Abstract“Action situations”—events, venues, or physically interdependent instances of decision-making—have become a central unit of analysis in the social–environmental sciences, particularly among scholars interested in bridging the social with the biophysical or ecological side of interdependent decisions. A growing body of empirical studies in social–ecological systems research has recently used case and comparative studies to analyse multiple interdependent action situations, structured into networks. In this article, we take stock of this body of empirical research, synthesize the diverse approaches that scholars have taken to assess “networks of action situations”, and identify fruitful paths forward. We conduct a systematic review of the empirical literature in the field, reviewing and summarizing the key characteristics of the empirical studies, including network features, topologies, methods, and data sources used in each case. We summarize and discuss the conceptualizations, methods, diagnostic procedures, and conclusions used in this body of work in a narrative framework synthesis. The review indicates that an increasingly coherent approach is taking shape, but a systematic, protocol-driven, or formalized approach is only partly emerging. We derive future research needs that could help accumulate knowledge from empirical research.
Mountains play an essential role in storing water and providing it to downstream regions and are therefore commonly referred to as "water towers of the world" (Immerzeel et al., 2020; Viviroli et al., 2020). In particular, they provide runoff in the lowlands' low flow season by contributing snow-and glacier-melt (Jenicek et al., 2018). Globally, 1.9 billion people depend on these runoff contributions from mountains (Immerzeel et al., 2020), which are currently and in future impacted by climate change through the retreat and volume loss of glaciers (
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