A synthesis of key factors for sustainability in social–ecological systems

A critical need exists to broaden and deepen sustainability information foundations that can foster growth of actionable knowledge about human–environment relations to address grand challenges in sustainable system domains such as sustainable development, social–ecological systems, and hazards influencing global environmental change. Broad-based information is needed to integrate across domains to address sustainability problems cast as complex systems problems that vary widely across space and time. Deep-based information is needed to address nuanced and contextual relationships that exist within and across domains. Both broad and deep information together are needed to better address spatial–temporal dynamics in complex sustainable systems. According to many publications, the concept of sustainable systems is considered to be at the core of self-organizing systems; and in turn, the concept of self-organizing systems is at the core of social–ecological systems, coupled natural–human systems, and human–environment systems. The sustainable systems concept is elucidated in terms of ontological and epistemological foundations from geographic information representation theory. A framework for Measurement-informed Ontology and Epistemology for Sustainability Information Representation, drawing from research about ontology and epistemology in geographic information science, provides the foundation for elucidating concepts and relations about sustainability information representation in general and sustainable systems in particular. The framework is developed to form a core of sustainability information representation theory, and consequently provides a basis for articulating first principles about the character of space–time data models that can be used to create computational models within geographic information systems (GIS). An example applies the framework to common pool resources as sustainable systems. Developing the framework and exploring an example fosters intellectual bridge building between sustainability science and sustainability management in the form of a sustainability information science. That intellectual bridge building of sustainability information science supports societal progress moving knowledge into decision action toward sustainable development, encouraging new insight for designs of space–time data models, and extending GIS as an information technology foundation for sustainability management. Conclusions and directions for next steps in research about sustainability information representation theory in general and sustainable systems in particular are offered.

Will the COVID-19 crisis trigger a One Health coming-of-age?

Research on social–ecological systems (SES) is scattered across many disciplines and perspectives. As a result, much of the knowledge generated between different communities is not comparable, mutually aggregate or easily communicated to nonspecialists despite common goals to use academic knowledge for advancing sustainability. This article proposes a conceptual pathway to address this challenge through outlining how the SES research contributions of sustainability science and researchers using Elinor Ostrom’s diagnostic SES framework (SESF) can integrate and co-benefit from explicitly interlinking their development. From a review of the literature, I outline four key co-benefits from their potential to interlink in the following themes: (1) coevolving SES knowledge types, (2) guiding primary research and assessing sustainability, (3) building a boundary object for transdisciplinary sustainability science, and (4) facilitating comparative analysis. The origins of the SESF include seminal empirical work on common property theory, self-organization, and coupled SES interactions. The SESF now serves as a template for diagnosing sustainability challenges and theorizing explanatory relationships on SES components, interactions, and outcomes within and across case studies. Simultaneously, sustainability science has proposed transdisciplinary research agendas, sustainability knowledge types, knowledge coproduction, and sustainability assessment tools to advance transformative change processes. Key challenges for achieving co-beneficial developments in both communities are discussed in relation to each of the four themes. Evident pathways for advancing SES research are also presented along with a guideline for designing SES research within this co-aligned vision.

From the ontological point of view, environmental health problems do not differ from problems of unsustainability. This leads us to think that sustainability science could contribute to resolve important questions that studies on environmental health are not resolving. A literature review was made in order to analyse the scope and limitations of studies on environmental health problems. Based on the characteristics of environmental health studies, we highlighted some examples of questions that are being ignored and analysed four contributions that sustainability science could make to solve them. These contributions come from three key components of sustainability science: (1) the unit of analysis—social–ecological systems, (2) a theory—resilience theory and, specifically, social–ecological resilience, (3) and the approaches of complex systems and transdisciplinarity. From a sustainability science perspective, four contributions could be made: environmental health problems are redefined as social–ecological systems; environmental health is assumed to be the result of adaptation processes; the environment and society are recognized as systems, not as matrices of factors; and human action acquires content and structure and, in turn, explains the behaviour of environmental health problems.

