Study Of Social-ecological Systems Research Articles

The Great Green Wall in Senegal: questioning the idea of acceleration through the conflicting temporalities of politics and nature among the Sahelian populations

In January 2021, the Great Green Wall Accelerator was announced at the third One Planet Summit in Paris. Based on the notion of acceleration developed by Harmut Rosa and using the idea of conflicting temporalities in the study of social-ecological systems, this article analyzes how the political will to accelerate the Great Green Wall reveals power dynamics between Western and Sahelian countries. We put in tension this acceleration of the Great Green Wall with (1) temporalities with respect to nature and reforestation, and (2) temporalities of life among the Sahelian populations. Whereas our contribution is mostly theoretical, building on Hartmut Rosa’s work, we illustrate our approach in terms of political ecology and anthropology based on an empirical case study of the Ferlo region in Senegal, a key region with respect to the Great Green Wall initiative. Our analysis shows that by controlling the temporality of the Great Green Wall program through this Accelerator, Western powers dominate the Sahelian states, making the Accelerator part of a neo-colonial approach. Moreover, the desire to accelerate the Great Green Wall with a massive investment in a short span of time corresponds to the perception of a nature made available, incompatible with the time of ecological restoration. Finally, the acceleration advocated by Western economic liberalism seems to be coming up against resistance of local populations rooted in an identity that values community solidarity, the stability of social structures, and closeness between humans, their herds, and nature.

Social-ecological-technological systems consequences of mining: An analytical framework for more holistic impact assessments

Understanding the impacts of extractive industries on sustainable development requires analyzing them as part of dynamic social-ecological-technological systems. Building on insights from studies of social-ecological systems and socio-technical systems, as well as fieldwork on the impacts of mining in the Nordic Arctic, this article presents an analytical framework for co-production of knowledge about the role of industrial or infrastructure projects for regional development. We use this framework to analyze Swedish mining policy, assessment guidelines, and environmental impact assessments for three mining projects in Arctic Sweden. We conclude that Swedish mining policy and guidelines for impact assessments neglect key aspects of social-ecological-technological systems, including the impacts of climate change, and treat many social aspects of sustainable development in a cursory manner. We suggest that more systematic analysis of the dynamics of social-ecological-technological systems would facilitate more transparent decision making and help identify the potential role of proposed mining projects in pathways towards sustainable development in northern regions.

Biogeomorphic succession in a fluvial-lacustrine delta of the Middle Paraná River (Argentina): Feedbacks between vegetation and morphodynamics

The Leyes' Delta lies at the Middle Paraná River, the second-largest fluvial system in South America, and it is being quickly formed into the Setúbal fluvial lake, Argentina. In the context of the Fluvial Biogeomorphic Succession theory, our aim was to better understand interactions between physical and biotic processes contributing to the formation of the Leyes' Delta. We studied the genesis, morphologic development, and vegetation in three groups of its deltaic islands with contrasting formation ages. Different methodologies were applied. Genesis and morphologic development were interpreted from time-series of satellite images and aerial photography obtained from 1974 to 2014. Then landforms and vegetation communities were mapped on the most current images, and they were corroborated and characterized during fieldwork. Our results evidence that the three island groups (Channel crevasse splay islands, Delta bar-plain islands, and Delta front islands) were formed via two different geomorphic processes, determining differences in the initial vegetation colonization. Eight fluvial-lacustrine landforms and eight vegetation communities, both differently represented among the island groups, currently characterize these islands. The species richness accumulation curves and beta diversity showed that the morphodynamic activity can be as important in the floristic composition of the deltaic islands as formation ages. The floristic composition differed statistically among island groups. After identifying three of the four phases of the FBS, we concluded that even though the morphodynamic activity under which islands were formed determined differences in the initial vegetation colonization, under similar subsequent levels of morphodynamics the resulting vegetation heterogeneity tends to be similar even under contrasting genesis. Among the vegetation types, Lotic prairies would play a key role in the morphologic evolution of the deltaic islands, therefore, their distribution and interactions with flow and sediments should be considered during the studies of social ecological systems as the Leyes' Delta, in Santa Fe, Argentina.

Emphasizing livelihoods in the study of social-ecological systems: insights from fishing practices in the Okavango Delta, Botswana

ABSTRACTClimate change will impact rural livelihoods in Southern Africa in unprecedented ways. Successful responses must account for intersecting social and ecological factors that determine natural resource access for people living in changing social-ecological systems. However, much of the existing scholarly literature treats natural resource access as a dynamic social process, while often failing to account for how it is also ecologically variable. The social-ecological systems literature more holistically considers social and ecological aspects of resource use, but rarely considers how livelihoods themselves are social-ecological. This paper advances the argument that livelihoods are a useful entry point for understanding the complex and intersecting social-ecological factors that impact natural resource use. Findings are presented from a mixed-methods research project in the variable wetland environment of the Okavango Delta of Botswana to show how participation in various fishing practices is determined by a complex combination of flooding variability, environmental governance, and social relations tied to gender and ethnicity. This article contributes to the literatures on natural resource access and social-ecological systems, increases knowledge about rural livelihoods in Botswana, and provides broader insight into how governance of social-ecological livelihood systems throughout southern Africa are likely to be challenged by climate change.

