Anticipatory governance for social-ecological resilience

Making Landscapes Negotiable: Q-methodology as a Boundary-Spanning and Empowering Diagnostic

Landscapes are conceptually fuzzy and rich, and subject to plural framings. They are places of inquiry and intervention for scientists and practitioners, but also concepts bound to peoples' dynamic identities, knowledge systems, inspiration, and well-being. These varying interpretations change the way landscapes function and evolve. Developed in the 1930s, Q-methodology is increasingly recognized for being useful in documenting and interrogating environmental discourses. Yet its application in the context of how integrated landscape approaches better navigate land-use dilemmas is still in its infancy. Based on our experience and emerging literature, such as the papers in this special collection, this article discusses the value of Q-methodology in addressing landscape sustainability issues. Q-methodology helps unravel and communicate common and contradicting landscape imaginaries and narratives in translational and boundary-spanning ways, thus bridging actors' different understandings of problems and solutions and revealing common or differentiated entry points for negotiating trade-offs between competing land uses. The methodology can be empowering for marginalized people by uncovering their views and aspirational values to decision-makers and policymakers. We argue that this potential can be further strengthened by using Q to identify counter-hegemonic discourses and alliances that combat injustices regarding whose knowledge and visions count. In this way, applying Q-methodology in integrated landscape approaches can become a key tool for transitioning toward just, inclusive, and sustainable landscapes.

A process framework for integrating stressor-response functions into cumulative effects models

Stressor-response (SR) functions quantify ecological responses to natural environmental variation or anthropogenic stressors. They are also core drivers of cumulative effects (CE) models, which are increasingly recognized as essential management tools to grapple with the diffuse footprint of human impacts. Here, we provide a process framework for the identification, development, and integration of SR functions into CE models, and highlight their consequential properties, behaviour, criteria for selecting appropriate stressors and responses, and general approaches for deriving them. Management objectives (and causal effect pathways) will determine the ultimate stressor and target response variables of interest (i.e., individual growth/survival, population size, community structure, ecosystem processes), but data availability will constrain whether proxies need to be used for the target stressor or response variables. Available data and confidence in underlying mechanisms will determine whether empirical or mechanistic (theoretical) SR functions are optimal. Uncertainty in underlying SR functions is often the primary source of error in CE modelling, and monitoring outcomes through adaptive management to iteratively refine parameterization of SR functions is a key element of model application. Dealing with stressor interactions is an additional challenge, and in the absence of known or suspected interaction mechanisms, controlling main effects should remain the primary focus. Indicators of suspected interaction presence (i.e., much larger or smaller responses to stressor reduction than expected during monitoring) should be confirmed through adaptive management cycles or targeted stressor manipulations. Where possible, management decisions should selectively take advantage of interactions to strategically mitigate stressor impacts (i.e., by using antagonisms to suppress stressor impacts, and by using synergisms to efficiently reduce them).

Public authorities for transformative change: integration principle in public funding

Although science widely supports moving towards transformative change through integrating biodiversity into decision-making, and arguing for the essential role of public authorities, it falls short on suggesting specific means to that end. This article considers the EU's approach to fostering the green transition as part of its post-pandemic recovery while exploring how the integration of biodiversity considerations could be integrated into decision-making. The rationale and implementation of the EU's do no harm principle is examined, which functioned as a condition for public funds. The analysis shows the mentioned EU policy innovation has a very limited impact. The role of do no harm has been limited to validating, rather than initiating policy measures. It has failed to influence the design of measures such that they would benefit biodiversity and not encouraged synergies between the climate and biodiversity goals. Based on the experience with do no harm as well as the more focussed regulatory action directed at the goal of climate neutrality, the article lists key steps for fostering biodiversity integration in policy planning and policy implementation. These steps encompass substantive and procedural approaches and aim for deliberation, target-setting, tracking, verification and screening. There is considerable scope for robust regulation to play a role in support of the biodiversity goals alongside transformative bottom-up initiatives.

