AbstractSoil carbon sequestration programmes are a way of offsetting GHG emissions, however, it requires agricultural landholders to be engaged in such initiatives for carbon offsets to occur. Farmer engagement is low in market-based programmes for soil carbon credits in Australia. We interviewed long-term practitioners (n = 25) of rotational grazing in high-rainfall lands of New South Wales, Australia to understand their current social-ecological system (SES) of soil carbon management (SCM). The aim was to identify those components of the SES that motivate them to manage soil carbon and also influence their potential engagement in soil carbon sequestration programmes. Utilising first-tier and second-tier concepts from Ostrom's SES framework, the interview data were coded and identified a total of 51 features that characterised the farmers' SES of SCM. Network analysis of farmer interview data revealed that the current SES of SCM has low connectivity among the SES features (30%). In four workshops with interviewed farmers (n = 2) and invited service providers (n = 2) the 51 features were reviewed and participants decided on the positioning and the interactions between features that were considered to influence SCM into a causal loop diagram. Post-workshop, 10 feedback loops were identified that revealed the different and common perspectives of farmers and service providers on SCM in a consolidated causal loop diagram. Defining the SES relationships for SCM can identify the challenges and needs of stakeholders, particularly farmers, which can then be addressed to achieve local, national and international objectives, such as SCM co-benefits, GHG reduction, carbon sequestration targets and SDGs.
Ökosystemleistungen (ÖSL) umfassen alle Leistungen, die Menschen von Ökosystemen beziehen. Das Konzept der ÖSL liefert politikrelevante Informationen über die nachhaltige Nutzung von Ökosystemen, um deren Fähigkeit zur Bereitstellung von ÖSL für künftige Generationen zu sichern. Es ist daher in vielen Bereichen des Umweltmanagements und der Umweltpolitik zu einem Schlüsselkonzept geworden. Ein Idealfall der ÖSL-Forschung deckt das gesamte sozial-ökologische System ab, unter Berücksichtigung aller Verknüpfungen und gegenseitigen Interaktionen. Die bisherige Forschung weist jedoch einige Schwächen auf, darunter ein Mangel an Wissen und Anwendung (1) von Wirkungspfaden des Menschen auf die Versorgung mit ÖSL, (2) der ÖSL-Modellierung und -Kartierung mit hoher zeitlicher und räumlicher Auflösung, (3) von Beziehungen und Interaktionen zwischen ÖSL, (4) von Interaktionen und Feedbackschleifen zwischen sozialen Systemen und Ökosystemen, (5) trans- und interdisziplinärer Studien, (6) bei der Bewertung von ÖSL und (7) konkreter Managementstrategien. Diese Dissertation soll einen Beitrag zu mehreren dieser Forschungslücken leisten: Erstens liefert sie weitere Erkenntnisse darüber, wie sich der sozioökonomische Wandel in den österreichischen Alpen auf die Ökosysteme und ihre Fähigkeit, ÖSL zu liefern, ausgewirkt hat, wobei zeitverzögerte Effekte ("time-lag effects") und die räumliche Heterogenität der Landschaft berücksichtigt werden. Zweitens wird ein neues agentenbasiertes Modell (ABM) zur ÖSL-Bewertung vorgestellt, das gegenseitige Interaktionen und Feedbackschleifen von sozialen Systemen und Ökosystemen (bzw. ÖSL-Nachfrage und -Angebot) berücksichtigt. Das ABM wurde auf eine Fallstudie in den italienischen Alpen angewandt, wobei von ÖkologInnen und SoziologInnen mit Hilfe von Experteninterviews und Stakeholder-Workshops ausgearbeitete Szenarien der Landnutzung und des Tourismus sowie des Klimawandels evaluiert wurden. Die Arbeit integriert trans- und interdisziplinäre Methoden und stärkt die Anwendung des ÖSL Konzepts in der sozial-ökologischen Forschung. Die empirischen und methodischen Erkenntnisse sind relevant für politische Entscheidungsträger und Land- und Wassermanager. Insbesondere kann das entwickelte ABM als entscheidungsunterstützendes Instrument in der Wasserwirtschaft eingesetzt werden, um die nachhaltige Nutzung von Wasserressourcen zu fördern. ; The ecosystem service (ES) concept evaluates all benefits that people obtain from ecosystems. It provides policy-relevant information on the sustainable use of ecosystems in order to maintain their capacities to provide ES for future generations. The ES concept has therefore become key in many areas of environmental management and policy. An ideal case of ES research would cover the whole social-ecological system (SES), including the social system, the ecosystem and all interlinkages and mutual interactions between the two. However, several deficiencies have arisen in previous studies of ES research into SESs, including a lack of knowledge and application of (1) impact pathways of humans on ES supply, (2) modelling and mapping at high temporal and spatial resolution, (3) relationships and interactions between ES, (4) interactions and feedback loops of social systems and ecosystems, (5) trans- and interdisciplinary studies, (6) valuation of ES, and (7) concrete management strategies. This PhD thesis aims to contribute to several of these research gaps: Firstly, it provides further insights into how socio-economic change in the Austrian Alps has impacted ecosystems and their capacity to supply ES, considering time-lag effects and the spatial heterogeneity of the landscape. Secondly, it presents a new agent-based model (ABM) for ES assessments considering mutual interactions and feedback loops of social systems and ecosystems (respectively, ES demand and supply). The ABM was applied to a case study in the Italian Alps, and relevant scenarios of land use and tourism, as well as climate changes, were elaborated by ecologists and sociologists with the help of expert interviews and stakeholder workshops. The thesis integrates trans- and interdisciplinary methods and strengthens the application of the ES concept in social-ecological research. The empirical and methodological findings can assist policy-makers and land and water managers. In particular, the ABM developed can be used as decision-support tool in water management to foster the sustainable use of water resources ; Abweichender Titel laut Übersetzung der Verfasserin/des Verfassers ; Arbeit an der Bibliothek noch nicht eingelangt - Daten nicht geprüft ; Innsbruck, Univ., Diss., 2020 ; (VLID)5575901
