral reefs and grasslands, and identify the implications for economic and policy analysis.

scholarly journals Multisystemic Resilience

2021 ◽  
pp. 771-784
Author(s):  
Katrina Brown
Keyword(s):  
Systems Thinking ◽  
Current Literature ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Global Challenges ◽  
Complex Adaptive

This chapter examines the extent to which cross-disciplinary understandings of resilience support the development and application of multisystemic resilience approaches based on evidence in current literature. It focuses on how systems thinking—especially complex adaptive systems—has informed the evolution of social-ecological systems resilience analysis and the extent to which this provides an example of multisystemic resilience. It reviews some of the underlying concepts and principles in the field and the boundary-pushing areas of recent research. Finally, it identifies how systemic resilience analysis can make a difference in understanding key global challenges and suggests ways forward for development of a multisystemic resilience field.

scholarly journals Towards a better future for biodiversity and people: modelling Nature Futures

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
HyeJin Kim ◽  
Garry Peterson ◽  
William Cheung ◽  
Simon Ferrier ◽  
Rob Alkemade ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Building Blocks ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Relational Values ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
Modelling Framework ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Instrumental Values ◽  
Multiple Value ◽  
Sustainable Futures

The expert group on scenarios and models of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services initiated the development of the Nature Futures Framework for developing scenarios of positive futures for nature, to help inform assessments of policy options. This new scenarios and modelling Framework seeks to open up diversity and plurality of perspectives by differentiating three main value perspectives on nature – Nature for Nature (intrinsic values of nature), Nature for Society (instrumental values) and Nature as Culture (relational values). This paper describes how the Nature Futures Framework can be applied in modelling to support policy processes by identifying key interventions for change in realizing a diversity of desirable futures. First, the paper introduces and elaborates on key building blocks of the framework for developing qualitative scenarios and translating them into quantitative scenarios: i) multiple value perspectives on nature and the Nature Futures frontier representing diverse preferences, ii) incorporating mutual and key feedbacks of social-ecological systems in Nature Futures scenarios, and iii) indicators describing the evolution of social-ecological systems with complementary knowledge and data. This paper then presents three possible application approaches to modelling Nature Futures scenarios to support the i) review, ii) implementation and iii) design phases of policy processes. The main objective of this paper is to facilitate the integration of the relational values of nature in models, through improved indicators and other forms of evidence, and to strengthen modelled linkages across biodiversity, ecosystems, nature’s contributions to people, and quality of life to identify science- and knowledge-based interventions and to enhance ecological understanding for achieving sustainable futures. The paper aims at stimulating the development of new scenarios and models based on this new framework by a wide community of modelers, and the testing and possible further development of the framework, particularly in the context of future IPBES assessments.

Resilience

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl Folke
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Ecological Dynamics ◽  
Human Environment ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Resilience Thinking ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Individual

Resilience thinking in relation to the environment has emerged as a lens of inquiry that serves a platform for interdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration. Resilience is about cultivating the capacity to sustain development in the face of expected and surprising change and diverse pathways of development and potential thresholds between them. The evolution of resilience thinking is coupled to social-ecological systems and a truly intertwined human-environment planet. Resilience as persistence, adaptability and, transformability of complex adaptive social-ecological systems is the focus, clarifying the dynamic and forward-looking nature of the concept. Resilience thinking emphasizes that social-ecological systems, from the individual, to community, to society as a whole, are embedded in the biosphere. The biosphere connection is an essential observation if sustainability is to be taken seriously. In the continuous advancement of resilience thinking there are efforts aimed at capturing resilience of social-ecological systems and finding ways for people and institutions to govern social-ecological dynamics for improved human well-being, at the local, across levels and scales, to the global. Consequently, in resilience thinking, development issues for human well-being, for people and planet, are framed in a context of understanding and governing complex social-ecological dynamics for sustainability as part of a dynamic biosphere.

The pragmatic holism of social–ecological systems theory: Explaining adaptive capacity in a changing climate

2021 ◽  
pp. 030913252110160
Author(s):  
Sophie Adams
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Adaptive Capacity ◽  
Adaptive Dynamics ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Ecological System ◽  
Human Response ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
The Social

Now ubiquitous in research on adaptation to the impacts of anthropogenic climate change is the aim of cultivating adaptive capacity. With its promise to expand the scope of transformative human response within the adaptive dynamics of the social–ecological system, this approach is built upon the integration of the social and ecological, reflecting the ‘pragmatic holism’ at the heart of the concept of the ecological system. This vision is undercut, however, by an ambivalence about the agency of humans to effect adaptive change. I argue that this threatens to recoup the environmental determinism that characterised mid-20th-century theories of adaptation in geography and cognate disciplines – albeit in a new form defined by an understanding of agency as distributed and emergent that is associated with developments in cybernetics and complexity science. This article charts how the currently dominant discourse centred on adaptive capacity has come about and explores what it might mean for the politics of climate change adaptation, as the scope of human action is circumscribed by the adaptive dynamics of the social–ecological system.

scholarly journals Ethics to Intersect Civic Participation and Formal Guidance

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 773 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Bohle ◽  
Cornelia Nauen ◽  
Eduardo Marone
Keyword(s):  
Feedback Loop ◽  
Civic Participation ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Sense Making ◽  
Governance Arrangement ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Ethical Frameworks ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Seabed Mining

Sound governance arrangement in socio-ecological systems (human niche) combines different means of sense-making. The sustainability of human niche-building depends on the governability of the social-ecological systems (SES) forming the niche. Experiences from small-scale marine fisheries and seabed mining illustrate how ethical frameworks, civic participation and formalised guidance combine in the context of a “blue economy”. Three lines of inquiries contextualise these experiences driving research questions, such as “what is the function of ethics for governability?” First, complex-adaptive SES are featured to emphasise the sense-making feedback loop in SES. Actors are part of this feedback loop and can use different means of sense-making to guide their actions. Second, the “Voluntary Guidelines for Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries” and geoethical thinking are featured to highlight the relevance of actor-centric concepts. Third, Kohlberg’s model of “stages of moral adequacy” and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) are used to show how to strengthen actor-centric virtue-ethics. Combining these lines of inquiry leads to the conclusion that ethical frameworks, civic participation and formalised guidance, when put in a mutual context, support governability and multi-actor/level policy-making. Further research could explore how creativity can strengthen civic participation, a feature only sketched here.

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