Irrigation area, efficiency and water storage mediate the drought resilience of irrigated agriculture in a semi-arid catchment

We examined the effects of hydrological variables such as irrigation area, irrigation efficiency and water storage on the resilience of (mostly commercial) irrigated agriculture to drought in a semi-arid catchment in South Africa. We formulated a conceptual framework termed 'Water, Efficiency, Resilience, Drought' (WERD) and an accompanying spreadsheet model. These allow the resilience of irrigated agriculture to drought to be analysed via water accounts and a key resilience indicator termed Days to Day Zero (DDZ). This represents the number of days that a pre- and within-drought supply of catchment water available to irrigation is withdrawn down to zero in the face of a prolonged drought. A higher DDZ (e.g. >300 days) indicates greater resilience whilst a lower DDZ (e.g. <150 days) signals lower resilience. Drought resilience arises through land and water management decisions underpinned by four types of resilience capacities; absorptive, adaptive, anticipative and transformative. For the case study, analyses showed that irrigators, with currently approximately 23,000 ha under irrigation, have historically absorbed and adapted to drought events through construction of water storage and adoption of more efficient irrigation practices resulting in a DDZ of 260 days. However, by not fully anticipating future climate and water-related risks, irrigators are arguably on a maladaptive pathway resulting in water supply gains, efficiency and other practices being used to increase irrigation command areas to 28,000 ha or more, decreasing their capacity to absorb future droughts. This areal growth increases water withdrawals and depletion, further stresses the catchment, and reduces future DDZs to approximately 130 days indicating much lower drought resilience. Our approach, supported by supplementary material, allows stakeholders to understand the resilience consequences of future drought in order to; reconcile competition between rising water demands, consider new water storage; improve agricultural and irrigation planning; and enhance catchment governance.

The importance of developing meaningfulness and manageability for resilience in rural doctors

INTRODUCTION

Retention of rural doctors is a problem in many countries. A previous study has identified resilience as a factor associated with longer retention. However, this needs a deeper study to understand what local and personal factors are at play. Studies suggest resilience can be developed during training. We propose that a better understanding of factors associated with resilience might assist in training students for rural practice and increase retention.

AIM

This study aimed to understand the differences in resilience development between the more and the less resilient rural doctors. A secondary purpose was to identify how to assist this developmental process through health professional education.

METHODS

This study employed a mixed-method design and was part of a more extensive study aiming to develop rural doctors' resilience in a low-resource setting. A prior survey assessed rural doctors' resilience levels. This study sampled high-level and low-level resilience participants to be interviewed. A total of 22 rural doctors participated in the individual semi-structured interviews. The interviews were analyzed qualitatively based on Richardson's Resilience Model and the six resilience dimensions looking for factors that explained high or low resilience.

RESULTS

Two important themes emerged during the qualitative analysis: 'meaningfulness' and 'manageability.' The different responses of high and low-resilient participants can be explained through cases.

CONCLUSIONS

The participants' perceived meaningfulness and manageability of the stressor determine the responses. We suggest that teachers may better construct students' resilience by focussing on assisting them in finding meaning and developing a sense of manageability.

Systemic Risk: The Threat to Societal Diversity and Coherence

Insights from complexity science can be applied to the analysis of social processes in heterogeneous societies. Many features that characterize and influence complex structures in nearly every domain of nature, technology, and society can be derived from simple modeling processes in physics and chemistry. If one applies these features to the structure of social risks, a number of insights are gained that can be subject to further empirical analysis. In particular, they add-to the well-known steering mechanisms of hierarchy, competition, and cooperation-the contribution of self-organization, the effect of which is underestimated in almost all theories of social science. But in view of the crises facing modern democracy, such as migration and populism, it is precisely this mechanism of dynamic structure generation that is decisive for an effective and fair risk governance. In this article, we analyze the threat to societal diversity and coherence on the basis of complexity science.

