New horizons for managing the environment: a review of coupled social-ecological systems modeling

C1 - Journal Articles RefereedConventional approaches to natural resource management are increasingly challenged by environmental problems that are embedded in highly complex systems with profound uncertainties. These so‐called social‐ecological systems (SESs) are characterized by strong links between the social and the ecological system and multiple interactions across spatial and temporal scales. New approaches are needed to manage those tightly coupled systems; however, basic understanding of their nonlinear behavior is still missing. Modeling is a traditional tool in natural resource management to study complex, dynamic systems. There is a long tradition of SES modeling, but the approach is now being more widely recognized in other fields, such as ecological and economic modeling, where issues such as nonlinear ecological dynamics and complex human decision making are receiving more attention. SES modeling is maturing as a discipline in its own right, incorporating ideas from other interdisciplinary fields such as resilience or complex systems research. In this paper, we provide an overview of the emergence and state of the art of this cross‐cutting field. Our analysis reveals the substantial potential of SES models to address issues that are of utmost importance for managing complex human‐environment relationships, such as: (i) the implications of ecological and social structure for resource management, (ii) uncertainty in natural and social systems and ways to address it, (iii) the role of coevolutionary processes in the dynamics of SESs, and (iv) the implications of microscale human decision making for sustainable resource management and conservation. The complexity of SESs and the lack of a common analytical framework, however, also pose significant challenges for this emerging field. There are clear research needs with respect to: (i) approaches that go beyond rather simple specifications of human decision making, (ii) development of coping strategies to deal with (irreducible) uncertainties, (iii) more explicit modeling of feedbacks between the social and ecological systems, and (iv) a conceptual and methodological framework for analyzing and modeling SESs. We provide ideas for tackling some of these challenges and indicate potential key focal areas for SES modeling in the future

Social vulnerability of marine resource users to extreme weather events

Knowledge of vulnerability provides the foundation for developing actions that minimize impacts and supports system views that are particularly desirable. We modified a well-established model to assess and describe the vulnerability of the two major industries dependent on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) to extreme weather events. The modification entailed distinguishing between the properties that determine exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity for both the ecological and the social components of a natural resource system. We surveyed 145 commercial fishers and 62 tourism operators following a severe tropical cyclone and a major flooding event that extensively affected the region in 2011. Exposure of these industries included direct risk to life and infrastructure and indirect risk from loss of important ecosystem services. Our study found that many commercial fishers and marine-based tourism operators were sensitive to changes in the GBR's condition and limited in their adaptive capacity. However, those with smaller businesses, higher levels of occupational identity, place attachment, formal networks, and strategic approaches also had higher levels of adaptive capacity. These results suggest that resource users with higher sensitivity to change are not necessarily the most vulnerable; sensitivity may be offset by adaptive capacity. That is, while exposure and sensitivity determine the potential impact of a climate-induced change, adaptive capacity may be a major influence on the impacts that eventuate. We empirically show that adaptive capacity is an obvious focus for climate adaptation planning