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Introduction
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May 2000 - October 2006
Position
- Regional Adviser on Environmental Policies
Publications
Publications (102)
The book presents and discusses the implementation of four scenarios for the future of a system of wetlands shared between Brazil, Argentina , Bolivia and Paraguay. The analysis was performed at two spatial scales (the Corridor Paraná-Paraguay at the macro level, and the wetlands El Pantanal (the largest wetland in the world), the Iberá Wetlands, a...
The geological record shows that abrupt changes in the Earth system can occur on timescales short enough to challenge the capacity of human societies to adapt to environmental pressures. In many cases, abrupt changes arise from slow changes in one component of the Earth system that eventually pass a critical threshold, or tipping point, after which...
This article discusses the role of cities in the Earth System as dissipative systems and presents the significant attributes of urban systems from this perspective. The major facts and problems of cities are briefly recalled emphasizing their complexity, that challenges the standard approaches to urban analysis and planning. In the second section,...
This book, of which we present an preliminary offprint version in English, is the result of a collective analysis undertaken at the invitation of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) as part of the discussions supporting preparations for the thirty-eighth session of the Commission. With the collaboration of Nicolo Gli...
Este documento es resultado de la labor de un grupo de autores latinoamericanos que han teorizado y profundizado desde hace varias décadas sobre la relación entre desarrollo y medio ambiente. Este grupo, denominado “pensadores fundacionales del desarrollo sostenible”, está integrado por Nicolo Gligo, Gisela Alonso, David Barkin, Antonio Brailovsky,...
Articulating disciplines and knowledge in research
The world system is at an uncertain branch point from which a wide range of possible, qualitatively different, futures could unfold before the end of the Century. Two decades ago, the Global Scenario Group (GSG) published three archetypical sets of scenarios of the future of the planet. These are revisited in the light of the changes and developmen...
Este documento es el resultado de un trabajo de la Comisión Asesora de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación para el Desarrollo Sustentable (CADES), finalizado en junio de 2017, realizado a pedido de la Secretaría de Planeamiento y Políticas en Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación Productiva del Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación
Productiva (MIN...
En las últimas cuatro décadas, el aporte de América Latina al pensamiento ambiental regional y global ha sido trascendente y ha dejado una impronta propia a la propuesta inicial luego de la Cumbre de Río del desarrollo sustentable. No podría haber desarrollo posible en un subcontinente que enfrenta un serio proceso de endeudamiento externo, cancela...
El artículo desarrolla una perspectiva sistémica para considerar la posibilidad y utilidad de intentar anticipar el futuro de los sistemas socio-ecológicos (SES-unidades de análisis fundamentales de la investigación del desarrollo sostenible desde lo global hasta lo local) en el contexto de su complejidad y de la situación cambiante del mundo. Se i...
I would like to begin by congratulating Paul Raskin for his inspiring, persuasive, and beautifully written book, supported by science and history whenever possible. The keyword of our times is change. We are living amidst a confluence of many rapid, and some unprecedented, megatrends. The fundamental uncertainty about our future as a species and as...
This paper distills core lessons about how researchers (scientists, engineers, planners, etc.) interested in promoting sustainable development can increase the likelihood of producing usable knowledge. We draw the lessons from both practical experience in diverse contexts around the world, and from scholarly advances in understanding the relationsh...
This article presents a dual (conceptual and visual) discussion of sustainability and sustainable development, arguing for the two perspectives being complementary. The conceptual treatment includes an analysis of the concepts using a systemic framework highlighting the plurality of interpretations arising from the specification of the system, valu...
This article discusses the role of knowledge governance arrangements in the mainstreaming of sustainable practices, in particular, in the creation, sharing and use of integrated and contextualized knowledge. That is, knowledge which accounts for the social, economic, institutional, and ecological dimensions of potentially sustainable practices, and...
Societies and ecosystems worldwide are increasingly subjected to hazards of natural and anthropogenic origins. Increasing
the resilience and reducing the vulnerability of social–ecological systems (SES) so that they can withstand these shocks is
crucial. External shocks (e.g. cyclones, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods) can induce an SES to move from o...
Assessing the sustainability of complex development processes requires multi-causal and integrated analyses. We develop a
system-based methodology, rooted in interdisciplinary discussion and consensus building between 15 experts, to construct a
multi-causal diagram which examines the sustainability of the Argentine Pampas´ process of agriculturizat...
