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Our research is regularly published in top-ranked scientific journals. Search for specific publications below
Book chapter | 2015
Kotschy, K., R. Biggs, T.M. Daw, C. Folke, P.C. West. 2015. Principle 1 Maintain diversity and redundancy. In: Biggs, R. (Oonsie), M. Schlüter, M.L. Schoon (Eds.), Principles for Building Resilience: Sustaining Ecosystem Services in Social-Ecological Systems. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK pp. 50–79.
As both the societies and the world in which we live face increasingly rapid and turbulent changes, the concept of resilience has become an active and important research area. Reflecting the very latest research, this book provides a critical review of the ways in which resilience of social-ecological systems, and the ecosystem services they provide, can be enhanced. With contributions from leaders in the field, the chapters...
Journal / article | 2015
Homer-Dixon, T., B. Walker, R. Biggs, A.-S. Crépin, C. Folke, E.F. Lambin, G.D. Peterson, J. Rockström, M. Scheffer, W. Steffen, M. Troell. 2015. Synchronous failure: The emerging causal architecture of global crisis. Ecology and Society 20(3): 6
Recent global crises reveal an emerging pattern of causation that could increasingly characterize the birth and progress of future global crises. A conceptual framework identifies this pattern’s deep causes, intermediate processes, and ultimate outcomes. The framework shows how multiple stresses can interact within a single social-ecological system to cause a shift in that system’s behavior, how simultaneous shifts of this kin...
Fischer, J., T.A. Gardner, E.M. Bennett, P. Balvanera, R. Biggs, S. Carpenter, T. Daw, C. Folke, R. Hill, T.P. Hughes, T. Luthe, M. Maass, M. Meacham, A.V. Norström, G. Peterson, C. Queiroz, R. Seppelt, M. Spierenburg, J. Tenhunen. 2015. Advancing sustainability through mainstreaming a social-ecological systems perspective. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 14: 144–149
The concept of social–ecological systems is useful for understanding the interlinked dynamics of environmental and societal change. The concept has helped facilitate: (1) increased recognition of the dependence of humanity on ecosystems; (2) improved collaboration across disciplines, and between science and society; (3) increased methodological pluralism leading to improved systems understanding; and (4) major policy framework...
Biggs, R.O., C. Rhode, S. Archibald, L.M. Kunene, S.S. Mutanga, N. Nkuna, P.O. Ocholla, L.J. Phadima. 2015. Strategies for managing complex social-ecological systems in the face of uncertainty: Examples from South Africa and beyond. Ecology and Society 20(1): 52.
Improving our ability to manage complex, rapidly changing social-ecological systems is one of the defining challenges of the 21st century. This is particularly crucial if large-scale poverty alleviation is to be secured without undermining the capacity of the environment to support future generations. To address this challenge, strategies that enable judicious management of social-ecological systems in the face of substantive ...
Book | 2015
Biggs, R., M. Schlüter, M.L. Schoon (Eds.). 2015. Principles for building resilience: Sustaining ecosystem services in social-ecological systems. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Hamann, M., R. Biggs, B. Reyers. 2015. Mapping social-ecological systems: Identifying ‘green-loop’ and ‘red-loop’ dynamics based on characteristic bundles of ecosystem service use. Global Environmental Change 34: 218–226
We present an approach to identify and map social–ecological systems based on the direct use of ecosystem services by households. This approach builds on the premise that characteristic bundles of ecosystem service use represent integrated expressions of different underlying social–ecological systems. We test the approach in South Africa using national census data on the direct use of six provisioning services (freshwater fr...
Journal / article | 2014
Leadley P., V. Proença, J. Fernández-Manjarrés, H.M. Pereira, R. Alkemade, R. Biggs, E. Bruley, W. Cheung, D. Cooper, J. Figueiredo, E. Gilman, S. Guénette, G. Hurtt, C. Mbow, T. Oberdorff, C. Revenga, J.P.W. Scharlemann, R. Scholes, M. Stafford-Smith, R. Sumaila, M. Walpole 2014. Interacting Regional Scale Regime Shifts for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. BioScience, epub, DOI: 10.1093/biosci/biu093
Current trajectories of global change may lead to regime shifts at regional scales, driving coupled human–environment systems to highly degraded states in terms of biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human well-being. For business-as-usual socioeconomic development pathways, regime shifts are projected to occur within the next several decades, to be difficult to reverse, and to have regional- to global-scale impacts on human...
Gaertner M., R. Biggs, M. Te Beest, J. Molofsky, D.M. Richardson 2014. Invasive plants as drivers of regime shifts: Identifying high priority invaders that alter feedback relationships. Diversity and Distributions, 20, 733-744
Aim A major challenge for invasion ecology is to identify high-impact invaders to guide prioritization of management interventions. We argue that species with the potential to cause regime shifts (altered states of ecosystem structure and function that are difficult or impossible to reverse) should be prioritized. These are species that modify ecosystems in ways that enhance their own persistence and suppress that of native...
Journal / article | 2013
Scholes, R.J., B. Reyers, R. Biggs, M.J. Spierenburg and A. Duriappah. 2013. Multi-scale and cross-scale assessments of social-ecological systems and their ecosystem services, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability
It is often either undesirable or unfeasible to conduct an assessment of ecological or social systems, independently or jointly, at a single scale and resolution in time and space. This paper outlines the alternatives, which include ‘multi-scale assessments’ (conducting the assessment at two or more discrete scales) and ‘cross-scale assessments’ (multi-scale assessments which deliberately look for cross-scale interactions), a...
Book chapter | 2013
Crepin, A-S., Biggs, R., Polasky, S., Troell, M., de Zeeuw A. 2013. Regime shifts and management. In: Shogren, J. (Ed.) Encyclopaedia of Energy, Natural Resource and Environmental Economics, Elsevier, 339-348
Stockholm Resilience Centre is a collaboration between Stockholm University and the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
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