Developing a sustainability science approach for water systems
Developing a sustainability science approach for water systems
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DOI：
10.5751/es-11515-250223
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发表时间：
2020-06-01
影响因子：
4.1
通讯作者：
Zipper, Samuel C.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Brelsford, Christa;Dumas, Marion;Zipper, Samuel C.
我们召集了一次研讨会，让从社会科学和自然科学的角度研究水系统的科学家们能够发展出一种共同语言。这种共享的语言对于弥合这些学科不同概念框架之间的分歧是必要的。作为这次研讨会的结果，我们认为我们应该将社会-水文系统视为由社会、工程和自然要素构成的结构上的共同组成，并研究从这种结构中出现并在时间、空间和社会经济背景下重复出现的“特征管理挑战”。这种方法与将这些系统视为单独概念化的自然和社会领域的理论形成对比，这些领域通过双向反馈连接在一起，这在许多源于物理科学的水系统研究中很普遍。对新出现的特征管理挑战的关注鼓励我们超越寻找反馈的证据，而是提出以下问题：哪些类型的创新已成功地用于应对这些挑战？系统的哪些结构组成部分影响其对水文事件的复原力，并通过什么机制？成功和不成功的战略之间是否存在差异，以解决其中一个特有的管理挑战？如果是这样，这些差异是如何受到制度结构以及生态和经济背景的影响的？要回答这些问题，社会进程现在必须成为水管理研究和实践的中心舞台。我们还认为，水系统是与可持续发展科学相关的一类重要的耦合系统，因为它们特别适合于允许知识积累的那种系统比较。事实上，我们发现的特有的管理挑战在数量上很少，并且在人类历史的大部分时间和大多数地理位置反复出现。这种反复应该使我们能够积累知识，通过研究管理水系统的制度创新的长期历史记录来回答上述问题。
We convened a workshop to enable scientists who study water systems from both social science and physical science perspectives to develop a shared language. This shared language is necessary to bridge a divide between these disciplines' different conceptual frameworks. As a result of this workshop, we argue that we should view socio-hydrological systems as structurally coconstituted of social, engineered, and natural elements and study the "characteristic management challenges" that emerge from this structure and reoccur across time, space, and socioeconomic contexts. This approach is in contrast to theories that view these systems as separately conceptualized natural and social domains connected by bi-directional feedbacks, as is prevalent in much of the water systems research arising from the physical sciences. A focus on emergent characteristic management challenges encourages us to go beyond searching for evidence of feedbacks and instead ask questions such as: What types of innovations have successfully been used to address these challenges? What structural components of the system affect its resilience to hydrological events and through what mechanisms? Are there differences between successful and unsuccessful strategies to solve one of the characteristic management challenges? If so, how are these differences affected by institutional structure and ecological and economic contexts? To answer these questions, social processes must now take center stage in the study and practice of water management. We also argue that water systems are an important class of coupled systems with relevance for sustainability science because they are particularly amenable to the kinds of systematic comparisons that allow knowledge to accumulate. Indeed, the characteristic management challenges we identify are few in number and recur over most of human history and in most geographical locations. This recurrence should allow us to accumulate knowledge to answer the above questions by studying the long historical record of institutional innovations to manage water systems.