Publication archive

Wood A, Halloran A, Gordon L J.2021. Insight paper #4 of the Nordic food system transformation series. Stockholm Resilience Centre; Stockholm

This fourth Insight Paper of the Nordic food system transformation series explores the uncertainties associated with different food system futures. These uncertainties are mapped in relation to the three priorities of the Nordic Council of Ministers’ Vision 2030: a green, competitive and socially sustainable Nordic Region. This Insight Paper discusses a variety of tools that can be used to inform decision-making in uncertain s...

Wood A, Halloran A, Gordon L J.2021. Insight paper #4 of the Nordic food system transformation series. Stockholm Resilience Centre; Stockholm

This third Insight Paper of the Nordic food system transformation series draws on the multi-stakeholder dialogues discussed in Insight Paper #1 to identify key barriers related to food system transformation in the Nordic countries. Insight Paper #3 looks at what it will take to overcome the barriers currently slowing down transformation to sustainable food systems in the Nordic region. Insight paper #1 provides an overview ...

Mahecha, M.D., Gans, F., Brandt, G., Christiansen, R., Cornell, S.E., Fomferra, N., Kraemer, G., Peters, J., Bodesheim, P., Camps-Valls, G. and Donges, J.F., 2020. Earth system data cubes unravel global multivariate dynamics.

Understanding Earth system dynamics in light of ongoing human intervention and dependency remains a major scientific challenge. The unprecedented availability of data streams describing different facets of the Earth now offers fundamentally new avenues to address this quest. However, several practical hurdles, especially the lack of data interoperability, limit the joint potential of these data streams. Today, many initiatives...

A safe operating space for New Zealand/Aotearoa: Translating the planetary boundaries framework. 2020. Report by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Stockholm Resilience Centre and the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change. Commissioned by New Zealand Ministry for the Environment.

The purpose of the report is to translate the planetary boundaries framework for New Zealand to inform government approaches to environmental stewardship, well-being and economic development. • The planetary boundaries framework provides an international and long-term context for national policy setting. It can be used as a benchmark for measuring progress towards environmental goals. • The framework provides a systems view ...

Ely, A., Marin, A., Charli-Joseph, L., Abrol, D., Apgar, M., Atela, J., Ayre, B., Byrne, R., Choudhary, B.K., Chengo, V. and Cremaschi, A., 2020. Structured Collaboration Across a Transformative Knowledge Network—Learning Across Disciplines, Cultures and Contexts?. Sustainability, 12(6), p.2499.

Realising the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will require transformative changes at micro, meso and macro levels and across diverse geographies. Collaborative, transdisciplinary research has a role to play in documenting, understanding and contributing to such transformations. Previous work has investigated the role of this research in Europe and North America, however the dynamics of transdisciplinary research on ‘trans...

Herrfahrdt-Pähle, E., Schlüter, M., Olsson, P., Folke, C., Gelcich, S. and Pahl-Wostl, C., 2020. Sustainability transformations: socio-political shocks as opportunities for governance transitions. Global Environmental Change, 63.

Faced with accelerating environmental challenges, research on social-ecological systems is increasingly focused on the need for transformative change towards sustainable stewardship of natural resources. This paper analyses the potential of rapid, large-scale socio-political change as a window of opportunity for transformative change of natural resources governance. We hypothesize that shocks at higher levels of social organiz...

Crona, B.I., Pomeroy, R.S. and Purcell, S.W., 2020. Small-Scale and Artisanal Fisheries: Insights and Approaches for Improved Governance and Management in a Globalized Context. Small-Scale and Artisanal Fisheries: Insights and Approaches for Improved Governance and Management in a Globalized Context, p.5. Front. Mar. Sci., 30 June 2020, https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2020.00455

Small-scale fisheries (SSFs) make important but often poorly quantified contributions to national and regional economies, to local food security and nutrition of millions of people. As such they provide an important lever for achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, particularly in rural areas. The dynamics that drive SSFs and their observed social, economic and environmental outcomes tend to be a complex mix of endogen...

Franke, A., Blenckner, T., Duarte, C.M., Ott, K., Fleming, L.E., Antia, A., Reusch, T.B., Bertram, C., Hein, J., Kronfeld-Goharani, U. and Dierking, J., 2020. Operationalizing Ocean Health: Toward Integrated Research on Ocean Health and Recovery to Achieve Ocean Sustainability. One Earth.

Protecting the ocean has become a major goal of international policy as human activities increasingly endanger the integrity of the ocean ecosystem, often summarized as “ocean health.” By and large, efforts to protect the ocean have failed because, among other things, (1) the underlying socio-ecological pathways have not been properly considered, and (2) the concept of ocean health has been ill defined. Collectively, this pre...

Dornelles, A.Z., Boyd, E., Nunes, R.J., Asquith, M., Boonstra, W.J., Delabre, I., Denney, J.M., Grimm, V., Jentsch, A., Nicholas, K.A. and Schröter, M., 2020. Towards a bridging concept for undesirable resilience in social-ecological systems. Global Sustainability, 3.

Resilience is a cross-disciplinary concept that is relevant for understanding the sustainability of the social and environmental conditions in which we live. Most research normatively focuses on building or strengthening resilience, despite growing recognition of the importance of breaking the resilience of, and thus transforming, unsustainable social-ecological systems. Undesirable resilience (cf. lock-ins , social-ecolog...

Barfuss, W., Donges, J.F., Vasconcelos, V.V., Kurths, J. and Levin, S.A., 2020. Caring for the future can turn tragedy into comedy for long-term collective action under risk of collapse. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(23), pp.12915-12922.

We will need collective action to avoid catastrophic climate change, and this will require valuing the long term as well as the short term. Shortsightedness and uncertainty have hindered progress in resolving this collective action problem and have been recognized as important barriers to cooperation among humans. Here, we propose a coupled social–ecological dilemma to investigate the interdependence of three well-identified ...