The Water Metabolism of Socio-Ecological Systems

The Water Metabolism of Socio-Ecological Systems PDF Author: Cristina Madrid-López
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Water accounting is an unresolved issue in metabolism studies. Through epistemological analysis, we show that the problem resides in the conceptualization of social metabolism. Social metabolism has its origins in the analysis of societal energetics, which has led to an exclusive focus on society and a representation based on linear throughputs at a single scale. Whereas fossil energy resources constitute a mere stock flow for society, water constitutes a set of both funds and flows essential for the maintenance of the internal organization and stability of society and ecosystems. This means that societies and ecosystems need water for different reasons. Consequently, the analysis of water requires the simultaneous adoption of multiple narratives and scales. The development of hydrology toward a socio-eco-hydrology (SE-hydrology) deals with this multidimensionality, but lacks a conceptualization of the coupled human-water system useful to integrate the assessment of water processes at different rates and scales. We propose a conceptual framework, based on the multiscale integrated analysis of societal and ecosystem metabolism approach, that combines the perspectives of SE-hydrology and social metabolism. This framework describes society and the embedding ecosystem as two distinct levels of the same hierarchical system (i.e., the socioecological system), expressing two distinct, but tightly interconnected, metabolic patterns (societal and ecosystem) at different spatiotemporal scales. Using food grain production in Punjab as an example, we show that this framework can accommodate the multiple interpretations of social metabolism found in different scientific fields.

The Water Metabolism of Socio-Ecological Systems

The Water Metabolism of Socio-Ecological Systems PDF Author: Cristina Madrid-López
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
Water accounting is an unresolved issue in metabolism studies. Through epistemological analysis, we show that the problem resides in the conceptualization of social metabolism. Social metabolism has its origins in the analysis of societal energetics, which has led to an exclusive focus on society and a representation based on linear throughputs at a single scale. Whereas fossil energy resources constitute a mere stock flow for society, water constitutes a set of both funds and flows essential for the maintenance of the internal organization and stability of society and ecosystems. This means that societies and ecosystems need water for different reasons. Consequently, the analysis of water requires the simultaneous adoption of multiple narratives and scales. The development of hydrology toward a socio-eco-hydrology (SE-hydrology) deals with this multidimensionality, but lacks a conceptualization of the coupled human-water system useful to integrate the assessment of water processes at different rates and scales. We propose a conceptual framework, based on the multiscale integrated analysis of societal and ecosystem metabolism approach, that combines the perspectives of SE-hydrology and social metabolism. This framework describes society and the embedding ecosystem as two distinct levels of the same hierarchical system (i.e., the socioecological system), expressing two distinct, but tightly interconnected, metabolic patterns (societal and ecosystem) at different spatiotemporal scales. Using food grain production in Punjab as an example, we show that this framework can accommodate the multiple interpretations of social metabolism found in different scientific fields.

The Social Metabolism

The Social Metabolism PDF Author: Manuel González de Molina
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319063588
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Over this last decade, the concept of Social Metabolism has gained prestige as a theoretical instrument for the required analysis, to such an extent that there are now dozens of researchers, hundreds of articles and several books that have adopted and use this concept. However, there is a great deal of variety in terms of definitions and interpretations, as well as different methodologies around this concept, which prevents the consolidation of a unified field of new knowledge. The fundamental aim of the book is to conduct a review of the past and present usage of the concept of social metabolism, its origins and history, as well as the main currents or schools that exist around this concept. At the same time, the reviews and discussions included are used by the authors as starting points to draw conclusions and propose a theory of socio-ecological transformations. The theoretical and methodological innovations of this book include a distinction of two types of metabolic processes: tangible and intangible; the analysis of the social metabolism at different scales (in space and time) and a theory of socio-ecological change overcoming the merely “systemic” or “cybernetic” nature of conventional approaches, giving special protagonism to collective action.

Socio-Metabolic Perspectives on the Sustainability of Local Food Systems

Socio-Metabolic Perspectives on the Sustainability of Local Food Systems PDF Author: Eva Fraňková
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319692364
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
This book delves into diverse local food systems and critically assesses their ecological and societal benefits and trade-offs, their limits and opportunities for improving sustainability of food production, and framework conditions which either hinder or promote their development. More and more people with gradually meat heavier diets will demand growth in food production, whilst our increasingly industrialized and globalized agri-food system has already caused serious sustainability problems in the past. This calls for a change in the way we produce, distribute and consume food. A re-emerging debate on food security and food sovereignty seems to support this quest. But what are the promising alternatives to mainstream developments? Such a discussion regarding sustainability of local food systems requires a sound systemic understanding and thus invites a socio-metabolic reading of local cases by analyzing the nexus between material and energy flows as well as land and time use. This approach is needed to complement the so far mostly qualitatively-based local food studies. Applying socio-metabolic approaches to local food systems fosters a better understanding of promises and pitfalls for sustainable pathways in the future.

Water Resilience for Human Prosperity

Water Resilience for Human Prosperity PDF Author: Johan Rockström
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139867601
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
The world's human population now constitutes the largest driving force of changes to the biosphere. Emerging water challenges require new ideas for governance and management of water resources in the context of rapid global change. This book presents a new approach to water resources, addressing global sustainability and focusing on socio-ecological resilience to changes. Topics covered include the risks of unexpected change, human impacts and dependence on global water, the prospects for feeding the world's population by 2050, and a pathway for the future. The book's innovative and integrated approach links green and blue freshwater with terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem functions and use. It also links changes arising from land-use alteration with the impacts of those changes on social-ecological systems and ecosystem services. This is an important, state-of-the-art resource for academic researchers and water resource professionals, and a key reference for graduate students studying water resource governance and management.

