52 research outputs found
A Social-Ecological systems perspective on water management in South Africa
Conventional approaches to water management have traditionally treated social systems and ecosystems as distinct, and to a large degree have failed to achieve outcomes that are simultanously efficient, equitable, and sustainable. Perhaps nowhere has the need to reform the way water is managed and even conceived been more apparent than in South Africa in the last decade, where a tremendous opportunity for change has been created in the form of the National Water Act of 1998. In this thesis I propose that water management in South Africa â which encompasses its water resources, ecosystems and their services, people they support, and institutions that govern them â is a social-ecological system: a coupled, inseparable system of human beings and nature. Using a combination of approaches, I demonstrate that a social-ecological systems perspective is needed to understand the true nature of these challenges. First, drawing from the experience of the Southern African Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (SAfMA), I construct and apply a framework for evaluating past water management responses. Second, I review a scenario planning exercise as an approach for identifying robust decisions amid high levels of uncertainty about future ecosystem services. Third, I use an agent-based model to explore the evolution of decision-making and learning by water managers under alternative paradigms. Lastly, I compare the ability of two existing frameworks to increase understanding of resilience as it applies to South African water management. Results of this work indicate that: congruence of impacts, awareness, and power is key to achieving effective water management in South Africa; future water management planning needs to take account of cross-scale trade-offs; decentralisation holds most promise when supported by a national policy framework but which allows for local learning; learning may be constrained by temporal variability, water stress, access to learning networks, and use of inappropriate indicators; and the concept of resilience may provide a mechanism for uniting social and ecological research on water management. As most past water management failures have resulted from a misunderstanding of social-ecological system dynamics, work of this kind can make a significant contribution at this pivotal point in South Africaâs water management history. Copyright 2006, University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. Please cite as follows: Bohensky, EL 2006, A Social-Ecological systems perspective on water management in South Africa, PhD thesis, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd Thesis (PhD (Environmental Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2006.Zoology and Entomologyunrestricte
Principle 4 â foster complex adaptive systems thinking
The socialâecological systems that provide ecosystem services to society can be viewed as complex adaptive systems (CAS), characterized by a high level of interconnectedness, potential for non-linear change, and inherent uncertainty and surprise. This chapter focuses on whether resilience of ecosystem services is enhanced by management based on what we refer to as âCAS thinkingâ, meaning a mental model for interpreting the world that recognizes these CAS properties. We present evidence that CAS thinking has contributed to change in management approaches in the Kruger National Park, Great Barrier Reef, Tisza river basin and Chile among other places. However, attempts to introduce CAS thinking may compromise resilience when complexity is not effectively communicated, when uncomfortable institutional change is required or when CAS thinking is not able to evolve with changing contexts or is not equitably shared. We suggest that CAS thinking can be fostered by the following: adopting a systems framework; tolerating and embracing uncertainty; investigating critical thresholds and non-linearities; acknowledging epistemological pluralism; matching institutions to CAS processes; and recognizing barriers to cognitive change. Key questions for future research on this principle relate to communicating CAS thinking, the role of power, the importance of an organizational level of CAS thinking, and institutional barriers
Exploring Alternative Futures in the Anthropocene
Many challenges posed by the current Anthropocene epoch require fundamental transformations to humanityâs relationships with the rest of the planet. Achieving such transformations requires that humanity improve its understanding of the current situation and enhance its ability to imagine pathways toward alternative, preferable futures. We review advances in addressing these challenges that employ systematic and structured thinking about multiple possible futures (futures-thinking). Over seven decades, especially the past two, approaches to futures-thinking have helped people from diverse backgrounds reach a common understanding of important issues, underlying causes, and pathways toward optimistic futures. A recent focus has been the stimulation of imagination to produce new options. The roles of futures-thinking in breaking unhelpful social addictions and in conflict resolution are key emerging topics. We summarize cognitive, cultural, and institutional constraints on the societal uptake of futures-thinking, concluding that none are insurmountable once understood
