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Social-Ecological Systems - Science topic
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Questions related to Social-Ecological Systems
For each variables, elements, or themes provide two indictors and measures that provide evidence regarding whether and social ecology system is functioning
All these concepts are well-defined and precisely described. Their societal and environmental implications are at the heart of humanity's concerns: poverty, natural resources, human development, aging populations, social security, pensions, migratory fluxes... Obviously, all these questions arise in completely opposite ways depending on whether we place ourselves on the side of developed countries or of developing countries, which is not without creating tensions at the interfaces. Sometimes these become unbearable to such an extent that they lead to real crises or presage of future redoubtable imbalances. The subsidiary question would be: how can we reconcile, balance, and cooperate to design and promote a reliable common future, for all people on the planet? Let's think together on this nagging issue at the same time fascinating.
Illustration: See Legend; Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition

I’m practically convinced that ‘landesque capital’ and ‘infrastructure’ are the same thing. Am I wrong?
I’ve searched for literature that explores the distinction and relationship between these two concepts, but found very little. Can anyone point me to scholars or published works that discuss the relationship between these two terms?
Some background:
In their editors’ introduction to their book, Landesque Capital: The Historical Ecology of Enduring Landscape Modifications, Thomas Håkansson and Mats Widgren use the word ‘infrastructure’ only once, in this passage, where they distinguish infrastructure from landesque capital. They write:
“Where, between the intake and the final distribution of water on the field through furrows, sprinklers, or drip irrigation plastic tubes, does the canal change from being infrastructure to becoming landesque capital? It is perhaps because of this difficult distinction that concepts such as landesque capital have seldom been used for the most capital-intensive landscapes of the world, such as the human-controlled deltas in the Netherlands or China. Needless to say, the engineered landscapes of these large, human-controlled deltas represent huge investments in fixed and immovable capital in the built environment, but can hardly be reduced to landesque capital alone.”
To which, I want to ask: Why not? Håkansson and Widgren write (‘needless to say’) as if the distinction between landesque capital and infrastructure is self-evident, yet this passage also poses a question that’s very difficult to answer: where does the boundary lie within a continuous structure (and flow) that supposedly is clearly ‘infrastructure’ at one end (the canal), but, equally clearly, ‘landesque capital’ at the other end (the furrows of an agricultural field)?
Håkansson and Widgren’s book applies a working definition of landesque capital as ‘enduring landscape modifications’, but I want to understand why one should accept that a container port, a hydro-electric dam or a nuclear power station are not ‘enduring modifications of landscape’ in the same way that an irrigation canal or agricultural terrace are accepted to be.
In the papers I’ve explored so far, the two terms (infrastructure and landesque capital) are quite often used side-by-side when discussing anthropogenic landscapes. It’s sometimes possible to discern an unspoken, implicit logic behind the reason for using one term rather than another in a given sentence—but this reasoning is not explained, and I think we ought to examine it.
It seems to me that landesque capital and infrastructure function the same way: they both serve to enhance the utility, productivity and value of land; they invest current flows of labour (and other inputs) and ‘bank’ them, so as to make future work easier, more efficient, and more productive; they both serve to underpin social systems and the production and consumption of essential goods and services; they are products of collective work and are intimately connected to societal institutions.
Hence this post to the ResearchGate hive mind. Am I right or wrong? What am I missing? If I’m right, what are the implications?
I’m interested in your thoughts about infrastructure, landesque capital, enduring landscape modifications, and anthropogenic landscapes. And I’d like to be referred to works in which these terms are discussed and defined, and distinguished or used interchangeably.
I’m looking forward to reading your replies!
Kind regards,
Dominic.
Hello there,
i hoping you might be able to help me with a reference for the idea that linear thinking is not a good way to manage social-ecological systems?
thanks
Dear colleagues,
I would like to create a repository with documents, reports and scientific articles that speak about COVID-19 and Circular Economy. The aim is to try to draw future potential scenario, defining research questions and in general have a panoramic on the phenomenon.
Socio-ecological production landscape, its resilience and sustainability
I need to map functions, relationships, feedbacks of a complex social-ecological system in a village community scale. Can anybody suggest what open source tool can be use to map and analyse the such dynamics related to multiple actors in different time scales. Thanks
Socio-ecological resilience refers to the attributes of resistance and recovery that social-ecological system manifests when confronted with shocks or disturbances.
Ecosystem resilience is a concept applies to ecosystems.
Except for the different systems, what other differences do they have?
Especially in the measurement and applications, thanks for your kind reply.
I am wondering if it is easy to combine elements of the Multilevel Perspective on transitions and the Social-Ecological Systems framework. Who knows fruitful combinations for studying transitions in or energie transition or nature conservation/restoration?
Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) is viewed as "native science" developed across generations in particular localities and within given social-ecological systems. Such a knowledge system may act as a livelihood strategy and is also intended to positively contribute to biodiversity conservation. Given that biodiversity losses continue unabated even where TEK may exist, its relevance/impacts are questionable. In that case, several pertinent questions arise despite status of biodiversity being dependent on several area-specific factors. For instance: 1) Is TEK system reliable to help conserve biodiversity? 2) Is it sustainable? ......Please feel free and give your opinion and where possible empirical evidence/publications in support of your assertions.
For sustainability in the social - ecological system, a balance needs to be met. However, biodiversity is often lost because of imbalances in the nexus. Give an opinion on whether economic growth through anthropogenic activities largely drives biodiversity losses more than others.
Many researchers use scenario planning as a way to explore alternative futures with citizens, but how far ahead should people be asked to consider? Too far ahead and the problems under consideration become subject to the SEP engine of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's series (Somebody Else's Problem). Too close and panic may ensue, or at least fear-driven System 1 responses. What is the 'sweet spot' of both personal stake and cognitive capacity? Are there demographic or cultural differences in temporal thinking and risk perceptions? Do you have an example of a successful scenario planning exercise, and can share your time horizon and rationale? Or do you have a reference to recommend that explores this question? Thanks in advance.
Dear all, I am going to ask a difficult question. I am writing about governance of social systems. Particularly, I am looking at the structure of governance (ie actors, power relations rules). I conceive governance as the `management´ or regulating structure. Namely, the governance structure is what regulates and shapes the processes within specific social-ecological systems (e.g. bioenergy systems, food systems etc.). I would like to explore the literature on systems thinking for management which is the literature where the methodology I use has been mostly used. I know that the management literature focuses on organizations. However, what I need is some inspiration/knowledge of the micro to expand to the macro level (i.e. systems governance).
I am not sure whether I have been clear enough. If you need clarifications please ask and if you have any suggestion, thank you. Very much appreciated.
I have a group project coming up, and we are hoping to use SES as a framework to explore sea level rise in small island developing states
Hi everyone, I might be approaching the field of socio-ecological systems to write the final paper of my PhD. I would like to get an idea of a super MUST-READ literature to get an overview of the approach and ideally a couple of case studies.
To narrow down the search, I am a political and social scientist (somewhere in between ;) ) and I study bioenergy development from a triple bottom line perspective (socio, economic and environmental sustainability). I have been using qualitative system dynamics (i.e. causal mapping) and systems thinking in my previous papers and I am now into the CAS literature. I have been advised to look into socio-ecological systems as a good example of CAS and quite related to my theoretical and methodological framework.
Thanks for any help you can provide
I am planning to include "risk behaviour and time preference of smallholder farmers" as factors that affect their decision to adopt long-term improved soil and water conservation practices in Ethiopia. For this I need to construct simple questions which are easy to be understood by farmers. If you have any idea, please, forward it.
SES framework is designed for different ecological and social systems and applied so far to forests, irrigation systems, national parks, pastures, etc.
We are interested to diagnose a forest landscape restoration program that has been carried out for the last 40+ years. The program has shown successes and failures that varied between intervention sites. We proposed there are ecological, social, economic and policy factors that constrain and favor the program and created the variation across sites. Because some of the places have achieved developing good forest ecosystems while others have failed. We are going to collect ecological, social, economic, policy related data. We will have experiments regarding the ecological factors.
We would like to learn from your experience if you have suggestion on how we can best aggregate and analyze these large data?
I am working on bioenergy development and triple bottom line sustainability. I have had a focus on the processes of bioenergy development (for instance, how and what drives investments, what and how drives the use of and production of specific biomass, the increase or decrease of CO2 emissions, biodiversity etc., how all this links to social acceptance or opposition) and how these processes interlink. I am now at the stage to investigate how these processes could be governed to foster triple bottom line sustainability and I am adopting a governance approach. I have read several papers on local governance, climate change governance, polycentric and multi-level
I am now at the stage to investigate how these processes could be governed to foster triple bottom line sustainability and I am adopting a governance approach. I have read several papers on local governance, climate change governance, polycentric and multi-level governance, natural resources governance, etc. But I am missing something, probably something more general that can describe governance from a more theoretical point of view.
If you have any suggestion, I'd be glad to check it out.
Thank you very much
Bianca
Social-ecological systems, climate change, forest, local communities, rainforest.
Hi all, besides biodiversity, soil stability and carbon fluxes, which other indicators of chronic disturbance in dryland systems could enable the establishment of a robust and adaptive monitoring framework?
We really appreciate your opinion by taking a very few minutes to complete this online survey.
The 15th of December 2016 we release the second round of this survey. This new version is the result of gathering and analyzing the expert opinions of nearly 60 researchers from all over the world. With all this feedback, we have improved the list of candidate variables to be proposed as ESEFVs (Essential Social-Ecological Functional Variables). However, we still need your expert knowledge to make progress on the list configuration. Please, check, punctuate and comment the new list [the link is below].
Learn more about the E&SEFT Project in functionaltypes.caescg.org.
Thank you for your time and help!