New applied approaches are needed to address urgent, global environmental issues. Practitioners, scholars, and policy makers alike call for increased integration of natural and social sciences to develop new frameworks for better addressing the range of contemporary environmental issues. From a theoretical perspective, social–ecological systems (SES) offers a novel approach for enhancing sustainability science and for improving the practice of environmental management. To translate SES theory into action, education and training programs are needed that focus on the application of SES approaches across the education and professional spectrum, from K-12 to graduate training to agency management. We developed a training framework that serves sustainability practitioners by building their capacity to apply SES approaches to real world problems and decision-making. The framework uses a SES-based environmental management approach based on a systemic worldview, transdisciplinary thinking, co-development of knowledge, stakeholder engagement, and adaptive governance. The social–ecological systems training and education program (SESTEP or “see-step”) framework was designed to provide SES training opportunities as a response to the need expressed by senior directors of US federal land management agencies. The core of the framework is a 12-step SES heuristic that provides a diagnostic tool for practitioners as they work through a SES case-study issue or problem. The curriculum provides adaptable and tailored professional development training for sustainability professionals to enhance sustainability science in practice. The evaluation of the inaugural course indicates achievement of positive course learning outcomes consistent with advancing sustainability science in practice.

Sustainable coastal ecosystem management – An evolving paradigm and its application to Caribbean SIDS

correlation of human capital sustainability leadership style and resilience of the managers in airline operations group of an AIRLINE Company

Coral reefs are degrading under global stressors that are increasing in frequency and severity as the Anthropocene accelerates. My thesis contributes to our scientific understanding of the dynamics that govern degraded coral reef states. More specifically, I contribute to our understanding of feedback processes on degraded coral reefs in conceptual and experimental ways by confronting both ecological and social-ecological feedbacks in ways that may have merit in triggering coral recovery. My four presented studies (Chapters 1-4) pursue the following research questions: 1. Which habitat drivers best predict juvenile coral densities following bleaching? 2. Can macroalgae-reinforcing feedbacks be weakened through shading? 3. Can sea urchins effectively weaken macroalgal feedbacks given their current natural densities? 4. Can red and green loops uncover missing social-ecological feedbacks? Juvenile corals are a critical life history stage representing survival and growth of new recruits into the population. Chapter 1 compares juvenile coral densities from before the 2016 bleaching event with those after and identifies abiotic and biotic habitat drivers collected in the inner Seychelles that predict juvenile coral densities. Following the 2016 bleaching event, juvenile coral densities were significantly reduced by about 70 %, with a particularly severe decline in juvenile Acropora corals. Macroalgae present a major obstacle to survival of juvenile corals shortly following mass bleaching, but their influence varies as a function of herbivore biomass, reef structure, and reef type. In contrast, increasing structural complexity on granitic reefs is a strong positive predictor of juvenile coral density. Macroalgae can maintain and increase their dominance with effective self-reinforcing feedback mechanisms and can significantly compromise ecosystem function. Chapter 2 assesses shading as a management tool in an experimental confrontation of macroalgal feedbacks, aiming to maximise the benefit of habitat mosaic reefscapes in the inner Seychelles. Shading reduces the algae’s ability to photosynthesise by 29 % to the point where macroalgal cover can be reduced by 51 % and turf algal growth can be reduced by 82 % within six weeks of shading. After removal of shading structures, herbivore grazing rates decreased at shading plots, and algal beds recovered quickly, almost completely regrowing within three months. Tropical sea urchins are often considered as macroalgal grazers, but this assumption relies heavily on geographically limited observations of select species. Chapter 3 addresses these gaps for a common urchin species in the Seychelles, Echinothrix calamaris, using a combination of survey and experimental approaches in the inner Seychelles. Habitat driver models revealed patch-reef types as the best positive predictor and macroalgae as the best negative predictor of urchin densities. Experimentally penning urchin densities (maximum 4.44 urchins m-²) resulted in a reduction of macroalgal cover by only 13 %. Therefore E. calamaris at current densities in Seychelles (mean: 0.02 urchins m-2, maximum: 0.16 urchins m-2) are unlikely to perform significant macroalgae controlling functions. People use their local ecosystems and can retrieve signals about how their actions affect ecosystem health. Capturing, interpreting, and responding to signals that indicate changes in ecosystems is key for their sustainable management and breaks in this signal-response, called missing feedbacks, will allow ecosystem health to degrade unnoticed. Chapter 4 applies an existing concept from sustainability science, the red-loop green-loop (RL-GL) model, to uncover missing feedbacks between reefs and people of Jamaica from the year 600 until now. This allowed the factors responsible for missing feedbacks to be identified – a main factor in Jamaica was seafood exports. An intervention to move Jamaica back to more sustainable dynamics between people and reefs could be to gradually move away from seafood exports and build ownership and management capacity in local seafoods. Overall, my thesis emphasises the importance of habitat for coral recruitment following severe coral bleaching as well as for urchin density and function in Seychelles. Furthermore, I cover management approaches to confront reinforcing feedbacks of expanding macroalgal fields, especially for a mosaic reefscape setting. I test the first method to reduce macroalgal cover via the alteration of the light regime. My thesis also includes the first study to apply the RL-GL concept to a coral reef social-ecological system and I advocate for its practicality in uncovering missing feedbacks and in gaining an understanding of past, present, and future sustainability that can be of use in other systems.