Evaluating Responses in Complex Adaptive Systems: Insights on Water Management from the Southern African Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (SAfMA)
Discovering Resilient Pathways for South African Water Management: Two Frameworks for a Vision
Factors that constitute resilience can themselves change over time in social-ecological systems. This poses a major challenge for understanding resilience and suggests greater investigation is needed of how social-ecological systems evolve through time and how to manage along more resilient pathways given continuous change. Resilient pathways account for the changing context of social-ecological systems, such as changing management discourses and their societal inclusiveness, changing system boundaries and external connections, and lingering consequences of past management actions. In this paper I use two well-known conceptual frameworks to explore change in social-ecological systems and associated resilience in the case of water management in South Africa, which is undergoing a major transformation: (1) the conceptual framework of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) and (2) the adaptive cycle described by Holling and others. Both frameworks, with minor adaptations, illustrate the system's shift from a centralized command-and-control style bureaucracy to a decentralized system guided by new legislation and a vision to balance efficiency, equity, and sustainability. During the former era, water managers attempted to maintain system stability and productivity through institutional and technical means that favored certain sectors of society, but resilience of the water management system declined as a result of increasingly unpopular policies and loss of ecosystem services. In using both frameworks, it becomes clear that the water management system contains two distinct social subsystems, representing South Africa's previously advantaged and disadvantaged populations, and that these do not progress through the phases of the MA framework and adaptive cycle uniformly. This implies particular challenges for achieving the water management vision: (1) the potential for management discourses to be manipulated by powerful groups, (2) equity issues that reflect new system boundaries that extend beyond South Africa's borders, and (3) past overallocation and poor management of water that make the previous level of privileges unattainable today. The South African water sector is a compelling case because of its dramatic transformation with as-yet unknown outcomes, but it presents challenges that are common among many large-scale social-ecological systems. With great international interest in operationalizing resilience definitions and frameworks, this exercise suggests the need to revisit definitions, continue applying these frameworks, and adapting them to capture variations in social-ecological systems
Evaluating Responses in Complex Adaptive Systems: Insights on Water Management from the Southern African Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (SAfMA)
Ecosystem services are embedded in complex adaptive systems. These systems are riddled with nonlinearities, uncertainties, and surprises, and are made increasingly complex by the many human responses to problems or changes arising within them. In this paper we attempt to determine whether there are certain factors that characterize effective responses in complex systems. We construct a framework for response evaluation with three interconnected scopes or spatial and temporal domains: the scope of an impact, the scope of the awareness of the impact, and the scope of the power or influence to respond. Drawing from the experience of the Southern African Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (SAfMA), we explore the applicability of this framework to the example of water management in southern Africa, where an ongoing paradigm shift in some areas has enabled a transition from supply-side to demand-side responses and the creation of new institutions to manage water across scales. We suggest that the most effective responses exhibit congruence between the impact, awareness, and power scopes; distribute impacts across space and time; expand response options; enhance social memory; and depend on power-distributing mechanisms. We conclude by stressing the need for sufficient flexibility to adapt responses to the specific, ever-evolving contexts in which they are implemented. Although our discussion focuses on water in southern Africa, we believe that the framework has broad applicability to a range of complex systems and places
Framing the flood: a media analysis of themes of resilience in the 2011 Brisbane flood
