Erik

Andersson

PhD

Professor, principal researcher

erik.andersson@su.se

+46 8-16 20 00 (university switchboard)

Twitter-link

RSS-link

Profile summary

  • Applied urban ecology
  • Natural resources management
  • Systems and landscape ecology
  • Geography
  • Ecosystem services
  • Participatory transdisciplinary research

Erik Andersson’s research focuses on understanding and promoting sustainable use and governance of different landscapes and the many functions they may carry

Andersson is an active and independent scientist with more than 65 publications in scientific journals, 5 book chapters and multiple technical reports and popular science items. He has attracted over 50 million SEK in research funding as principal investigator since 2010 and collaborate with a wide international network of scientists and organisations.

Andersson is active in the Stockholm Resilience Centre themes Stewardship and transformative futures and Anthropocene dynamics, and is also leading the Stockholm Resilience Centre urban research and various non-academic collaborations. In addition to tutoring and supervising students (1st to 3rd level) and postdocs, Andersson has led and mentored inter- and transdisciplinary teams, nationally and internationally.

Andersson served as the associate editor in chief for the journal Ambio 2020-2021, and is active as associate editor for the journals Sustainability Science, Ambio and Frontiers in Environmental Science. Andersson was appointed principal researcher at Stockholm Resilience Centre in 2020.

Core to Andersson’s research has always been natural resources management, with a focus on understanding and promoting sustainable use and governance of different landscapes and the many functions they may carry, from biodiversity support to more anthropogenic ‘services’. Andersson has experience in systems and landscape ecology, geography, urban studies, landscape governance, participatory transdisciplinary research, review and synthesis work, among other things.

Andersson has spent the last ten years successfully creating environments, outside Stockholm Resilience Centre and within, that ‘normalize’ transdisciplinary sustainability science and collaborative cultures that invite critical thinking, knowledge integration and action.

Collaboration and engagement is usually an integrated, many-facetted component in Andersson’s projects, which tend to focus on applied research, to ensure that the research framing resonates with potential users of the knowledge we produce.

Andersson works together with non-academic actors like urban planners, real estate owners and housing associations, local communities and the business sector to develop policy recommendations and guidance. This is achieved through a flexible mix of meetings either hosted by Andersson and his lab or by them joining meetings, conferences and other activities arranged by their partners. In practice, this means that Andersson has many different roles and work across multiple processes in addition to my research.

Andersson serves as an expert in different reference groups, or sometimes more actively as an expert consultant. Andersson works as a board member, tutor, panellist and sometimes, as a secondary outcome from the meetings and dialogues he organises, facilitator and contact broker.

Awards and achievements

  • BiodivERsA Prize for Excellence and Impact 2021
  • BiodivERsA Prize for Excellence and Impact 2019
  • Nominated teacher of the year, Stockholm University 2021
  • Extraordinary Professor with North-West University, South Africa

Current funding

  • Formas (the Swedish research council for sustainable development): Co-creation of knowledge and capacity building for climate adapted landscape management
  • BiodivERsA-Belmont Forum: ENVISION, inclusive conservation
  • Horizon Europe: ALFAwetlands, wetland restoration for the future
  • NordForsk: SMARTer Greener Cities
  • Vinnova (Sweden’s innovation agency): Multifunctional climate adaptation in collaboration

Supervision

Carolin Seiferth

PhD

Main supervisor

Key publications

Andersson, E., S. Borgström, D. Haase, J. Langemeyer, M. Wolff, and T. McPhearson. 2021. Urban resilience thinking in practice: ensuring flows of benefit from green and blue infrastructure. Ecology and Society 26(4):39.

Andersson, E., D. Haase, P. Anderson, C. Cortinovis, J. Goodness, D. Kendal, A. Lausch, T. McPhearson, D. Sikorska, and T. Wellmann. 2021. What are the traits of a social-ecological system: Towards a framework in support of urban sustainability. npj Urban Sustainability 1(1):14.

Andersson, E., J. Langemeyer, S. Borgström, T. McPhearson, D. Haase, J. Kronenberg, D. N. Barton, M. Davis, S. Naumann, L. Röschel, and F. Baró. 2019. Enabling Green and Blue Infrastructure to Improve Contributions to Human Well-Being and Equity in Urban Systems. BioScience 69(7):566–574.

