Towards a Single Integrative Metric on the Dynamics of Social-Environmental Systems

Abstract

Integrating the dynamics and interconnections of natural and human system properties into a single measure would make it simpler to reliably and repeatedly assess and compare different social-environmental systems (SES). We propose a novel metric to assess the magnitudes and variations in SES dynamics by integrating longitudinal gross domestic product, population, and ecosystem net primary production. We use annual public data across the Asian Drylands Belt (ADB) from 1992 through 2016 for 18 political entities as our testbed for assessing the efficacy of the metric. We perform cross-comparisons with existing natural and social science metrics to demonstrate the validity of the proposed metric, including the Human Development Index and the Palmer Drought Severity Index. The new metric demonstrates notable and meaningful differences in trends among the political entities that reflect major social, economic and environmental events over the 25-year period. It provides unique perspectives about the three pillar components (social, economic and environmental systems) in each of the 18 political entities (PE) of the ADB. The metric also shows meaningful associations with key economic and environmental indicators and great potential for broader application and evaluation, given additional testing in other countries, regions, and biomes.

Untangling the impacts of socioeconomic and climatic changes on vegetation greenness and productivity in Kazakhstan

“…Some studies have focused on coupled natural and human systems to investigate the complex ecosystem processes in semi-arid regions (Groisman et al 2009, Chen et al 2015a, 2015b. They suggest that socioeconomic changes or anthropogenic disturbances have produced more drastic impacts than climate change in recent years (Chen et al 2021, Dong et al 2021. It is therefore necessary to examine the implications of these drivers on ESF dynamics in Kazakhstan, a country that has experienced significant land degradation and agricultural land abandonment (Prishchepov et al 2013, Hu et al 2020.…”