Syndrome analysis seeks to capture socio-ecological dynamics of interaction by addressing clusters of symptoms rather than isolated variables. This paper identifies the main symptoms of vulnerability to hydrometeorological disasters in Central America and the Caribbean by building on the results of 14 postdisaster assessments. A syndrome representa...
We argue that globalization is a central feature of coupled human–environment systems or, as we call them, socio-ecological systems (SESs). In this article, we focus on the effects of globalization on the resilience, vulnerability, and adaptability of these systems. We begin with a brief discussion of key terms, arguing that socio-economic resilien...
This article uses a systemic perspective to identify and analyze the conceptual relations among vulnerability, resilience, and adaptive capacity within socio-ecological systems (SES). Since different intellectual traditions use the terms in different, sometimes incompatible, ways, they emerge as strongly related but unclear in the precise nature of...
Unprecedented levels of wealth, technology and institutional capacity can forge a just, peaceful and ecologically resilient future. However, the authors argue, social polarization, geo-political conflict and environmental degradation are threatening the long-term well-being of humanity and the planet. Global Sustainability explores the alternative...
The article addresses the need, posed by the challenges of sustainable development and the changing context at the beginning of the twenty-first century, for changes in the method and practice of science. The major challenges for a 'sustainability science' arise from increasing complexity at the ontological, epistemological, and political levels, c...
Meeting fundamental human needs while preserving Earth's life support systems will require an accelerated transition toward sustainability. A new field of sustainability science is emerging that seeks to understand the fundamental character of interactions between nature and society and to encourage those interactions along more sustainable traject...
Almost twenty five years ago, “Catastrophe and New Society. A Latin American World Model” was published [Herrera AO et al. Catastrophe or New Society? A Latin American World Model. Canada: DRC, 1976]. It described the work of a group of Latin American researchers, led by the late Amilcar O. Herrera, and it represented both a response to the diagnos...
The article addresses the need, posed by the challenges of sustainable development and the changing context at the beginning of the 21st century, for changes in the method and practice of science. The major challenges for a "sustainability science" arise from increasing complexification at the ontological, epistemological and political levels, call...
Cet article traite de la necessite de modifier la methode et la pratique de la science pour relever les defis que posent le developpement durable et l’evolution du contexte au debut du xxie siecle. L’exigence majeure d’une science soucieuse de durabilite decoule de la complexification croissante aux niveaux ontologique, epistemologique et politique...
Current changes in Latin America include the abandonment of the economic pattern of import substitution, a growing opening of the national economies, a continental wave of political democratization, an apparent economic recovery from the "lost decade" (the 1980s), a growing social polarization, a worsening of environmental problems, the growing inf...
A set of three global scenarios used to initiate consultation on a World Water Vision is presented, derived from alternative evolutions of the major forces driving the global water situation economic, demographic, technological, social, environmental and governance. The alternative scenarios are the Business-as-Usual scenario (BAU), representing th...
This paper discusses some of the new challenges that the quest for sustainable development poses to scientific research and the interface between science and policy. One of the issues fundamental to both science and policy is that of integration. Integration of scientific research requires a systemic approach, an interdisciplinary research style, a...
This publication series is produced by the Stockholm Environment Institute's PoleStar Project. Named after the star that guided voyagers through uncharted waters, the multi-year PoleStar Project addresses critical aspects of the transition to sustainability. Scenario analysis illuminates long-range problems and possibilities at global, regional, na...
Of all the environmental policy concepts to emerge in the last 20 years, none is more compelling than that of sustainability. The reason, of course, is the growing recognition that humanity is currently on an unsustainable path, that our activities have reached the point where they threaten the very life-support systems of the Earth. The need to pr...
While many government policies stimulating deforestation have been reversed, private sector lobbies for uncontrolled logging and soybean export corridors threaten the Amazon. Under a favorable scenario (macroeconomic stabilization, controlled logging and road building, sustainable technologies, global environmental markets) reconversion of natural...
The quest for sustainability must be pursued at many levels -- local, national, regional, and global. Unique sets of issues, solutions, and institutional processes come into focus when the problem is viewed from these various perspectives. In addition, it is important to consider the interplay between levels. In our globalizing world, regional and...
Through a systems approach indicators are shown to have the nature of variables, adopting different values or states, while other associated terms allude to special meanings assigned to specific values of the indicators. Practical implications are discussed. The concept of situational indicators of sustainability is introduced, representing a non-n...
The paper describes the way CIAT is using systems approaches in its research activities. Systems research concentrates on different levels of the hierarchy of agroecosystems ranging from the soil subsystems to the regional level, through the cropping, farming and landscape levels.