Andersson, E., J. Enqvist, and M. Tengö. 2017. Stewardship in urban landscapes. Pages 222–238 in C. Bieling and T. Plieninger, editors. The Science and Practice of Landscape Stewardship. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, Cambridge.

Andersson, E., S. Barthel, S. Borgström, J. Colding, T. Elmqvist, C. Folke, A. Gren, and Å. Gren. 2014. Reconnecting cities to the biosphere: stewardship of green infrastructure and urban ecosystem services. AMBIO 43(4):445–453.

Publications by Andersson, Erik

A social-ecological-technological systems framework for urban ecosystem services

Journal / article | 2022

McPhearson, T., Cook, E., Berbés-Blázquez, M., Cheng, C., Grimm, N., Andersson, E., Barbosa, O., Chandler, D., Chang, H., Chester, M., Childers, D., Elser, S., Frantzeskaki, N., Grabowski, Z., Groffman, P., Hale, R., Iwaniec, D., Kabisch, N., Kennedy, C., Markolf, S., Matsler, A., McPhillips, L., Miller, T., Muñoz-Erickson, T., Rosi, E., Troxler, T. 2022. A social-ecological-technological systems framework for urban ecosystem services. One Earth. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2022.04.007

As rates of urbanization and climatic change soar, decision-makers are increasingly challenged to provide innovative solutions that simultaneously address climate change impacts and risks and inclusively ensure quality of life for urban residents. Cities have turned to nature-based solutions to help address these challenges. Nature-based solutions, through the provision of ecosystem services, can yield numerous benefits for pe...

Smarter greener cities through a social-ecological-technological systems approach

Journal / article | 2022

Branny, A., Møller, M., Korpilo, S., McPhearson, T., Gulsrud, N., Olafsson, A., Raymond, C., Andersson, E. 2022. Smarter greener cities through a social-ecological-technological systems approach. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2022.101168

Smart city development is expanding rapidly globally and is often argued to improve urban sustainability. However, these smart developments are often technology-centred approaches that can miss critical interactions between social and ecological components of urban systems, limiting their real impact. We draw on the social-ecological-technological systems (SETS) literature and framing to expand and improve the impact of smart ...

Advancing research on ecosystem service bundles for comparative assessments and synthesis

Journal / article | 2022

Meacham, M., Norström, A. V., Peterson, G. D., Andersson, E., Bennett, E.M., Biggs, O., Crouzat, E., Cord, A. F., Enfors, E., Felipe-Lucia, M. R., Fischer, J., Hamann, M., Hanspach, J., Hicks, C., Jacobs, S., Lavorel, S., Locatelli, B., Martín-López, B., Plieninger, T., Queiroz, C. 2022. Advancing research on ecosystem service bundles for comparative assessments and synthesis. Ecosystems and People. https://doi.org/10.1080/26395916.2022.2032356

Social-ecological interactions have been shown to generate interrelated and reoccurring sets of ecosystem services, also known as ecosystem service bundles. Given the potential utility of the bundles concept, along with the recent surge in interest it is timely to reflect on the concept, its current use and potential for the future. Based on our ecosystem service bundle experience, expertise, and ecosystem service bundle analy...

Inclusive conservation and the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework: Tensions and prospects

Journal / article | 2022

Raymond, C., Cebrián-Piqueras, M., Andersson, E., Andrade, R., Schnell, A., Battioni Romanelli, B., Filyushkina, A., Goodson, D., Horcea-Milcu, A., Johnson, D., Keller, R., Kuiper, J., Lo, V., López-Rodríguez, M., March, H., Metzger, M., Oteros-Rozas, E., Salcido, E., Sellberg, M., Stewart, W., Ruiz-Mallén, I., Plieninger, T., van Riper, C., Verburg, P., Wiedermann, M. 2022. Inclusive conservation and the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework: Tensions and prospects. One Earth. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2022.02.008

The draft Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework commits to achievement of equity and justice outcomes and represents a “relational turn” in how we understand inclusive conservation. Although “inclusivity” is drawn on as a means to engage diverse stakeholders, widening the framing of inclusivity can create new tensions with regard to how to manage protected areas. We first offer a set of tensions that emerge in the light of ...