Toward a Network Perspective of the Study of Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems

Abstract

Formal models used to study the resilience of social-ecological systems have not explicitly included important structural characteristics of this type of system. In this paper, we propose a network perspective for social-ecological systems that enables us to better focus on the structure of interactions between identifiable components of the system. This network perspective might be useful for developing formal models and comparing case studies of social-ecological systems. Based on an analysis of the case studies in this special issue, we identify three types of social-ecological networks: (1) ecosystems that are connected by people through flows of information or materials, (2) ecosystem networks that are disconnected and fragmented by the actions of people, and (3) artificial ecological networks created by people, such as irrigation systems. Each of these three archytypal social-ecological networks faces different problems that influence its resilience as it responds to the addition or removal of connections that affect its coordination or the diffusion of system attributes such as information or disease.

Innovation, cooperation, and the structure of three regional sustainable agriculture networks in California

“…Our analysis contributes to a broad literature that has emerged in the past 20 years across the social sciences, which has established the relevance of social networks among individuals, organizations, and political institutions for responding to regional environmental change (Carlsson 2000;Adger 2003;Weible 2005;Janssen et al 2006;Bodin and Prell 2011;Barnes et al 2016). Sometimes referenced under the term Bsocial capital,^social networks are hypothesized to facilitate social processes such as learning and cooperation that enable human societies to adapt to dynamic and complex social-ecological systems (Coleman 1988;Ostrom 1990;Boyd et al 2011).…”

“…First, while most researchers agree networks matter, there is no consensus on how different types of networks affect behavior in different regional contexts (Janssen et al 2006;Bodin and Crona 2009). Second, researchers often ascribe only a single social process to networks-for example, learning or cooperation-instead of analyzing how networks support multiple social processes that contribute to sustainability and resiliency.…”

How can landscape ecology contribute to sustainability science?

“…However, considering the spatial organization of landscapes, social-ecological systems thinking will become more salient for landscape sustainability if the interdependence of the spatial structure of social and ecological components is explicitly recognized. Therefore, the recent progress in social-ecological network thinking (Janssen et al 2006;Bodin et al 2016) offers interesting opportunities for further exploration in landscape ecology. Network thinking sees patches and actors within the landscape as nodes and the interactions between nodes as links.…”

We adapt … but is it good or bad? Locating the political ecology and social-ecological systems debate in reindeer herding in the Swedish Sub-Arctic

“…institutions that provide guidance in decision-making with relatively low transaction costs) (e.g. Janssen et al 2006;Pahl-Wostl 2009;Sandström and Rova 2010). The (social) interactions that the SES framework focuses on include, among other things, information sharing among users and deliberation processes, which require trust (e.g.…”