Polycentric and resilient perspectives for governing the commons: Strategic and law and economics insights for sustainable development

Commons governance theory is central to identifying and managing conflicts arising from natural and cultural resources traps. Scholars - using game theory and economic analysis of law - have proposed alternative models, consisting of a set of mitigated scenarios, multiple players, and new equilibria in commons governance. Likewise, novel legal innovations of the commons have also been designed. Reinterpreting the commons in light of political economy, ecology, and pluralistic approaches, a critical review of existing scholarship, economic analysis of law, and case study investigations are performed. Examining an array of views - including governance of water in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Italy - a research and policy agenda is put forward to offer original interpretations and novel holistic perspectives. Germane environmental policy implications deriving from SDGs, resilient governance, and polycentric perspectives are thus extrapolated. Finally, pluralistic frameworks drafted by mitigation and adaptation are measured by improved sustainable development performance in commons, resource, and water governance.

A Framework for Cloud to Coast Adaptation: Maturity and Experiences from across the North Sea

The low-lying coastal areas of the countries around the North Sea are exposed to flooding and the influence of sea level rise. The countries in the North Sea Region need to continue to adapt if the associated risk is to be well-managed into the future. In addition to reducing flood risk, adaptation measures can bring development opportunities for those same places. These opportunities, however, are unlikely to be achieved through a ‘defence only’ paradigm, and instead a new approach is needed that simultaneously reduces risk and promotes liveable places, ecosystem health and social well-being. The building blocks of this new approach are promoted here and are based on an adaptation process that is collaborative and takes a whole-system, long-term perspective. The approach developed through the Interreg funded project, C5a, brings together governments, practitioners and researchers from across the North Sea to share policies, practices and the emerging science of climate change adaptation and enabling sustainable development. The new approach reflects a Cloud to Coast management paradigm and emerged through a combination of knowledge exchange and peer-to-peer learning across seven case studies. Central to the case studies was a maturity analysis of existing capabilities across the North Sea countries and their ability to adopt the new approach. This paper presents the results of this analysis, including the common challenges that emerged and the methods and examples of good practice to overcome them. Building upon these findings, the paper concludes by presenting four priority policy directions to support the uptake of the Cloud to Coast approach.

Overcoming Barriers to Successful Climate and Health Adaptation Practice: Notes from the Field

State and local public health agencies are at the forefront of planning and responding to the health challenges of climate hazards but face substantial barriers to effective climate and health adaptation amidst concurrent environmental and public health crises. To ensure successful adaptation, it is necessary to understand and overcome these barriers. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Climate-Ready States and Cities Initiative (CRSCI) provides funding to state and local health departments to anticipate and respond to health impacts from climate change using the Building Resilience Against Climate Effects (BRACE) framework. This paper explores the barriers to and enablers of successful adaptation projects among BRACE West CRSCI grantees, including Arizona, California, Oregon, and the city and county of San Francisco. The barriers included competing demands such as the COVID-19 pandemic, dependence on partners with similar challenges, staff and leadership turnover, uncertain and complex impacts on at-risk populations, and inadequate resources. The enablers included effective partnerships, leadership support, dedicated and skilled internal staff, and policy windows enabling institutional change and reprioritization. These findings highlight effective strategies in the field that state and local health departments may use to anticipate potential barriers and establish their work in an environment conducive to successful adaptation.

An Approach to the Unified Conceptualization, Definition, and Characterization of Social Resilience

The purpose of this article is to offer a synthesis of the characteristics of social resilience, integrating the different approaches received from the social sciences. We propose to focus this conceptual framework as a previous and necessary step for the later study of the possible ways of promotion of this social resilience, that will help to strengthen the welfare and public health systems. The paper explores the difficulties in defining these characteristics, identifying their constituent elements. After this, the paper study the challenges to the future development of resilience models, showing the ways that offer some advances. Finally, we conclude that the social resilience must be conceived as a dynamic, multi-level, and evolutionary process if we are to help societies not only cope with adversity but also to adapt and transform themselves.

