Mountain research for sustainability: where are we and where to go?

Abstract

Mountains have socio-economic and environmental importance for the entire world, and they are also one of the regions most threatened by global change. As mountains are systems in which the human and nature dimensions are tightly interconnected, studying them as social–ecological systems (SES) is increasingly common. To date, a variety of approaches and frameworks have been used to study mountain SES, making comparisons across mountain areas challenging. In this paper, we use Ostrom’s SES framework to review the mountain SES peer-reviewed literature under a common scope, aiming at unraveling which frameworks, approaches, domains, sectors, and elements are studied by researchers. Among the 169 reviewed manuscripts, only 28% of them employed a framework to study their system, and custom-made frameworks were preferred over existing ones. Although most research articles were in the domain of environmental sciences, socio-economic attributes were included more often than ecological ones, and more than 30% did not combine social and ecological information. Moreover, albeit most manuscripts had an empirical approach, field data were seldomly used. Future works should focus on collecting social and ecological data at comparable scales, as well as on developing tools to effectively integrate both dimensions in mountain SES studies. Finally, we examine components of mountain socio-ecological systems commonly addressed in literature, highlighting important elements for overall and sector-specific sustainability. Regarding social aspects, understanding local inhabitants’ diverse perspectives and socioeconomic context is crucial. In terms of ecological elements, describing climatic patterns and ecosystem history is key.