We examine two academic traditions that address the nature-society interface. These traditions are organized around two main concepts: social-ecological system and territoire. These traditions have grown independently and are rooted respectively in ecology and social geography. We show that they have much in common: Both come with a systemic view of the nature-society interface and have the intention of understanding better the relations between nature and society and improving their sustainability. However, they differ in how they deal with space and society. We foresee that the combination of both traditions could improve the understanding of these systems, their definition, and their evolution, and hence, the capacity to assess and manage their resilience.
With the increasing number of adaptation plans being generated across the world at multiple scales and levels of organization, the issue of coordination among plans is emerging as a significant challenge. We focus on how lack of coordination may constrain their efficiency as a result of potential transfers of vulnerability. This paper focuses on interdependencies between autonomous feedback control loops that represent adaptation processes and makes the link between autonomous action and (social-ecological) system levels. These interdependencies allow changes in vulnerability of one adaptation actor as a consequence of the reduction of vulnerability of another actor. We refer to the processes behind such changes as "vulnerability transfers" and suggest the need for their identification so that actors may make agreements to address them explicitly. A thorough analysis of each step involved in a feedback control loop enables the identification of potential interdependencies, leading to seven basic types of vulnerability transfer. The analysis of example cases of observed transfers of vulnerability in three coastal case studies then demonstrate the suitability of feedback control loop networks to assess, ex-ante, potential vulnerability transfers. The example cases feature all types of theoretically possible vulnerability transfers. Initial empirical investigation showcases the relative importance of shared infrastructures in generating transfers of vulnerability. It also helps to reveal forgotten links to avoid decreasing efficiency of adaptation processes beyond each autonomous agent's jurisdiction. Our representation contributes to a more comprehensive ex-ante identification of transfers and hence the possibility to discuss and manage them.
Locust outbreaks have impacted agricultural societies for millennia, they persist today, and humans aim to manage them using preventative strategies. While locusts have been a focus for natural sciences for more than a century, social sciences remain largely underrepresented. Yet, organizational, economic, and cultural variables substantially impact these management strategies. The social sciences are one important means through which researchers and practitioners can better understand these issues. This paper examines the scope and purpose of different subfields of social science and explores how they can be applied to different issues faced by entomologists and practitioners to implement sustainable locust research and management. In particular, we discuss how environmental governance studies resonate with two major challenges faced by locust managers: implementing a preventative strategy over a large spatial scale and managing an intermittent outbreak dynamic characterized by periods of recession and absence of the threat. We contend that the social sciences can help facilitate locust management policies, actions and outcomes that are more legitimate, salient, robust, and effective.
The Cévennes sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa Mill.) forest-orchards and the holm-oak (Quercus ilex L.) black truffle (Tuber melanosporum Vittad.) associations of the garrigue in Languedoc-Roussillon have suffered a century of decline because of great reductions of rural populations and lack of understanding of the ecological and social dimensions of these rural forests by sectorial public agencies. Levels of tree and forest domestication alternated during historical periods in parallel with statuses of disorganization and reorganization of local social groups. Social-ecological legacies intrinsically linked to trees, forests, and landscape domestication, as well as knowledge, social, and technical practices have been mobilized and provided a basis for knowledge innovations, new domestications, uses, and new institutional networks related to changes in social set-ups. Collective actions emerging from local needs to revive territories in a modern context, cross-scale and reciprocal exchanges of rural and scientific knowledge, as well as institutional changes are interrelated variables that have enabled innovations and have increased resilience of these rural forests. This paper opens new avenues for future research on the interplay between the effects of social-ecological legacies and innovations on the resilience of social-ecological systems
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