Information and entropy theory for the sustainability of coupled human and natural systems

Mayer, Audrey L.; Donovan, Richard P.; Pawlowski, Christopher W.

doi:10.5751/es-06626-190311

Cited by 45 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 73 publications

(99 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The opposite is true for negative ζ′s, in which case the occupations may be in competition for similar labour skills or may otherwise hinder each other's presence. Essentially, our metric is an information-based metric, which is an increasingly preferred approach to quantifying resilience, sustainability and similar attributes of complex adaptive social systems (Ulanowicz et al, 2009;Bossomaier et al, 2013, Tamvakis andXenidis, 2013;Mayer et al, 2014). Thus our initial inspiration for this metric was based on Hidalgo et al's (2007) measure of national production interdependencies.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying urban economic resilience through labour force interdependence

2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Resilience is increasing rapidly as a framework to understand and manage coupled human-natural systems. Yet the concept of resilience is rarely quantified. Here we quantify system resilience by operationalizing the notion of system tightness. Multiple resilience frameworks recognize the strong relationship between system tightness and resilience, though they differ on the directionality of that relationship. Thus, by measuring the system tightness we ultimately measure urban economic resilience, with the added benefit of empirically determining the directionality of the relationship between tightness and resilience. We then assess how well this measure predicts the response of urban economies to the recent so-called Great Recession. Results show that cities with lower tightness (higher resilience) fared better during the recession with respect to several economic productivity measures. However, in the absence of shocks, those with higher tightness (lower resilience) exhibit superior economic performance. Thus, a tradeoff between efficiency and resilience is nicely reflected in the empirical data. Although this study deals with economic shocks, quantitative metrics based on its methodology may help anticipate a city's response to shocks more generally, such as natural disasters, climate change, social unrest or significant policy shifts.

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying urban economic resilience through labour force interdependence

2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Natural ecosystems can assimilate some disturbance, while at the same time maintaining ecological processes through resilience (Carpenter & Brock 2008;Walker & Salt 2006). Birds act as bio-indicators of ecosystem performance in increasingly human-modified systems (Holt & Miller 2011;Mayer, Donovan & Pawlowski 2014).…”

Section: Conservation Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nest sites selection by sympatric cavity-nesting birds in miombo woodlands

Nyirenda

Chewe²,

Chisha‐Kasumu

et al. 2016

Koedoe

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Deforestation and habitat fragmentation have long been known as drivers of wildlife depletion but information on their specific impacts on cavity-nesting birds in the miombo woodlands has been lacking. A comparative study of disturbed and undisturbed sites was conducted in miombo woodlands of Zambia to assess impacts of environmental stressors on birds. Foot patrols were employed to locate, identify and count host trees and cavities for cavity-nesting birds on twenty 200 m × 200 m sample plots. Undisturbed forests had three times more cavities (the nesting sites for birds), while there were 24.6% fewer abandoned cavities in undisturbed forests than in disturbed forests. The rate of cavity abandonment was about twice as high in human-dominated forests compared to undisturbed forests (61.3% c.f. 31.9%). Cavity-nesting birds preferred larger (> 36.0 cm diameter at breast height) and taller (> 5.0 m) trees for nest placement, especially in human-dominated forests. A number of cavity-nesting birds preferred Brachystegia spiciformis (zebrawood), Julbernadia paniculata (munsa), Parinari curatellifolia (mobola-plum) and Uapaca kirkiana (mahobohobo) as host trees to 14 other miombo tree species. Arnot’s Chat (Myrmecocichla arnoti) had a wider selection of host trees for cavity-nesting than the other 40 cavity-nesting birds in the study areas. Anthropogenic activities such as uncontrolled firewood collection, wild fires, logging, and land clearing for agriculture negatively influenced wood abundance and diversity, with potential implications for persistence of cavity-nesting birds. The negative impacts of anthropogenic activities could be counteracted by conservation strategies such as implementation of sound forest policies, integrative land use practices, sustainable livelihood security and stakeholders’ awareness of the need to safeguard forest-dependent avifauna.Conservation implications: This comparative study unravels specific anthropogenic impacts on the cavity-nesting birds in the miombo woodlands, which would be relevant for designing and implementing targeted biodiversity conservation interventions against negative local environmental values and attitudes that support rural development on the expense of conservation of biodiversity such as birds.

show abstract

“…The value of such negative feedbacks for sustainability is illustrated in Mayer et al (2014), who emphasized in their theoretical modeling work that a strengthening of negative feedbacks can make a system more robust and less vulnerable to collapse.…”

Section: Multilevel Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, several new methods that were proposed in the special feature to measure and model feedbacks in a particular system should be further tested on other systems. Examples include the entropy indices proposed by Mayer et al (2014), the agent-based model for fire management adopted in Spies et al (2014), and the conceptual framework for humanwildlife conflicts advocated by Morzillo et al (2014). CHANS research as a whole can benefit from cross-site synthetic work that seeks to identify common patterns and generalizable traits of such complex systems (Carter et al 2014).…”

Section: Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Approaches used to characterize human-nature feedbacks draw on methods used across diverse fields including anthropology, economics, landscape ecology, and sociology. Examples consist of theoretical modeling using information and entropy theory (Mayer et al 2014), tracking of environmental history records and identification of historical contingencies (Steen-Adams et al 2015), and agent-based modeling . Feedbacks are also examined over a wide range of spatial scales, from pixels to entire landscapes; organization levels, from individuals to institutions; and temporal periods, from seasons to decades.…”

Section: Exploring Feedbacks In Chansmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Synthesis of human-nature feedbacks

Hull¹,

Tuanmu²,

Liu³

2015

E&S

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

ABSTRACT. In today's globalized world, humans and nature are inextricably linked. The coupled human and natural systems (CHANS) framework provides a lens with which to understand such complex interactions. One of the central components of the CHANS framework involves examining feedbacks among human and natural systems, which form when effects from one system on another system feed back to affect the first system. Despite developments in understanding feedbacks in single disciplines, interdisciplinary research on CHANS feedbacks to date is scant and often site-specific, a shortcoming that prevents complex coupled systems from being fully understood. The special feature "Exploring Feedbacks in Coupled Human and Natural Systems (CHANS)" makes strides to fill this critical gap. Here, as an introduction to the special feature, we provide an overview of CHANS feedbacks. In addition, we synthesize key CHANS feedbacks that emerged in the papers of this special feature across agricultural, forest, and urban landscapes. We also examine emerging themes explored across the papers, including multilevel feedbacks, time lags, and surprises as a result of feedbacks. We conclude with recommendations for future research that can build upon the foundation provided in the special feature.

show abstract

Information and entropy theory for the sustainability of coupled human and natural systems

Cited by 45 publications

References 73 publications

Quantifying urban economic resilience through labour force interdependence

Quantifying urban economic resilience through labour force interdependence

Nest sites selection by sympatric cavity-nesting birds in miombo woodlands

Synthesis of human-nature feedbacks

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About