Equity, technological innovation and sustainable behaviour in a low-carbon future

The world must ambitiously curtail greenhouse gas emissions to achieve climate stability. The literature often supposes that a low-carbon future will depend on a mix of technological innovation-improving the performance of new technologies and systems-as well as more sustainable behaviours such as travelling less or reducing waste. To what extent are low-carbon technologies, and their associated behaviours, currently equitable, and what are potential policy and research implications moving forward? In this Review, we examine how four innovations in technology and behaviour-improved cookstoves and heating, battery electric vehicles, household solar panels and food-sharing-create complications and force trade-offs on different equity dimensions. We draw from these cases to discuss a typology of inequity cutting across demographic (for example, gender, race and class), spatial (for example, urban and rural divides), interspecies (for example, human and non-human) and temporal (for example, future generations) vulnerabilities. Ultimately, the risk of inequity abounds in decarbonization pathways. Moreover, low-carbon innovations are not automatically just, equitable or even green. We show how such technologies and behaviours can both introduce new inequalities and reaffirm existing ones. We then discuss potential policy insights and leverage points to make future interventions more equitable and propose an integrated research agenda to supplement these policy efforts.

Developing achievable alternate futures for key challenges during the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development

The oceans face a range of complex challenges for which the impacts on society are highly uncertain but mostly negative. Tackling these challenges is testing society's capacity to mobilise transformative action, engendering a sense of powerlessness. Envisaging positive but realistic visions of the future, and considering how current knowledge, resources, and technology could be used to achieve these futures, may lead to greater action to achieve sustainable transformations. Future Seas (www.FutureSeas2030.org) brought together researchers across career stages, Indigenous Peoples and environmental managers to develop scenarios for 12 challenges facing the oceans, leveraging interdisciplinary knowledge to improve society's capacity to purposefully shape the direction of marine social-ecological systems over the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030). We describe and reflect on Future Seas, providing guidance for co-developing scenarios in interdisciplinary teams tasked with exploring ocean futures. We detail the narrative development for two futures: our current trajectory based on published evidence, and a more sustainable future, consistent with the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, which is technically achievable using existing and emerging knowledge. Presentation of Business-as-usual and More Sustainable futures-together-allows communication of both trajectories, whilst also highlighting achievable, sustainable versions of the future. The advantages of the interdisciplinary approach taken include: (1) integrating different perspectives on solutions, (2) capacity to explore interactions between Life Under Water (Goal 14) and other SDGs, and (3) cross-disciplinary learning. This approach allowed participants to conceptualise shared visions of the future and co-design transformative pathways to achieving those futures.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION SI

The online version contains supplementary material available at (10.1007/s11160-020-09629-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Developing achievable alternate futures for key challenges during the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development

The oceans face a range of complex challenges for which the impacts on society are highly uncertain but mostly negative. Tackling these challenges is testing society's capacity to mobilise transformative action, engendering a sense of powerlessness. Envisaging positive but realistic visions of the future, and considering how current knowledge, resources, and technology could be used to achieve these futures, may lead to greater action to achieve sustainable transformations. Future Seas (www.FutureSeas2030.org) brought together researchers across career stages, Indigenous Peoples and environmental managers to develop scenarios for 12 challenges facing the oceans, leveraging interdisciplinary knowledge to improve society's capacity to purposefully shape the direction of marine social-ecological systems over the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030). We describe and reflect on Future Seas, providing guidance for co-developing scenarios in interdisciplinary teams tasked with exploring ocean futures. We detail the narrative development for two futures: our current trajectory based on published evidence, and a more sustainable future, consistent with the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, which is technically achievable using existing and emerging knowledge. Presentation of Business-as-usual and More Sustainable futures-together-allows communication of both trajectories, whilst also highlighting achievable, sustainable versions of the future. The advantages of the interdisciplinary approach taken include: (1) integrating different perspectives on solutions, (2) capacity to explore interactions between Life Under Water (Goal 14) and other SDGs, and (3) cross-disciplinary learning. This approach allowed participants to conceptualise shared visions of the future and co-design transformative pathways to achieving those futures.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION SI

The online version contains supplementary material available at (10.1007/s11160-020-09629-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Climate change research and action must look beyond 2100

Anthropogenic activity is changing Earth's climate and ecosystems in ways that are potentially dangerous and disruptive to humans. Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere continue to rise, ensuring that these changes will be felt for centuries beyond 2100, the current benchmark for projection. Estimating the effects of past, current, and potential future emissions to only 2100 is therefore short-sighted. Critical problems for food production and climate-forced human migration are projected to arise well before 2100, raising questions regarding the habitability of some regions of the Earth after the turn of the century. To highlight the need for more distant horizon scanning, we model climate change to 2500 under a suite of emission scenarios and quantify associated projections of crop viability and heat stress. Together, our projections show global climate impacts increase significantly after 2100 without rapid mitigation. As a result, we argue that projections of climate and its effects on human well-being and associated governance and policy must be framed beyond 2100.

