Disentangling intangible social-ecological systems
Disentangling intangible social-ecological systems
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DOI：
10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2012.01.005
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发表时间：
2012-05-01
影响因子：
8.9
通讯作者：
Tengo, Maria
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bodin, Orjan;Tengo, Maria
当代的环境挑战需要新的研究方法，在研究自然环境时包括人的维度。尽管最近发展了几个将人类社会与自然结合起来的概念框架，但在如何定量研究这种社会-生态相互依存关系方面，方法和理论进展较少。我们提出了一个新的理论框架来解决这一差距，部分建立在快速增长的复杂网络跨学科研究的基础上。该框架使我们能够解开、定义和形式化社会与自然相互依存的方式，并利用社会科学和自然科学的一系列理论，以综合的方式将其与具体的治理挑战和机遇联系起来。该框架的核心是一组基本构建模块（主题），每个模块代表一个简化但非琐碎的社会生态系统（SES），由两个社会行动者和两个生态资源组成。该集合表示SES中相互依赖的所有可能模式。每个独特的母题都具有社会和生态连通性、资源共享性和资源可替代性等特征。通过将与公共池资源管理、元人口动态以及SES与一系列主题相匹配的问题相关的理论见解结合起来，我们在马达加斯加南部农村农业景观的案例研究中展示了该框架的多理论能力。在土地和森林资源面临巨大压力的情况下，提出了几种解释居民保护分散的森林斑块的能力的机制。(C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd.版权所有。
Contemporary environmental challenges call for new research approaches that include the human dimension when studying the natural environment. In spite of the recent development of several conceptual frameworks integrating human society with nature, there has been less methodological and theoretical progress on how to quantitatively study such social-ecological interdependencies. We propose a novel theoretical framework for addressing this gap that partly builds on the rapidly growing interdisciplinary research on complex networks. The framework makes it possible to unpack, define and formalize ways in which societies and nature are interdependent, and to empirically link this to specific governance challenges and opportunities using a range of theories from both the social and natural sciences in an integrated way. At the core of the framework is a set of basic building blocks (motifs) that each represents a simplified but non-trivial social-ecological systems (SES) consisting of two social actors and two ecological resources. The set represents all possible patterns of interdependency in a SES. Each unique motif is characterized in terms of social and ecological connectivity, resource sharing, and resource substitutability. By aligning theoretical insights related to the management of common-pool resources, metapopulation dynamics, and the problem of fit in SES with the set of motifs, we demonstrate the multi-theoretical ability of the framework in a case study of a rural agricultural landscape in southern Madagascar. Several mechanisms explaining the inhabitants' demonstrated ability to preserve their scattered forest patches in spite of strong pressures on land and forest resources are presented. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.