Digital Library of the Commons

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 24

Enhancing the Fit through Adaptive Co-management: Creating and Maintaining Bridging Functions for Matching Scales in the Kristianstads Vattenrike Biosphere Reserve, Sweden
(2007) Olsson, Per; Folke, Carl; Galaz, Victor; Hahn, Thomas; Schultz, Lisen
"In this article, we focus on adaptive governance of social-ecological systems (SES) and, more specifically, on social factors that can enhance the fit between governance systems and ecosystems. The challenge lies in matching multilevel governance system, often characterized by fragmented organizational and institutional structures and compartmentalized and sectorized decision-making processes, with ecosystems characterized by complex interactions in time and space. The ability to create the right links, at the right time, around the right issues in multilevel governance systems is crucial for fostering responses that build social-ecological resilience and maintain the capacity of complex and dynamic ecosystems to generate services for human well-being. This is especially true in the face of uncertainty and during periods of abrupt change and reorganization. We draw on our earlier work in the Kristianstads Vattenrike Biosphere Reserve (KVBR), in southern Sweden, to provide new insights on factors that can improve such linking. We focus especially on the bridging function in SES and the factors that constrain bridging in multilevel governance systems, and strategies used to overcome these. We present two features that seem critical for linking organizations dynamically across multiple levels: 1) the role of bridging organizations and 2) the importance of leadership. Bridging organizations and the bridging function can be vulnerable to disturbance, but there are sources of resilience for securing these key structures and functions in SES. These include social mechanisms for combining multiple sources of knowledge, building moral and political support in social networks, and having legal and financial support as part of the adaptive governance structure."
Handful of Heuristics and Some Propositions for Understanding Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems
(2006) Walker, Brian H.; Gunderson, Lance; Kinzig, Ann P.; Folke, Carl; Carpenter, Stephen; Schultz, Lisen
"This paper is a work-in-progress account of ideas and propositions about resilience in socialecological systems. It articulates our understanding of how these complex systems change and what determines their ability to absorb disturbances in either their ecological or their social domains. We call them 'propositions' because, although they are useful in helping us understand and compare different social-ecological systems, they are not sufficiently well defined to be considered formal hypotheses. These propositions were developed in two workshops, in 2003 and 2004, in which participants compared the dynamics of 15 case studies in a wide range of regions around the world. The propositions raise many questions, and we present a list of some that could help define the next phase of resilience-related research."
The Problem of Fit between Ecosystems and Institutions: Ten Years Later
(2007) Folke, Carl; Pritchard, Lowell; Berkes, Fikret; Colding, Johan; Svedin, Uno
"The problem of fit is about the interplay between the human and ecosystem dimensions in social-ecological systems that are not just linked but truly integrated. This interplay takes place across temporal and spatial scales and institutional and organizational levels in systems that are increasingly being interpreted as complex adaptive systems. In 1997, we were invited to produce one of three background papers related to a, at that time, new initiative called Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (IDEG), a research activity of the International Human Dimensions Program of Global Environmental Change (IHDP). The paper, which exists as a discussion paper of the IHDP, has generated considerable interest. Here we publish the original paper 10 years later with an extended introduction and with reflections on some of the issues raised in the original paper concerning problems of fit."
Linkages Among Water Vapor Flows, Food Production, and Terrestrial Ecosystem Services
(1999) Rockström, Johan; Gordon, Line; Folke, Carl; Falkenmark, Malin; Engwall, Maria
"Global freshwater assessments have not addressed the linkages among water vapor flows, agricultural food production, and terrestrial ecosystem services. We perform the first bottom-up estimate of continental water vapor flows, subdivided into the major terrestrial biomes, and arrive at a total continental water vapor flow of 70,000 km3/yr (ranging from 56,000 to 84,000 km3/yr). Of this flow, 90% is attributed to forests, including woodlands (40,000 km3/yr), wetlands (1400 km3/yr), grasslands (15,100 km3/yr), and croplands (6800 km3/yr). These terrestrial biomes sustain society with essential welfare-supporting ecosystem services, including food production. By analyzing the freshwater requirements of an increasing demand for food in the year 2025, we discover a critical trade-off between flows of water vapor for food production and for other welfare-supporting ecosystem services. To reduce the risk of unintentional welfare losses, this trade-off must become embedded in intentional ecohydrological landscape management."
History and Local Management of a Biodiversity-Rich, Urban Cultural Landscape
(2005) Barthel, Stephan; Colding, Johan; Elmqvist, Thomas; Folke, Carl
"Urban green spaces provide socially valuable ecosystem services. Through an historical analysis of the development of the National Urban Park (NUP) of Stockholm, we illustrate how the coevolutionary process of humans and nature has resulted in the high level of biological diversity and associated recreational services found in the park. The ecological values of the area are generated in the cultural landscape. External pressures resulting in urban sprawl in the Stockholm metropolitan region increasingly challenge the capacity of the NUP to continue to generate valuable ecosystem services. Setting aside protected areas, without accounting for the role of human stewardship of the cultural landscape, will most likely fail. In a social inventory of the area, we identify 69 local user and interest groups currently involved in the NUP area. Of these, 25 are local stewardship associations that have a direct role in managing habitats within the park that sustain such services as recreational landscapes, seed dispersal, and pollination. We propose that incentives should be created to widen the current biodiversity management paradigm, and actively engage local stewardship associations in adaptive co-management processes of the park and surrounding green spaces."
Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the Safe Operating Space for Humanity
(2009) Rockström, Johan; Steffen, Will; Noone, Kevin; Persson, Åsa; Chapin, F. Stuart; Lambin, Eric; Lenton, Timothy M.; Scheffer, Marten; Folke, Carl; Schellnhuber, Hans Joachim; Nykvist, Björn; de Wit, Cynthia A.; Hughes, Terry; van der Leeuw, Sander; Rodhe, Henning; Sörlin, Sverker; Snyder, Peter K.; Costanza, Robert; Svedin, Uno; Falkenmark, Malin; Karlberg, Louise; Corell, Robert W.; Fabry, Victoria J.; Hansen, James; Walker, Brian H.; Liverman, Diana; Richardson, Katherine; Crutzen, Paul; Foley, Jonathan
"Anthropogenic pressures on the Earth System have reached a scale where abrupt global environmental change can no longer be excluded. We propose a new approach to global sustainability in which we define planetary boundaries within which we expect that humanity can operate safely. Transgressing one or more planetary boundaries may be deleterious or even catastrophic due to the risk of crossing thresholds that will trigger non-linear, abrupt environmental change within continental- to planetary-scale systems. We have identified nine planetary boundaries and, drawing upon current scientific understanding, we propose quantifications for seven of them. These seven are climate change (CO2 concentration in the atmosphere <350 ppm and/or a maximum change of +1 W m-2 in radiative forcing); ocean acidification (mean surface seawater saturation state with respect to aragonite ³ 80% of pre-industrial levels); stratospheric ozone (<5% reduction in O3 concentration from pre-industrial level of 290 Dobson Units); biogeochemical nitrogen (N) cycle (limit industrial and agricultural fixation of N2 to 35 Tg N yr-1) and phosphorus (P) cycle (annual P inflow to oceans not to exceed 10 times the natural background weathering of P); global freshwater use (<4000 km3 yr-1 of consumptive use of runoff resources); land system change (<15% of the ice-free land surface under cropland); and the rate at which biological diversity is lost (annual rate of <10 extinctions per million species). The two additional planetary boundaries for which we have not yet been able to determine a boundary level are chemical pollution and atmospheric aerosol loading. We estimate that humanity has already transgressed three planetary boundaries: for climate change, rate of biodiversity loss, and changes to the global nitrogen cycle. Planetary boundaries are interdependent, because transgressing one may both shift the position of other boundaries or cause them to be transgressed. The social impacts of transgressing boundaries will be a function of the social–ecological resilience of the affected societies. Our proposed boundaries are rough, first estimates only, surrounded by large uncertainties and knowledge gaps. Filling these gaps will require major advancements in Earth System and resilience science. The proposed concept of 'planetary boundaries' lays the groundwork for shifting our approach to governance and management, away from the essentially sectoral analyses of limits to growth aimed at minimizing negative externalities, toward the estimation of the safe space for human development. Planetary boundaries define, as it were, the boundaries of the 'planetary playing field' for humanity if we want to be sure of avoiding major human-induced environmental change on a global scale."
Resilience Thinking: Integrating Resilience, Adaptability and Transformability
(2010) Folke, Carl; Carpenter, Stephen; Walker, Brian H.; Scheffer, Marten; Chapin, Terry; Rockström, Johan
"Resilience thinking addresses the dynamics and development of complex social–ecological systems (SES). Three aspects are central: resilience, adaptability and transformability. These aspects interrelate across multiple scales. Resilience in this context is the capacity of a SES to continually change and adapt yet remain within critical thresholds. Adaptability is part of resilience. It represents the capacity to adjust responses to changing external drivers and internal processes and thereby allow for development along the current trajectory (stability domain). Transformability is the capacity to cross thresholds into new development trajectories. Transformational change at smaller scales enables resilience at larger scales. The capacity to transform at smaller scales draws on resilience from multiple scales, making use of crises as windows of opportunity for novelty and innovation, and recombining sources of experience and knowledge to navigate social–ecological transitions. Society must seriously consider ways to foster resilience of smaller more manageable SESs that contribute to Earth System resilience and to explore options for deliberate transformation of SESs that threaten Earth System resilience."
Traditional Knowledge in Social-Ecological Systems: Editorial
(2004) Folke, Carl
"Ecosystems are complex adaptive systems, and their governance requires flexibility and a capacity to respond to environmental feedback. Carpenter and Gunderson (2001) stress the need for continuously testing, learning about, and developing knowledge and understanding in order to cope with change and uncertainty in complex adaptive systems. Knowledge acquisition of complex systems is an ongoing, dynamic learning process, and such knowledge often emerges with people's institutions and organizations. It seems to require institutional frameworks and social networks nested across scales to be effective."
An Uncommon Scholar of the Commons
(2012) Folke, Carl; Anderies, John M.; Gunderson, Lance; Janssen, Marco A.
"We wish to dedicate this midyear editorial and issue of Ecology and Society to Elinor (Lin) Ostrom who died 12 June from pancreatic cancer at the age of 78 years. Lin was a pioneer in many ways and was incredibly impressive in breaking through many barriers on her way to a remarkable set of life achievements."
Facing Global Change Through Social-Ecological Research
(2006) Folke, Carl; Gunderson, Lance
"Some people claim that we have recently witnessed a tipping point in the perceptions and values of western-oriented leaders and others involved in issues related to global environmental change. Western cultures now recognize that environmental issues formerly viewed as external to society are in reality embedded in the dynamics of the biosphere, and that economies are fundamentally dependent on the capacity of the environment to support and generate the preconditions for human and societal development."

Filters

Settings

Sort By

Results per page

Search Results