This book is a social--ecological system description and feedback analysis of the Lake Tana Basin, the headwater catchment of the Upper Blue Nile River. This basin is an important local, national, and international resource, and concern about its sustainable development is growing at many levels. Lake Tana Basin outflows of water, sediments, nutrients, and contaminants affect water that flows downstream in the Blue Nile across international boundaries into the Nile River; the lake and surrounding land have recently been proposed as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve; the basin has been designated as a key national economic growth corridor in the Ethiopian Growth and Transformation Plan. In spite of the Lake Tana Basin's importance, there is no comprehensive, integrated, system-wide description of its characteristics and dynamics that can serve as a basis for its sustainable development. This book presents both the social and ecological characteristics of the region and an integrated, system-wide perspective of the feedback links that shape social and ecological change in the basin. Finally, it summarizes key research needs for sustainable development.
We thank R Romero-Calcerrada and J M Requena-Mullor for helpful discussions, and three anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions to improve this paper. We also thank the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Business (Project CGL2014-61610-EXP) for the financial support, as well as the Spanish Ministry of Education for the FPU Predoctoral Fellowship of MPR (FPU14/06782) and MTTG (16/02214). MPR gratefully acknowledges funding from Universidad de Almeria for a research stay at the Laboratory of Regional Analysis and Remote Sensing (LART) of University of Buenos Aires to develop this study. This research was done within the LTSER Platforms of the Arid Iberian South East-Spain (LTER_EU_ES_027) and Sierra Nevada/Granada (ES- SNE)-Spain (LTER_EU_ES_010), and contributes to the Global Land Programme. ; The spatial mapping of social-ecological system (SES) archetypes constitutes a fundamental tool to operationalize the SES concept in empirical research. Approaches to detect, map, and characterize SES archetypes have evolved over the last decade towards more integrative and comparable perspectives guided by SES conceptual frameworks and reference lists of variables. However, hardly any studies have investigated how to empirically identify the most relevant set of indicators to map the diversity of SESs. In this study, we propose a data-driven methodological routine based on multivariate statistical analysis to identify the most relevant indicators for mapping and characterizing SES archetypes in a particular region. Taking Andalusia (Spain) as a case study, we applied this methodological routine to 86 indicators representing multiple variables and dimensions of the SES. Additionally, we assessed how the empirical relevance of these indicators contributes to previous expert and empirical knowledge on key variables for characterizing SESs. We identified 29 key indicators that allowed us to map 15 SES archetypes encompassing natural, mosaic, agricultural, and urban systems, which uncovered contrasting land sharing and land sparing patterns throughout the territory. We found synergies but also disagreements between empirical and expert knowledge on the relevance of variables: agreement on their widespread relevance (32.7% of the variables, e.g. crop and livestock production, net primary productivity, population density); relevance conditioned by the context or the scale (16.3%, e.g. land protection, educational level); lack of agreement (20.4%, e.g. economic level, land tenure); need of further assessments due to the lack of expert or empirical knowledge (30.6%). Overall, our data-driven approach can contribute to more objective selection of relevant indicators for SES mapping, which may help to produce comparable and generalizable empirical knowledge on key variables for characterizing SESs, as well as to derive more representative descriptions and causal factor configurations in SES archetype analysis. ; Spanish Government CGL2014-61610-EXP FPU14/06782 16/02214 ; Universidad de Almeria ; LTSER Platforms of the Arid Iberian South East-Spain LTER_EU_ES_027 ; Sierra Nevada/Granada (ES- SNE)-Spain LTER_EU_ES_010
Protected Areas are worldwide accepted as conservation policy instrument. However, effectiveness of this instrument for sustainability management of protected resources is still problematic. It is in this context this paper investigates Social-Ecological System constraints which lead to unsuccessful situations in protected forests in Mexico. To achieve this objective, a methodology of E. Ostrom SES framework to carry out meta-analysis of case studies of Mexican forests is used. The results show that constraints are imbedded into attributes of governance of these resources by local communities through a set of variables whose patterns of interactions lead to successful or unsuccessful situations. These variables are variables characterizing governance system and variables characterizing actors' system. The interactions of these variables lead to successful situations in case studies in which local community members highly participate in governance system.