This paper examines the contribution of resilience thinking for social-ecological systems (SESs) in understanding sustainability and the need to preserve natural resources in the face of external perturbations. Through qualitative and quantitative analysis, the literature survey shows the increased importance of resilience and its integration into the interdisciplinary area of sustainability studies. By exploring the links between resilience and sustainability, the analysis finds that these two concepts share some similarities and also highlight the differences. The discussion of resilience indicators, measuring criteria, models and management issues reveals how resilience contributes to sustainability science and in what ways the concept can be used to measure resilience in terms of sustainability. Most existing studies emphasise the ecological aspects of resilience, but only by including human activities in the modelling can resilience thinking inform sustainability in a meaningful way. The paper concludes defining issues requiring further investigation, such as identifying and managing the drivers and key elements of resilience in SESs, exploring the dynamics between critical variables of SESs and the system feedbacks to external perturbations, as well as evaluating policies and engaging stakeholders for building resilience.

Sustainability science is a rapidly expanding field, particularly given the current ecological crises facing many parts of the globe today. To generate a snapshot of the state of sustainability science, we analyzed the current status of sustainability research using citation and text analysis. By reflecting social needs on sustainability science and the increasing number of publications in this field, the landscape is expected to change during the last decade. Our results indicate that previously separated research clusters investigating discipline-focused issues are becoming integrated into those studying coupled systems. We also found the existence of hub clusters bridging different clusters like socio-ecological systems and transition management. We also observed a variety of other emerging research clusters, especially in energy issues, technologies, and systems. Overall, our analysis suggests that sustainability science is a rapidly expanding and diversifying field, which has affected many disparate scientific disciplines and has the potential to feed scientific understanding on socio-ecological systems and to drive society toward transition for sustainability.

Direct experience, scientific reports, and international media coverage make clear that the breadth, severity, and multiple consequences from climate change are far-reaching and increasing. Like many places globally, the northeastern United States is already experiencing climate change, including one of the world’s highest rates of ocean warming, reduced durations of winter ice cover on lakes, a marked increase in the frequency of extreme precipitation events, and climate-mediated ecological disruptions of invasive species. Given current and projected changes in ecosystems, communities, and economies, it is essential to find ways to anticipate and reduce vulnerabilities to change and, at the same time, promote sustainable economic development and human well-being.The emerging field of sustainability science offers a promising conceptual and analytic framework for accelerating progress towards sustainable development. Sustainability science aims to be use-inspired and to connect basic and applied knowledge with solutions for societal benefit. This approach draws from diverse disciplines, theories, and methods organized around the broad goal of maintaining and improving life support systems, ecosystem health, and human well-being. Partners in New England have been using sustainability science as a framework for stakeholder-engaged, interdisciplinary research that has generated use-inspired knowledge and multiple solutions for more than a decade. Sustainability science has helped produce a landscape-scale approach to wetland conservation; emergency response plans for invasive species that threaten livelihoods and cultures; decision support tools for improved water quality management and public health for beach use and shellfish consumption; and the development of robust partnership networks across disciplines and institutions. Understanding and reducing vulnerability to climate change is a central motivating factor in this portfolio of projects because linking knowledge about social-ecological systems with effective policy action requires a holistic view that addresses complex intersecting stressors.One common theme in these varied efforts is the way that communication fundamentally shapes collaborative research and social, technical, and policy outcomes from sustainability science. Communication as a discipline has, for more than two thousand years, sought to understand how environments and symbols shape human life, forms of social organization, and collective decision making. The result is a body of scholarship and practical techniques that are diverse and well adapted to meet the complexity of contemporary sustainability challenges. The complexity of the issues that sustainability science aspires to solve requires diversity and flexibility to be able to adapt approaches to the specific needs of a situation. Long-term, cross-scale, and multi-institutional sustainability science collaborations show that communication research and practice can help build communities and networks, and advance technical and policy solutions to confront the challenges of climate change and promote sustainability now and in future.