Institutional response to external disturbances in spate irrigation systems of Punjab, Pakistan

Social ecological systems (SESs) – spate irrigation system in our case – operate under an environment of stress due to several external and contextual factors. Spate irrigation systems are more complex due to uncertain flows and can exhibit unexpected changes due to novel shocks. Therefore, actions directed at enhancing robustness to a particular set of disturbances can trigger changes in ecological dynamics that may, in turn, alter the set of disturbances faced by irrigators. This paper looks on the institutional change and resulting water rights and operational rules-in-use in such a context in spate irrigation systems in Punjab province. The sustainability framework (Anderies et al., 2004) has been used for analysis of entities involved in case studies of SESs. The study has important policy implications about how the institutional arrangements imposed from external agencies fail to address new disturbance regimes as the mechanisms remain in place for longer time horizons.

Scale mismatches and reflexive law

[Extract] Garmestani and Benson (2013) deal with a problem that is receiving increasing attention in the study of social-ecological systems: that of scale mismatches and ways of resolving them. Scale mismatches have been defined as occurring when the scale of environmental variation and the scale of social organization in which the responsibility for management resides are aligned in such a way that one or more functions of the social-ecological system are disrupted, inefficiencies occur, and/or important components of the system are lost (Cumming et al. 2006). Mismatches between the scales of ecological processes and the institutions that are responsible for managing them are thought to lead to a decrease in social-ecological resilience, including an increased likelihood of mismanagement of natural resources and an attendant decrease in human well-being.

Rescaling environmental governance, rethinking the state: A three-dimensional review

In light of significant interest by scholars in environmental geography and in studies of social-ecological systems in the multiscalar, multistakeholder aspects of environmental decision-making, we focus this review on multilevel systems of environmental governance in which multiple actors exercise different levels of power, authority, and action to determine ‘who gets what’ and ‘who gets to decide’. We describe literature documenting how new geographies of governance have emerged as state functions have been dispersed upwards, downwards, and outwards to non-state actors. We consider ‘What is the role of the state in this reconfiguration of scale and environmental governance?’ We focus on how scale and spatiality is being reconceptualized and how borders are reformed materially and socially through new governance practices, and consider the implications for advancing geographic theory and sound public policy.

A Decade of Ecosystems

Ten years ago, Ecosystems was introduced as a ‘‘substrate for primary succession of the discipline‘‘ (Carpenter and Turner 1998). We envisioned Ecosystems as an arena for new ways of thinking and new kinds of progress in ecosystem science. We suggested four frontiers that seemed particularly important at that time. ‘‘People and ecosystems‘‘ addressed the study of social-ecological systems, including pressing issues of sustainability. ‘‘Spatial dynamics and scale shifts‘‘ was concerned with expanding the range of spatial scales considered by ecosystem scientists and improving conceptual and empirical tools for understanding spatially structured processes. ‘‘Cross-disciplinary linkages‘‘ have frequently stimulated progress in ecosystem science, and we encouraged contributors to Ecosystems to embrace linkages among the subdisciplines of ecology, among natural sciences, and across social and natural sciences. ‘‘Temporal scale interactions‘‘ involved feedbacks of slow and fast variables, disturbance regimes, thresholds and ecosystem surprises. The first year of Ecosystems showed reasonable balance among the four frontiers (Turner and Carpenter 1999a, b, c). Spatial dynamics and scale shifts were best represented of the four frontiers. Vigorous hybrids of landscape and traditional ecosystem ecology continue to be a major growth area for science that is strongly represented in the pages of Ecosystems. The journal‘s first year coincided with publication of an important assessment of ecosystem science from the seventh Cary Conference (Pace and Groffman 1998a, b). That volume (Pace and Groffman 1998a) stressed the need for greater integration among the subdisciplines of ecology, and of ecology with other disciplines, to invigorate the science and address the ‘‘rising tide of humanaccelerated ecological change‘‘ (Pace and Groffman 1998b). We were pleased by the high frequency of synthetic papers in the first volume of Ecosystems (Turner and Carpenter 1999a, b, c).

Approaches to the study of urban ecosystems: The case of Central Arizona—Phoenix

CAP LTER focuses on an arid-land ecosystem profoundly influenced, even defined, by the presence and activities of humans and is one of only two LTER sites that specifically studies the ecology of an urban system. In this large-scale project, biological, physical, and social scientists are working together to study the structure and function of the urban ecosystem, to assess the effects of urban development on surrounding agricultural and desert lands, and to study the relationship and feedbacks between human decisions and ecological processes. Our interdisciplinary investigations into the relationship between land-use decisions and ecological consequences in the rapidly growing urban environment of Phoenix are of broad relevance for the study of social ecological systems and cites in particular. Refinements in our conceptual model of social ecological systems focuses our attention on recognizing the scales and periodicities of ecological and human phenomena, understanding the means and impacts of human control of variability in space and time, and finally an evaluation of the resilience of various aspects of socio-ecological systems especially their vulnerabilities and their potential for adaptive learning.