Our future in the Anthropocene biosphere

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed an interconnected and tightly coupled globalized world in rapid change. This article sets the scientific stage for understanding and responding to such change for global sustainability and resilient societies. We provide a systemic overview of the current situation where people and nature are dynamically intertwined and embedded in the biosphere, placing shocks and extreme events as part of this dynamic; humanity has become the major force in shaping the future of the Earth system as a whole; and the scale and pace of the human dimension have caused climate change, rapid loss of biodiversity, growing inequalities, and loss of resilience to deal with uncertainty and surprise. Taken together, human actions are challenging the biosphere foundation for a prosperous development of civilizations. The Anthropocene reality-of rising system-wide turbulence-calls for transformative change towards sustainable futures. Emerging technologies, social innovations, broader shifts in cultural repertoires, as well as a diverse portfolio of active stewardship of human actions in support of a resilient biosphere are highlighted as essential parts of such transformations.

Investigating the malleable socioeconomic resilience pathway to urban cohesion: a case of Taipei metropolitan area

It is known that globalization has led first- and second-tier cities' urban restructuring trajectories, excreted pressures, and caused tremendous socioeconomic volatility. This resulted in marginalized communities in dire of social empowerment, employment structure variance, and industry sectoral adjustment. Moreover, recent successive climate and health crisis unfolded and affirmed the state of our urban incompetence to sustain socioeconomic resilience or otherwise; lacking swift responses in providing critical management and services, cites are facing multifaceted challenges. Urban well-being and resilience are at stake. Although the environmental and health dimensional effects are apparent, this study ascertains that the transept multi-scalar analysis within the urban socioeconomic structure is crucial in sustaining core resilience to foster health and well-being of the community. As an integral part of the investigation, the revised DPSIR assessment framework is applied to evaluate the sectoral shift; spatial structure disarray and urban codependence degree are examined within the Taipei metropolitan area (TMA), a medium size but densely populated metropolitan area in Taiwan. The place-based DPSIR analysis ascertained the states and impacts in TMA: (1) A population decline speeded the restructuring of the urban core, while the impact of demographic aging and shrinkage rate mandates proper management and planning responses to the decline process; (2) the socioeconomic state effect is determined but does not critically affect the periphery zone, while an uneven demographic shift within the urban core necessitates dynamic adjustment responses to appropriately provide intergenerational services; (3) the uneven sector redistribution stimulated the core's spatial and structural inter-dependency with peripheral zones, requiring governance with tighter cross-administration cooperation among respective public sectors; and (4) facing the sector/temporal and demographic pressure, urban cohesiveness in the TMA is greatly affected, which in turn disrupts the resilience pathway toward a cohesion. The study ascertained that the revised DPSIR framework could provide cities facing pressing socioeconomic drivers with effective analysis to allocate pressures, states, and impacts and formulate the necessary responses. To assure the socioeconomic resilience and urban cohesiveness, planning policy should carefully monitor and evaluate socio-demographic and sector redistribution factors to promote the urban resilience.

Water and Climate Governance in Deltas: On the Relevance of Anticipatory, Interactive, and Transformative Modes of Governance

Deltas worldwide have been experiencing pressures and challenges exacerbated by climate change. An explicit focus on deltas is lacking in various bodies of literature, although present in those bodies focusing on the resilience of social-ecological systems. However, overall, literature relevant for addressing water and climate governance in deltas is arguably still fragmented, leading to knowledge gaps and unexplored opportunities with regards to the development of delta-oriented governance strategies. To address this knowledge gap, we conducted a systematic literature review focusing on six bodies of literature relevant to delta governance up to and including the year 2019. The results show that scholarly interest in developing transformative pathways has increased sharply over the last few years. We derived seven key governance problems and five governance solutions for resilient deltas. We found that the predominant focus is still on technocratic approaches, with limited recognition of the political dimension and few forward-looking studies. In conclusion, we suggest stimulating the development and application of more anticipatory, transformative, and interactive modes of governance to help steer the transformation to resilient and sustainable deltas. We end with suggestions for systematic, interdisciplinary, and forward-looking empirical-analytical research.

