TY - JOUR
T1 - Environmental change and ecosystem functioning drive transitions in social-ecological systems
T2 - A stylized modelling approach
AU - Eppinga, Maarten B.
AU - de Boer, Hugo J.
AU - Reader, Martin O.
AU - Anderies, John M.
AU - Santos, Maria J.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank Mara Baudena, Koen Siteur and Hanneke van ‘t Veen for discussions about the model. This study was supported/funded by the University Research Priority Program on Global Change and Biodiversity of the University of Zurich.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors
PY - 2023/9
Y1 - 2023/9
N2 - Sustainable management of social-ecological systems requires an understanding of how anthropogenic climate- and land use change may disrupt interactions between human societies and the ecosystem processes they depend on. In this study, we expand an existing stylized social-ecological system model by explicitly considering how urbanizing societies may become less dependent on local ecosystem functioning. This expansion is motivated by a previously developed conceptual framework suggesting that societies may reside in either a green loop and be strongly dependent on local ecosystem processes, or in a red loop where this dependency is weaker due to imports of natural resources from elsewhere. Analyzing the feasibility and stability of local social-ecological system states over a wide range of environmental and socio-economic conditions, we observed dynamics consistent with the notion of green loop-dominated and red loop-dominated societies comprising alternate stable social-ecological states. Based on systems' inherent dependencies on local ecosystem processes, responses to environmental change could comprise either transitions between green loop- and red loop-dominated states, or collapse of either of these states. Our quantitative model provides an internally consistent mapping of green loop- and red loop-dominated states, as well as transitions between or collapses of these states, along a gradient of environmental conditions.
AB - Sustainable management of social-ecological systems requires an understanding of how anthropogenic climate- and land use change may disrupt interactions between human societies and the ecosystem processes they depend on. In this study, we expand an existing stylized social-ecological system model by explicitly considering how urbanizing societies may become less dependent on local ecosystem functioning. This expansion is motivated by a previously developed conceptual framework suggesting that societies may reside in either a green loop and be strongly dependent on local ecosystem processes, or in a red loop where this dependency is weaker due to imports of natural resources from elsewhere. Analyzing the feasibility and stability of local social-ecological system states over a wide range of environmental and socio-economic conditions, we observed dynamics consistent with the notion of green loop-dominated and red loop-dominated societies comprising alternate stable social-ecological states. Based on systems' inherent dependencies on local ecosystem processes, responses to environmental change could comprise either transitions between green loop- and red loop-dominated states, or collapse of either of these states. Our quantitative model provides an internally consistent mapping of green loop- and red loop-dominated states, as well as transitions between or collapses of these states, along a gradient of environmental conditions.
KW - Bifurcation analysis
KW - Dynamical systems modelling
KW - Green loop
KW - Human-environment feedbacks
KW - Red loop
KW - Social-ecological system transitions
KW - Societal traps
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U2 - 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2023.107861
DO - 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2023.107861
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85159143829
SN - 0921-8009
VL - 211
JO - Ecological Economics
JF - Ecological Economics
M1 - 107861
ER -