Many terrestrial and marine systems have as a result of human impacts shifted into less productive states in their capacity to generate ecosystem services to society, i.e. food, water purification and climate regulation.At the same time human societies and globally interconnected economies ultimately rely on ecosystem services and support. But, the institutional abilities to manage the earth's ecosystems are evolving more slowly than the use of the same systems.
New principles and approaches
We are facing a cross-road where marginal change approaches in policy, governance and engineering are less relevant in sustaining the biophysical foundation for societal development.
New principles for resource and environmental management and new approaches to governance and management of linked social-ecological systems are necessary in order to deal with and adapt to the challenges of living with global environmental change.
Research features
The transdisciplinary collaboration and research at Stockholm Resilience Centre will focus on these challenges through a framework that emphasizes the following features:
- Society and nature represent truly interdependent social-ecological systems
- Social-ecological systems are complex adaptive systems
- Cross scale and dynamic interactions represent new challenges for governance and management in relation to interdependent social-ecological systems and ecosystem services