I am trying to analyse factors that determine people's attitudes towards a species for which I conducted semi structured interviews across a landscape. I conducted my interviews in 27 villages and within each village, 20% to 30% of the respondents were interviewed. Questions included attitude statements which ideally give an attitude score. Along with these we also collected data on variables(both categorical and continuous) at the scale of the respondent and the village. I am interested to use structural equations modelling to look at the factors and the relationship among factors that determine attitudes. I wanted to know if people have used this to analyse such kind of data and if so then I would like to know:
1. References from where I can start (the basics)
2. Can I use categorical variables for this analysis?
3. How can I do a SEM in R?
It seems the jury is still out on resilience towards adaptive capacity or adaptive capacity towards resilience (in social-ecological systems). Do you see resilience as a subset of adaptive capacity or vice versa (which seems the conventional wisdom ). Can you provide any papers in these respects?
The answer in a rural context will be helpful.
From a series community-based model building activity, I recently identified a relationship between fisher and fish-buyer/collector, which local fishers perceived to be the main reason that they have less control over the fish sale price.
My background is not in social and economics and, therefore, I would be grateful if there is anyone can refer to me studies that demonstrate proxy variables that determines a fish price is considered as 'fair'.
I will use the information to expand and analyse the qualitative model (a causal loop diagram) I built with the fishermen.
i want to know the type of complexity in socio-ecological systems regarding water resources management........
with respect...
I want to know how can i use system dynamics to analyze resilience of coastal zones that are Under the influences of climate change.......
In many rural areas of "developing countries" small scale agriculturalists (farmers/fishers/herders/...) see the necessity for (financial) investments, they have the capacities (social & human capital like social networks or (traditional) local knowledge) but often not the access to the financial sector to maintain or adapt their practices & lifestyle to changes. I am interested in ways how this gap has been bridged successfully in terms of improving the life of the people (as they desired) while keeping/improving the "natural capital" as well, so increasing the resilience in several dimensions.
that is terrestrial biomes, as classified in the map attached

I am interested in comparing the learning process and adaptive cycle in the context of cities working together in transnational city networks for climate action. Lee and van de Meene (2012) conceptualized the learning process into three phases (information gathering, adoption, policy change) in their network analysis study. I would like to look further into urban policy change and whether TCNs are a necessary condition to catalyze cities building resilience against sea-level rise. I think a better understanding of the phases of the adaptive cycle would be useful. I would appreciate any assistance.
I am searching a paper on a case of a SES (social-ecological system) that illustrates the human capacity of social learning, enabling deliberate transformation of the SES, for example to a higher scale of governance, thereby possibly increasing resilience. I am looking for an example for any kind of deliberate transformation, e.g. in urban management, fisheries, forest management, protected areas, community building, etc; it doesn’t have to be a governance scale transformation, but ideally a system that undergoes the adaptive cycle phases and where a deliberate transformation led or might lead to increased resilience. Does anyone know of any such case? Thank you.
Strategic planning is believed to be an approach to plan strategic management that include the sustainability value of ecology, social, economic and governance.
Methods use for calculation of economics of organic farming.
Conjoint analysis is being widely used in market research.
In regard to the agriculture service delivery sector where limited work has been attempted, can you please provide any methodology or questionnaires on how to perform it?
Thanks.
I would like to see the link of cognitive behavioral therapy with the socio-economic status of the patients.
I know concrete example of area-wide coordinated pest management (Ayer 1997, Ravnborg et al. 2000) and some authors in landscape ecology (Bianchi et al. 2006) mention the potential of landscape elements for pest regulation, but I don't know cases of both processes at the same time. Any hint?
It would be great to start a collaborative network of conversation around the value and innovative ways that social ecological frameworks are being used globally in research. Additionally it would be interesting to hear a number of key strengths, or hurdles you have identified in utilising this framework or ways in which you have made adaptations. Cheers, Alice
Conference Paper The possibilities and potential of social ecological framewo...
Water is our basic need. Most of our body consists of water. Day to day in our lives something is always related to the need for water. Some places have an abundance of water, in some other areas it is very scarce. In the city, most people use ground water for reducing expenses for water, such as for drinking water, washing cars, motorcycles or even for taking a bath. Meanwhile, there is a land subsidence as a natural hazard that should be faced.
Most of forest or catchment areas have been converted to other land use (new settlements, industry areas, etc) in urban areas. The impact is that the cost of water-treatment production is becoming higher and higher. To avoid high expenses, most of urban inhabitants use ground water and this is making land subsidence worse.
Indonesia has thousands small islands and has a similar problem with fresh water. They use rain water as a source of drinking or cooking. They can not desalinate sea water to provide freshwater due to expensive cost production.
Then, is there any hope to solve this situation because water will be scarce in some time, not only in the areas which have scare water, but also will be influence the areas which have an abundance of water.
I am conducting a meta-analysis on factors influencing hunting success and am looking for data beyond the literature.