Achieving biodiversity targets will require acknowledging that human societies are highly interconnected with the biophysical life-support system, conforming social–ecological systems. Under the social–ecological systems framework, we recognize that human wellbeing depends, in part, upon ecosystems; additionally, biodiversity conservation depends on human behavior and governance. Precisely, under the social–ecological systems paradigm, three conservation challenges emerge: (1) to recognize the value pluralism of biodiversity in science and decision-making, (2) to acknowledge that social–ecological systems require institutional diversity to be managed effectively, and (3) to go beyond scientific disciplines towards a real transdisciplinary science. In this context, sustainability science emerges as the body of knowledge able to understand the complex interactions of social-ecological systems. Consequently, we argue that the current challenge of biodiversity conservation needs to be addressed through the operationalization of sustainability science along the three lines above.

The concept of complex social-ecological systems (SES) as a means for capturing system dynamics properties (e.g. interactions and feedbacks) has gained attention in policymaking and advancing evidence in understanding complex systems. In contexts with limited data, conceptual system dynamic models offer a promising entry point to overcome challenges in understanding SES dynamics, which is essential for managing the long-term sustainability of SES and human wellbeing. Here, we build on previous work focused on agricultural production and use participatory approaches to develop a conceptual System Dynamics (SD) model for the south-west coastal SES in Bangladesh encompassing multiple forms of livelihood (fisheries, shrimp farming and forests, as well as agriculture). Using qualitative methods, including focus group discussions with farmers, fishermen, shrimp farmers and forest people, as well as expert consultations, we identified interactions, feedback loops and thresholds for the SES. The conceptual system model developed independently by stakeholders is consistent with a model developed using an empirical approach and literature review. Feedback loops are identified for the ecological (e.g. climate and water, mangrove and salinity) and social (e.g. shrimp farming and mangrove, agricultural (e.g. crops) production and subsidy) sub-systems in the Bangladesh delta. The biophysical thresholds that impact social conditions include river water discharge (1500 to 2000 m3 s−1), climate (28 °C) and soil salinity (~4 to ~10 dS m−1). Exceeding these thresholds suggests that SES may lose resilience in the near future and increase the likelihood of regime shifts. Findings of this study contribute to the management of the deltaic ecosystem and provide specific policy recommendations for improving environmental sustainability and human well-being in the Bangladesh delta and can be further used as inputs into system dynamic modelling to simulate changes in this SES.

Social‐ecological systems (SES) are coupled systems formed by the intricate interactions between humans and nature. Our movement towards sustainable lifestyles requires a robust understanding of these interactions. Achieving a sustainable win‐win situation for both social and ecological systems, therefore, necessitates a sound scientific framework outlining the direct and indirect interdependence between a region's inhabitants and the changing natural environment they live in. We developed an archetype‐network framework combining hierarchical clustering, interaction network analysis and catastrophe theory to quantify SES transformations. Analysing 20 indicators across 134 counties in 2000 and 2020, we identified distinct SES archetypes, mapped transition hotspots and assessed inherent sustainability via structural reconfigurations of social‐ecological linkages. This approach captures the nonlinear interactions within SES. Findings indicate five SES archetypes emerging by 2020 that represent a diversification from three types in 2000, with 80 counties shifting archetypes. Key transitions occurred at mountain–plain interfaces: 42.67% of the 2020 agriculture archetype (SES 02) shifted to SES 01 (urban archetype), SES 03 (green development‐archetype) or SES 04 (ethno‐regional fragmented synergy archetype), while 39.58% of nature archetypes transitioned to the enhanced nature archetype (SES 05). Network analysis revealed the dominance of socio‐economic factors. Urban systems (SES 01) showed severe decoupling (network density = 0.14) and the lowest sustainability (0.579), whereas enhanced natural archetypes (SES 05) scored highest (0.787). Sustainability was closely associated with network density (R2 = 0.62), indicating that archetypes with tighter linkages tended to be more resilient. Sustainability transitions in the Songhua River Basin require tailored, context‐specific strategies. Urban areas need innovation‐driven recoupling policies while agricultural regions should adopt circular farming practices to reduce ecological risks. In nature‐dominated areas, ecological restoration must be coupled with sustainable economic opportunities that balance conservation and development, while in ethnically diverse regions, cultural preservation should be combined with environment‐focussed governance for sustainable land management. These findings underscore the need for spatially differentiated, policy‐driven solutions to address the complex SES transformation challenges in the Anthropocene. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Imagining a Place for Sustainability Management: An Early Career Call for Action