M. Troell/Azote

Photo: R. Kautsky/Azote

Global food systems and multifunctional land & seascapes

We address questions related how we build resilience in global food systems and how to bring about large scale transformation of these systems

One of the greatest challenges of our time is how to produce healthy food for a growing world population without increasing the pressure on the planet’s ecosystems or eroding other functions. This is much about how we adjust our resource use to existing planetary boundaries and reverse ongoing trends of homogenization and instead strive for multifunctionality.

Within this multi-disciplinary theme, we address questions related how we build resilience in global food systems and how to bring about large scale transformation of these interconnected systems. We also look more broadly at how resource consumption and recognition of multiple values could become a driver of positive change in support systems and what market-based mechanisms and other policy tools exist for changing human preferences and behaviour. “

Other aspects we look at include:

- how to navigate trade-offs in and across multifunctional landscapes/seascapes to accomplish good stewardship

- how to manage resources in a time with increasing scales, speed and connectivity;

- how agriculture biodiversity relates to poverty

- relationship between human health, environmental health and food systems

- power structures and relations within the food system and its relationship to multi functionality and stewardship

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THEME PUBLICATIONS

Mapping social-ecological systems archetypes

Rocha, J. C., Malmborg, K., Gordon, L. J., Brauman, K. A. & DeClerck.

2020 - Journal / article

Achieving sustainable development goals requires targeting and monitoring sustainable solutions tailored to different social and ecological contexts. A social-ecological systems (SESs) framework was developed to help diagnose problems, identify complex interactions, and solutions tailored to each SES. Here we develop a data-driven method for upscaling the SES framework and apply it to a context where data is scarce, but also ...

Integrating the Water Planetary Boundary With Water Management From Local to Global Scales

Zipper, S.C., Jaramillo, F., Erlandsson, L-W., Cornell, S.E., Gleeson, T., Poorka. M.

2020 - Journal / article

The planetary boundaries framework defines the “safe operating space for humanity” represented by nine global processes that can destabilize the Earth System if perturbed. The water planetary boundary attempts to provide a global limit to anthropogenic water cycle modifications, but it has been challenging to translate and apply it to the regional and local scales at which water problems and management typically occur. We dev...

Water resilience and human life support - global outlook for the next half century

Falkenmark, M.

2020 - Journal / article

This article highlights green and blue water functions in the densely tied global water network, stabilizing the life support system and generating ecosystems and ecological services. Essential water challenges of the next half century are analyzed, identifying low-latitude dryland vulnerability and sharpening hydro-social water constraints. Attention is drawn to global warming, and the crucial roles of water and agriculture i...

Invisible water security: Moisture recycling and water resilience

Keys, P.W., Porkka, M., Wang-Erlandsson, L., Fetzer, I., et.al.

2019 - Journal / article

Water security is key to planetary resilience for human society to flourish in the face of global change. Atmospheric moisture recycling – the process of water evaporating from land, flowing through the atmosphere, and falling out again as precipitation over land – is the invisible mechanism by which water influences resilience, that is the capacity to persist, adapt, and transform. Through land-use change, mainly by agricultu...

Projects

Ecosystem services, livelihoods and resilience in Sahel

Here we sum up our insights on from our work on adaptation, innovation and the regreening of the Sahel region. Read more

Social-ecological systems (SES), are characterized by multi-scale interactions among actors and ecosystems. SES-Link investigates these linkages and how they affect resilience and governance. Read more here

Stockholm Resilience Centre is a collaboration between Stockholm University and the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

Stockholm Resilience Centre
Stockholm University, Kräftriket 2B
SE-10691
Phone: +46 8 674 70 70
info@stockholmresilience.su.se

Organisation number: 202100-3062
VAT No: SE202100306201