GIS applications are used in CIAT to address the spatial dimension o...
Discusses Argentina's environmental issues and problems in the early 1990's
This paper discusses the potential direct and indirect impacts of the unfolding technoeconomic revolution upon the ecosystems of Latin America. The results of simulation models of current trends suggest widespread ecological degradation associated with existing land use. A more sustainable development path, however, is ecologically and technologica...
Attempts to discuss, mainly from a methodological viewpoint based on the concept of socio-ecological systems, the problems associated with interactions between global and local scales in the context of global environmental change. The author outlines the use and properties of structural hierarchies, before moving onto cross-level interactions at di...
Predictive models of aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) of terrestrial ecosystems under minimal human intervention were analyzed in relation to climatic, edaphic, and vegetation parameters. At the global level, annual precipitation and evapotranspiration were the only statistically significant climatic parameters. The relationship between...
The modern concept of ecological niche contains two basic meanings: (a) The “conditions of existence” or the hypervolume delimited by the range of values of the environmental variables permitting the indefinite persistence of the species; (b) what the species does, its role, its way of relating to other species, environment and space within the bio...
Offers a perspective about the prospects for sustainable development in Latin America. The article looks at what changes are necessary in Latin America addressing the ecological situation in relation to the cultural, social and natural foundation for adoption and renewal of natural resources. -from Author
This paper discusses the relationships between the concept and categorizations of human needs, human requirements, human environments, societal development and quality of life as properties of human systems of different levels of aggregation. Quality of life is a unifying concept connecting and providing meaning to the above categories.
The concept of environment is discussed in its abstract form within the general systems framework. The environment of a system can be progressively specified in a logical sequence from the primitive concept of "everything that is not the system" through the concepts of substantial environment, of another system that influences the system under cons...
Many aspects of the physical environment are affected by the process of economic growth and development, creating a need to understand the internal dynamics of environmental systems and their relation to the level and pace of economic activity. A simple mathematical model of environment is used to illustrate the relationship between economic develo...
The Salto Grande project on the Uruguay River has as its main purpose the construction of a dam to permit the generation of electricity for Montevideo, Buenos Aires and other main cities. This paper reports on and assesses the experience of a small group of outside advisors brought into a very diffuse continuing investigation.- from Authors
A measure of the trophic similarity between species in a given trophic level (in general, any trophic partition) with respect to their prey is defined for the case in which quantitative indicators of the intensities of the flows are available. The measure is applied to a forb-arthropod food web; the resulting grouping of species by their similariti...
The rate of ingestion by Podisus maculiventris Say feeding on larvae of Tenebrio molitor L. or Galleria mellonella L. is almost constant with time and from one predator to another. The rate is 1.80 ±.070 mg/hr/individual.No effect of the age or size of the predator nor of the species of prey on the feeding rate could be detected. Different periods...
A basic structure [Eqs. (5), (6), (3), (12), (30)] for mathematical models of resource-population systems is presented. This basic structure may be specified in order to include different alternative hypotheses and it represents, therefore, a family of particular models. The study of one of its particular realizations [Eqs. (31) and (39)] shows tha...
A system of nonlinear differential equations describing a resource-population system is analyzed in terms of the existence and characteristics of its equilibrium states. It is proved that, under the condition that k<αβ (necessary condition for the population being able to grow under optimal conditions), it is a necessary and sufficient condition fo...
Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cornell Univ., Sept. 1969.
A conceptual analysis of the relationship society-nature, and an attempt to define its application to the case of ecoregions shared between different countries are presented. This is followed by a discussion of the differences between "empty" and "populated" ecoregions and of the advances of frontiers, and the main ecological and anthropic interact...
205 pages, illustrations, figures The VISIONS project's main objective has been to bring together both physical and social science tools and techniques, to assist, broaden and deepen the process of policy making for sustainable development. Its ambition has been to raise awareness of sustainable development by increasing the understanding of the in...
Proyecto CEPAL/PNUMA. Estilos de Desarrollo y Medio Ambiente en América Latina. Seminario Regional, Santiago de Chile, 19 1l 23 de noviembre de 1979
Se han comparado los ferogramas de las seroproteínas de cuatro especies del género
Leptodactylus (grupo pachypus). La movilidad relativa de las distintas fracciones, y en
particular de la albúmina, evidencia las diferencias existentes entre Leptodactylus laticeps y las demás species consideradas (L. ocellatus, L. chaquensis, L. pentadactylus).
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