Water Bankruptcy in the Land of Plenty

Water Bankruptcy in the Land of Plenty PDF Author: Franck Poupeau
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1315349760
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 640

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Book Description
As the American Southwest faces its deepest drought in history, this book explores the provocative notion of “water bankruptcy” with a view towards emphasizing the diversity and complexity of water issues in this region. It bridges between the narratives of growth and the strategies or policies adopted to pursue competing agendas and circumvent the inevitable. A window of opportunity provided by this current long-term drought may be used to induce change by dealing with threats that derive from imbalances between growth patterns and available resources, the primary cause of scarcity. A first of its kind, this book was developed through close collaboration of a broad range of natural scientists, social scientists, and resource managers from Europe and United States. It constitutes a collective elaboration of a transdisciplinary approach to unveiling the inner workings of how water was fought for, allocated and used in the American Southwest, with a focus on Arizona. Specifically, it offers an innovative scientific perspective that produces a critical diagnostic evaluation of water management, with a particular view to identifying risks for the Tucson region that is facing continuous urban sprawl and economic growth.

The Metabolism of Islands

The Metabolism of Islands PDF Author: Simron Singh
Publisher: MDPI
ISBN: 3036509364
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
This book makes the case for why we should care about islands and their sustainability. Islands are hotspots of biocultural diversity and home to 600 million people that depend on one-sixth of the earth’s total area, including the surrounding oceans, for their subsistence. Today, they are at the frontlines of climate change and face an existential crisis. Islands are, however, potential “hubs of innovation” that are uniquely positioned to be leaders in sustainability and climate action. This volume argues that a full-fledged program on “island industrial ecology” is urgently needed, with the aim of offering policy-relevant insights and strategies to sustain small islands in an era of global environmental change. The nine contributions in this volume cover a wide range of applications of socio-metabolic research, from flow accounts to stock analysis and their relationship to services in space and time. They offer insights into how reconfiguring patterns of resource use will allow island governments to build resilience and adapt to the challenges of climate change.

Long Term Socio-Ecological Research

Long Term Socio-Ecological Research PDF Author: Simron Jit Singh
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400711778
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 612

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Book Description
The authors in this volume make a case for LTSER’s potential in providing insights, knowledge and experience necessary for a sustainability transition. This expertly edited selection of contributions from Europe and North America reviews the development of LTSER since its inception and assesses its current state, which has evolved to recognize the value of formulating solutions to the host of ecological threats we face. Through many case studies, this book gives the reader a greater sense of where we are and what still needs to be done to engage in and make meaning from long-term, place-based and cross-disciplinary engagements with socio-ecological systems.

Taking Stock of Industrial Ecology

Taking Stock of Industrial Ecology PDF Author: Roland Clift
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319205714
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
How can we design more sustainable industrial and urban systems that reduce environmental impacts while supporting a high quality of life for everyone? What progress has been made towards reducing resource use and waste, and what are the prospects for more resilient, material-efficient economies? What are the environmental and social impacts of global supply chains and how can they be measured and improved? Such questions are at the heart of the emerging discipline of industrial ecology, covered in Taking Stock of Industrial Ecology. Leading authors, researchers and practitioners review how far industrial ecology has developed and current issues and concerns, with illustrations of what the industrial ecology paradigm has achieved in public policy, corporate strategy and industrial practice. It provides an introduction for students coming to industrial ecology and for professionals who wish to understand what industrial ecology can offer, a reference for researchers and practitioners and a source of case studies for teachers.

Water Challenges in Socio-ecological Systems

Water Challenges in Socio-ecological Systems PDF Author: Sara Floriana Zanini
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This mixed-method systematic review is motivated by the willingness to identify the efforts of the most recent developments of the literature on the understanding of water challenges in socioecological systems, particularly coastal ones. The attention, in the exercise, is directed at the analysis of individual and collective decision-making processes concerning the use of the environmental good. This is because ultimately, if it is true that water resources are affected by external trends and shocks, it is also relevant how distinct paths of local and regional level responses impact on resource status. The inquiry, departs from a conceptual point of view mainly pinpointing scholars' already proposed method- ological solutions for the concern, being them mostly participatory modelling excercises, bayesian net- work analyses, multi-agent games and experiments and finally integrated assessment models. Even if methodological tools with a potential to explicitly represent human decision-making coupled with its connection with the natural environment do exist, these methods are found to be relatively superficially articulated in interdisciplinary water management analyses. Particularly, the study explores to what extent is the human behaviour, in relation to water resources, included into the extant analyses.

Elgar Encyclopedia of Ecological Economics

Elgar Encyclopedia of Ecological Economics PDF Author: Emilio Padilla Rosa
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 180220041X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 559

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Book Description
With diverse contributions from over 100 authors around the globe, this comprehensive Encyclopedia summarises the developments of ecological economics from the fundamental contributions to the more recent methodological debates in the field. It provides an expansive list of topics including sustainable development, the limits to growth, agroecology, implications of thermodynamic laws for economics, integrated ecologic-economic modelling, valuation of natural resources and services, and renewable and non-renewable resources management. This title contains one or more Open Access chapters.