Publications

Sellberg, M., Norrby, J., Nowak, A., Rönnquist, L., Olsson, P., Peterson, G. 2022. Rapid Transition Lab - Navigating transformations in times of crises towards healthy, sustainable and just Swedish and planetary food systems. Stockholm Resilience Centre, Dark Matter Labs, and Vinnova.

The centrality of food to human flourishing combined with how food is currently a source of many social and environmental problems means that many of the broader sustainability challenges can be addressed by fundamental changes to the production, distribution, and consumption of food. Such changes are central to what has been referred to as food system transformations. Transformations require significant changes in multiple di...

Pereira, LM., Ortuño Crespo, G., Merrie, A and Homewood, C. (2022). Operationalising the Nature Futures Framework in the High Seas. Nereus Workshop report, Stockholm

The perceived remoteness and vastness of the ocean has inadvertently created a psychological and cultural barrier between people and the global ocean, particularly in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ); which accounts for >64% of the ocean and >45% of our planetary surface. After decades of commercial fisheries exploitation by a small number of nations this once untouched part of our planet and its biodiversity and ecos...

Kitzmann, N., Romanczuk, P., Wunderling, N., Donges, J. 2022. Detecting contagious spreading of urban innovations on the global city network. The European Physical Journal Special Topics. http://dx.doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-022-00470-4

Only a fast and global transformation towards decarbonization and sustainability can keep the Earth in a civilization-friendly state. As hotspots for (green) innovation and experimentation, cities could play an important role in this transition. They are also known to profit from each other’s ideas, with policy and technology innovations spreading to other cities. In this way, cities can be conceptualized as nodes in a globe-s...

Tamberg, L., Heitzig, J., Donges, J. 2022. A modeler’s guide to studying the resilience of social-technical-environmental systems. Environmental Research Letters. http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac60d9

The term ‘resilience’ is increasingly being used in Earth system science and other disciplines which study what could be called ‘social-technical-environmental systems’—systems composed of closely interacting social (e.g. economic and political), technical (e.g. energy production infrastructure), and environmental components (e.g. climate and the biosphere). However, the diversity of resilience theories and a certain (intended...

Schlüter, M., Caniglia, G., Orach, K., Bodin, Ö., Magliocca, N., Meyfroidt, P., Reyers, B. 2022. Why care about theories? Innovative ways of theorizing in sustainability science. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2022.101154

The complex nature of sustainability problems and the aim of sustainability science to support emergent processes of transformation require rethinking how we build and make use of theories. We highlight the diversity of ways in which theories, as assemblages of different elements that can serve a variety of purposes, can emerge within inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary processes. Such emerging theories are (i) contextu...

Reyers, B., Moore, M., Haider, L., Schlüter, M. 2022. The contributions of resilience to reshaping sustainable development. Nature Sustainability. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00889-6

We review the past decade’s widespread application of resilience science in sustainable development practice and examine whether and how resilience is reshaping this practice to better engage in complex contexts. We analyse six shifts in practice: from capitals to capacities, from objects to relations, from outcomes to processes, from closed to open systems, from generic interventions to context sensitivity, and from linear to...

Yamaura, Y., Fletcher, R., Lade, S., Higa, M., Lindenmayer, D. 2022. From nature reserve to mosaic management: Improving matrix survival, not permeability, benefits regional populations under habitat loss and fragmentation. Journal of Applied Ecology. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14122

Although matrix improvement in fragmented landscapes is a promising conservation measure, matrix permeability (willingness of an organism to enter the matrix) and movement survival in the matrix are usually aggregated. Consequently, it is unknown which matrix property needs to be improved. It also remains unclear whether matrix upgrading from dispersal passage to providing reproduction opportunities has large conservation bene...

West, S., Schill, C. 2022. Negotiating the ethical-political dimensions of research methods: a key competency in mixed methods, inter- and transdisciplinary, and co-production research. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01297-z

Methods are often thought of as neutral tools that researchers can pick up and use to learn about a reality ‘out there.’ Motivated by growing recognition of complexity, there have been widespread calls to mix methods, both within and across disciplines, to generate richer scientific understandings and more effective policy interventions. However, bringing methods together often reveals their tacit, inherently contestable, and ...

Andersson, E., Grimm, N., Lewis, J., Redman, C., Barthel, S., Colding, J., Elmqvist, T. 2022. Urban climate resilience through hybrid infrastructure. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2022.101158

Urban infrastructure will require transformative changes to adapt to changing disturbance patterns. We ask what new opportunities hybrid infrastructure—built environments coupled with landscape-scale biophysical structures and processes—offer for building different layers of resilience critical for dealing with increased variation in the frequency, magnitude and different phases of climate-related disturbances. With its more ...

Andersson, E., Boonstra, W., de la Torre Castro, M., Hughes, A., Ilstedt, U., Jernelöv, A., Jonsson, B., Kalantari, Z., Keskitalo, C., Kritzberg, E., Kätterer, T., McNeely, J., Mohr, C., Mustonen, T., Ostwald, M., Reyes-Garcia, V., Rusch, G., Sanderson Bellamy, A., Stage, J., Tedengren, M., Thomas, D., Wulff, A., Söderström, B.. 2022. Ambio fit for the 2020s. Ambio. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13280-022-01710-6