scholarly journals Assessing the Complexity of Social-Ecological Systems: Taking Stock of the Cross-Scale Dependence

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (15) ◽  
pp. 6236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leandra R. Gonçalves ◽  
Mayara Oliveira ◽  
Alexander Turra
Keyword(s):  
Coastal Zone ◽  
Response Assessment ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ecosystem Approach ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Fit For Purpose ◽  
The Cross ◽  
The Impact

Human demands and activities introduce cross-scale pressures in different systems and scales, affecting the provision of ecosystem services and causing an unbalanced effect on human well-being within the territory. The existing institutions are frequently considered panaceas since they do not take into account the different spatial and jurisdictional scales of the social-ecological systems (SES). This paper aims to broaden the existing DPSIR (Drivers–Pressures–State–Impact–Response) assessment frameworks to strengthen the ecosystem approach and promote an integrated cross-scale perspective. The concept of the Cross-scale Ecosystem-Based Assessment (DIET) was developed and applied to a case study on the demand of seafood provisions. The assessment has indicated that the activities related to the specified demand occur at different scales and generate cumulative impacts and pressures on other scales, especially in the coastal zone. The existing responses to address this issue are highly fragmented, both spatially and among sectors. DIET was applied here to the land–sea interface to illustrate how coastal zone governance and management can be improved and how the impact of certain drivers or activities in the SES can be reduced. DIET may help to reduce the governance morbidity and prevent panaceas by fostering the integration of institutions in pursuing flexible, adaptive and fit-for-purpose policies to address complex issues so as to secure social-ecological justice and well-being for all humans.

scholarly journals Revisiting the relationships between human well-being and ecosystems in dynamic social-ecological systems: Implications for stewardship and development

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanessa A. Masterson ◽  
Susanne Vetter ◽  
Tomas Chaigneau ◽  
Tim M. Daw ◽  
Odirilwe Selomane ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Development Projects ◽  
Environmentally Sustainable ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Natural Beauty

Non-technical summaryWe argue that the ways in which we as humans derive well-being from nature – for example by harvesting firewood, selling fish or enjoying natural beauty – feed back into how we behave towards the environment. This feedback is mediated by institutions (rules, regulations) and by individual capacities to act. Understanding these relationships can guide better interventions for sustainably improving well-being and alleviating poverty. However, more attention needs to be paid to how experience-related benefits from nature influence attitudes and actions towards the environment, and how these relationships can be reflected in more environmentally sustainable development projects.

scholarly journals Revisiting the relationships between human well-being and ecosystems in dynamic social-ecological systems: Implications for stewardship and development

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanessa A. Masterson ◽  
Susanne Vetter ◽  
Tomas Chaigneau ◽  
Tim M. Daw ◽  
Odirilwe Selomane ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Development Projects ◽  
Environmentally Sustainable ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Natural Beauty

Non-technical summary We argue that the ways in which we as humans derive well-being from nature – for example by harvesting firewood, selling fish or enjoying natural beauty – feed back into how we behave towards the environment. This feedback is mediated by institutions (rules, regulations) and by individual capacities to act. Understanding these relationships can guide better interventions for sustainably improving well-being and alleviating poverty. However, more attention needs to be paid to how experience-related benefits from nature influence attitudes and actions towards the environment, and how these relationships can be reflected in more environmentally sustainable development projects.

Social-ecological Systems and Human Well-Being

2019 ◽  
pp. 53-69
Author(s):  
Luisa E. Delgado ◽  
Iskra Alejandra Rojo Negrete ◽  
Marcela Torres-Gómez ◽  
Amanda Alfonso ◽  
Francisco Zorondo-Rodríguez
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological

Sustainable livelihoods approach through the lens of the State-and-Transition Model in semi-arid pastoral systems

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (6) ◽  
pp. 541 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcos H. Easdale ◽  
Dardo R. López
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Livelihoods ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
The State ◽  
Transition Model ◽  
Pastoral Systems ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
State And Transition Model ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Semi Arid