In the wake of the flood that affected Brisbane, Australia, in January 2011, public attention turned to the causes of the event and lessons for minimizing the impacts of future floods. The news media was an important vehicle for understanding and internalizing the 2011 Brisbane flood. Examining how the flood was framed in the media is, therefore, useful to understand broad public perception of floods. We undertook a systematic newspaper analysis during a one-year period to explore media framings of the flood, focused on learning as an aspect of resilience in relation to two themes: (1) perceived links between the flood and climate change and (2) perceived roles of government in managing the flood. We show that media coverage of the flood reinforces aspects of resilience by acknowledging community spirit, self-reliance and the importance of sharing experiences for learning; articulating the risk of extreme events in a changing climate; and highlighting regional management trade-offs. Much of the discourse is likely to inhibit resilience, however, by casting the flood in terms of blame and political opportunity and paying inadequate attention to longer-term aspects of regional resilience. The limited learning observed to date may highlight a need for other mechanisms and actors to lead learning processes. As policy related to the 2011 Brisbane flood, and extreme events more generally, is influenced by the public discourse, it is important to understand the nuances of communication around these events and the media's role in reinforcing or changing perceptions
Media representations of risk: the reporting of dredge spoil disposal in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park at Abbot Point
The disposal of dredge spoil in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park for port expansion at Abbot Point in North Queensland, Australia, has been a contentious issue receiving extensive media coverage. The media has played a key role in representing different risk perceptions, and potentially influencing policy decision-making. This paper identifies different perceptions of risk portrayed by local, regional, interstate and national print media in relation to the dredge spoil issue from January 2013 until February 2014. Media analysis explored the questions: how is 'risk' represented, who is linked to different risk perceptions, and how has the media coverage of the issue changed over time? Results show that 'risk' to the Great Barrier Reef from the dredge spoil was framed by four main themes: Environmental Disaster, Socio-economic Disaster, Equilibrium and Industrialism. Environmental Disaster was the most prominent overall, and often positioned in opposition to Industrialism. In January 2013 the dredge spoil issue was mainly covered by local sources and focused on risks to local livelihoods and environments. By February 2014 the issue was covered by sources throughout Australia and represented a range of risks to the GBR, and its World Heritage status, in relation to coal mining and port developments. Insights for communication from this analysis include the importance of using clear language that provides exact and solid examples of risks, especially in light of the media's agenda-setting power and with an issue that the general public does not have direct experience
Can Resilience Thinking Inform Resilience Investments? Learning from Resilience Principles for Disaster Risk Reduction
As the human and financial costs of natural disasters rise and state finances continue to deplete, increasing attention is being placed on the role of the private sector to support disaster and climate resilience. However, not only is there a recognised lack of private finance to fill this gap, but international institutional and financing bodies tend to prioritise specific reactive response over preparedness and general resilience building. This paper utilises the central tenets of resilience thinking that have emerged from scholarship on social-ecological system resilience as a lens through which to assess investing in disaster risk reduction (DRR) for resilience. It draws on an established framework of resilience principles and examples of resilience investments to explore how resilience principles can actually inform decisions around DRR and resilience investing. It proposes some key lessons for diversifying sources of finance in order to, in turn, enhance âfinancial resilienceâ. In doing so, it suggests a series of questions to align investments with resilience building, and to better balance the achievement of the resilience principles with financial requirements such as financial diversification and replicability. It argues for a critical look to be taken at how resilience principles, which focus on longer-term systems perspectives, could complement the focus in DRR on critical and immediate stresses
Experts' perspectives on the integration of Indigenous knowledge and science in Wet Tropics natural resource management
Aboriginal inhabitants of the Wet Tropics of Queensland advocate for greater inclusion of their Indigenous knowledge (IK) in natural resource management (NRM) to fulfil their customary obligations to country and to exert their Native Title rights. Despite a legal and institutional framework for inclusion of IK in NRM, IK has so far been applied only sporadically. We conducted an ethnographic case study to investigate perceptions on IK, science and how they affect integration of the two knowledge systems in the Wet Tropics. Our results show that IK and science are perceived as different concepts; that integration is limited by weak Indigenous internal and external governance; and that stronger Aboriginal governance and more focused engagement strategies are required to further the application of IK in local NRM. We conclude by arguing that NRM in the Wet Tropics needs to be reconceptualised to accommodate IK holistically, by considering its epistemology and the values and ethic that underpin it
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