The case studies of Kristianstads Vattenrike, Sweden; the Northern Highlands Lake District and the Everglades in the USA; the Mae Nam Ping Basin, Thailand; and the Goulburn-Broken Catchment, Australia, were compared to assess the outcome of different actions for transforming social-ecological systems (SESs). The transformations consisted of two phases, a preparation phase and a transition phase, linked by a window of opportunity. Key leaders and shadow networks can prepare a system for change by exploring alternative system configurations and developing strategies for choosing from among possible futures. Key leaders can recognize and use or create windows of opportunity and navigate transitions toward adaptive governance. Leadership functions include the ability to span scales of governance, orchestrate networks, integrate and communicate understanding, and reconcile different problem domains. Successful transformations rely on epistemic and shadow networks to provide novel ideas and ways of governing SESs. We conclude by listing some rules of thumb" that can help build leadership and networks for successful transformations toward adaptive governance of social-ecological systems.

Formal models used to study the resilience of social-ecological systems have not explicitly included important structural characteristics of this type of system. In this paper, we propose a network perspective for social-ecological systems that enables us to better focus on the structure of interactions between identifiable components of the system. This network perspective might be useful for developing formal models and comparing case studies of social-ecological systems. Based on an analysis of the case studies in this special issue, we identify three types of social-ecological networks: (1) ecosystems that are connected by people through flows of information or materials, (2) ecosystem networks that are disconnected and fragmented by the actions of people, and (3) artificial ecological networks created by people, such as irrigation systems. Each of these three archytypal social-ecological networks faces different problems that influence its resilience as it responds to the addition or removal of connections that affect its coordination or the diffusion of system attributes such as information or disease.

Most accounts of thresholds between alternate regimes involve a single, dominant shift defined by one, often slowly changing variable in an ecosystem. This paper expands the focus to include similar dynamics in social and economic systems, in which multiple variables may act together in ways that produce interacting regime shifts in social-ecological systems. We use four different regions in the world, each of which contains multiple thresholds, to develop a proposed "general model" of threshold interactions in social-ecological systems. The model identifies patch-scale ecological thresholds, farm-or landscape-scale economic thresholds, and regional-scale sociocultural thresholds. "Cascading thresholds," i.e., the tendency of the crossing of one threshold to induce the crossing of other thresholds, often lead to very resilient, although often less desirable, alternative states.

Mature trees scattered throughout agricultural landscapes are critical habitat for some biota and provide a range of ecosystem services. These trees are declining in intensively managed agricultural landscapes globally. We developed a simulation model to predict the rates at which these trees are declining, identified the key variables that can be manipulated to mitigate this decline, and compared alternative management proposals. We used the initial numbers of trees in the stand, the predicted ages of these trees, their rate of growth, the number of recruits established, the frequency of recruitment, and the rate of tree mortality to simulate the dynamics of scattered trees in agricultural landscapes. We applied this simulation model to case studies from Spain, United States, Australia, and Costa Rica. We predicted that mature trees would be lost from these landscapes in 90-180 years under current management. Existing management recommendations for these landscapes--which focus on increasing recruitment--would not reverse this trend. The loss of scattered mature trees was most sensitive to tree mortality, stand age, number of recruits, and frequency of recruitment. We predicted that perpetuating mature trees in agricultural landscapes at or above existing densities requires a strategy that keeps mortality among established trees below around 0.5% per year, recruits new trees at a rate that is higher than the number of existing trees, and recruits new trees at a frequency in years equivalent to around 15% of the maximum life expectancy of trees. Numbers of mature trees in landscapes represented by the case studies will decline before they increase, even if strategies of this type are implemented immediately. This decline will be greater if a management response is delayed.

We present a resilience-based approach for assessing sustainability in a sub-catchment of the Murray-Darling Basin in southeast Australia. We define the regional system and identify the main issues, drivers, and potential shocks, then assess both specified and general resilience. The current state of the system is a consequence of changes in resource use. We identify ten known or possible biophysical, economic, and social thresholds operating at different scales, with possible knock-on effects between them. Crossing those thresholds may result in irreversible changes in goods and services generated by the region. Changes in resilience, in general, reflect a pattern of past losses with some signs of recent improvements. Interventions in the system for managing resilience are constrained by current governance, and attention needs to be paid to the roles and capacities of the various institutions. An overview of the current state of the system and likely future trends suggests that transformational change in the region be seriously considered.