Dealing with complex challenges worldwide regarding sustainable development and environmental management requires applied frameworks to understand and manage change in complex social-ecological systems. In this regard, frameworks that have originated from different research arenas such as the State-and-Transition Model and the sustainable livelihoods approach provide a conceptual basis for theory and operative integration. The aim of this paper was to provide a conceptual model for social-ecological research and sustainable management in semi-arid pastoral systems. We suggest integrating the state-and-transition model by including structural and functional features of social-ecological systems into the sustainable livelihoods approach. Both attributes are analysed at a household level in five types of capital that typically comprise social-ecological systems: natural, human, manufactured, social and financial. We propose to perform the structural-functional analysis for each capital as separate sub-systems in order to assess the impact of different disturbance factors. Some implications of this framework are explained by providing an example of the impact of drought in smallholder pastoral systems from semi-arid rangelands of North-West Patagonia, Argentina. This approach is encouraging as a step towards two main challenges: (i) the provision of applied frameworks for social-ecological assessment and management, and (ii) an attempt to bring closer science and decision making.

scholarly journals Systems Approaches to Combating Wildlife Trafficking: Expanding Existing Frameworks to Facilitate Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Browne ◽  
Emily M. Ronis ◽  
Jennifer R. B. Miller ◽  
Yula Kapetanakos ◽  
Samantha Gibbs ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Wildlife Trade ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Wildlife Trafficking ◽  
Learning And Collaboration ◽  
The Continuum

Wildlife trafficking is a complex conservation issue that threatens thousands of species around the world and, in turn, negatively affects biodiversity and human well-being. It occurs in varied social-ecological contexts; includes numerous and diverse actors along the source-transit-destination trade chain, who are involved in illicit and often covert human behaviors driven by interacting social, economic, cultural, and political factors; and involves numerous stakeholders comprising multiple sectors and disciplines. Such wicked problems can be difficult to define and usually lack simple, clear solutions. Systems thinking is a way to understand and address complex issues such as wildlife trafficking and requires multisectoral, cross-disciplinary collaboration to comprehensively understand today's increasingly complex problems and develop holistic and novel solutions. We review methods utilized to date to combat wildlife trafficking and discuss their strengths and limitations. Next, we describe the continuum of cross-disciplinarity and present two frameworks for understanding complex environmental issues, including the illegal trade in wildlife, that can facilitate collaboration across sectors and disciplines. The Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation provides guidance and tools for defining complex social-ecological systems and identifying strategic points of intervention. One Health focuses on the nexus of human, wildlife, and environmental health, and can provide a framework to address concerns around human-wildlife interactions, including those associated with the illegal wildlife trade. Finally, we provide recommendations for expanding these and similar frameworks to better support communication, learning, and collaboration in cross-disciplinary efforts aimed at addressing international wildlife trafficking and its intersections with other complex, global conservation issues.

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.

How to Concretize Research on the Coupling of Ecosystems to Human Activities? From Socioeconomic Indicators to Styles of Living and Acting

2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 218-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Jetzkowitz ◽  
Jörg Schneider
Keyword(s):  
Research Strategy ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Alien Plants ◽  
Plant Species Composition ◽  
Socioeconomic Indicators ◽  
Ecological Studies ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research Project ◽  
The Impact

Recent ecological studies have identified human activity as a relevant dimension of current evolutionary processes. However, most of these studies rely on socioeconomic indicators that consider the impact of activities on ecosystems but have only limited informative value on the effects of concrete patterns of action. This paper focuses on the concept of style as a tool for the study of the interface between society and nature. We exemplify our thesis with reference to changes in plant biodiversity in settlements, and start by summing up the methods and findings of our interdisciplinary research project that aimed to explain the distribution of native and alien plants. Since the findings indicate that styles of living and acting influence plant species composition, we apply the findings of our research strategy beyond the narrow focus of our study. Finally, we comment on methodological implications for the study of the societal aspects of social-ecological systems.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document