The American West as a social-ecological region: drivers, dynamics and implications for nested social-ecological systems
The American West as a social-ecological region: drivers, dynamics and implications for nested social-ecological systems
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DOI：
10.1088/1748-9326/ab4562
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发表时间：
2019-11-01
影响因子：
6.7
通讯作者：
Williamson, Matthew A.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Jones, Kristal;Abrams, Jesse;Williamson, Matthew A.
在大众的想象中，美国西部是一个独特的地区，政策和政治往往表明，整个地区的土地管理和人类福祉的挑战和机遇都是相对同质的。在本文中，我们认为有一些关键特征将西方定义为一个社会生态区域，并且该区域内存在无数的社会生态系统（SESs），这些系统需要多样化和动态的方法来管理随时间的变化。我们首先将干旱、地形和独特的土地政治经济作为外生因素概念化，这些因素随着时间和空间的推移而持续存在，从而将美国西部定义为一个连续的社会生态区域。然后，我们确定了第二组特征，这些特征在美国西部的SESs中表现出高度的差异。最后，我们通过一系列案例研究来分析区域特征与当地动态之间的关系，这些案例研究举例说明了该地区特定类型的SESs。当代美国西部地区和区域内社会生态动态的这些实证表现的结果突出了采用跨尺度综合方法来解决复杂适应系统中紧迫的社会生态机遇和挑战的研究和管理的意义。
The American West exists in the popular imagination as a distinct region, and policies and politics often suggest that both the challenges and the opportunities for land management and human well-being across the region are relatively homogeneous. In this paper, we argue that there are key characteristics that define the West as a social-ecological region, and also that there are myriad social-ecological systems (SESs) within the region that require diverse and dynamic approaches to managing change over time. We first conceptualize aridity, topography, and a unique political economy of land as exogenous factors that persist over time and space to define the American West as a contiguous social-ecological region. We then identify a second set of characteristics that show high degrees of variation across SESs within the American West. Finally, we operationalize the relationships between regional characteristics and local dynamics through a set of case studies that exemplify specific types of SESs in the region. The results of these empirical representations of the regional and intra-regional social-ecological dynamics of the contemporary American West highlight the implications for research and management of taking a cross-scale integrated approach to address pressing social-ecological opportunities and challenges in complex adaptive systems.