Ocean planning for species on the move provides substantial benefits and requires few trade-offs

Societies increasingly use multisector ocean planning as a tool to mitigate conflicts over space in the sea, but such plans can be highly sensitive to species redistribution driven by climate change or other factors. A key uncertainty is whether planning ahead for future species redistributions imposes high opportunity costs and sharp trade-offs against current ocean plans. Here, we use more than 10,000 projections for marine animals around North America to test the impact of climate-driven species redistributions on the ability of ocean plans to meet their goals. We show that planning for redistributions can substantially reduce exposure to risks from climate change with little additional area set aside and with few trade-offs against current ocean plan effectiveness. Networks of management areas are a key strategy. While climate change will severely disrupt many human activities, we find a strong benefit to proactively planning for long-term ocean change.

The Analysis of Japan’s Energy and Climate Policy from the Aspect of Anticipatory Governance

This study is a preliminary and experimental one to analyze Japan’s energy transitions to mitigate climate change from anticipatory governance aspects. Japan’s energy policy principles have been energy security, environmental considerations, economic efficiency, and safety (3E + S). According to the energy agency, the long-term energy outlook is also drawn up by “ambitious multiple track scenarios” and “multilayered and diversified flexible energy supply-demand structure.” This approach resonates with the aspects of anticipatory governance. It promotes the idea of preparing for multiple future scenarios, including the unthinkable worst case future scenario such as a nuclear accident (foresight), the interactions between the policymakers and the public (engagement), and the reflexive processes of policy innovations with a normative decision for the selection of energy mix (integration). However, this study finds that Japan’s energy policy lacks the aspects of anticipatory governance. It sticks to fixed energy policy institutionalized in the 1970s to promote nuclear energy and coal as oil alternatives. It rarely has interactions between the policymakers and the public and thus lacks a societal (normative) decision about a future energy path to energy transitions to mitigate climate change. Instead, Japan’s energy policy has not necessarily met its declared policy objective of 3E + S since the unprecedented Fukushima nuclear accidents occurred and cannot uphold an ambitious target for CO2 emissions reduction.

COVID-19, the Climate, and Transformative Change: Comparing the Social Anatomies of Crises and Their Regulatory Responses

Despite forces struggling to reduce global warming growing stronger, there has been mixed success in generating substantive policy implementation, while the global spread of the coronavirus has prompted strong and far-reaching governmental responses around the world. This paper addresses the complex and partly contradictory responses to these two crises, investigating their social anatomies. Using temporality, spatiality, and epistemic authority as the main conceptual vehicles, the two crises are systematically compared. Despite sharing a number of similarities, the most striking difference between the two crises is the urgency of action to counter the rapid spread of the pandemic as compared to the slow and meager action to mitigate longstanding, well-documented, and accelerating climate change. Although the tide now seems to have turned towards a quick and massive effort to restore the status quo—including attempts to restart the existing economic growth models, which imply an obvious risk for substantially increasing CO2 emissions—the article finally points at some signs of an opening window of opportunity for green growth and degrowth initiatives. However, these signs have to be realistically interpreted in relation to the broader context of power relations in terms of governance configurations and regulatory strategies worldwide at different levels of society.

Can hype be a force for good?: Inviting unexpected engagement with science and technology futures

Hype, or simplified and sensationalised science, appears to be inescapable in science communication with examples extending from viral social media accounts and 'breakthrough'-themed press releases, to the mediated claims of the celebrity scientist. In science communication, the negative effects of hype are familiar. The question is whether hype is always a distortion and a lie, or can it be redeemed? This essay reviews the contribution of hype to science, specifically in terms of encouraging reflexivity for science and technology. I present three perspectives on hype and invite further conversation on the role of hype in science communication.

Preparedness Through Urban Resilience

This book explores the topic of resilience at the city level. The focus is more on outbreak events at the city level, or how cities should prepare and react in facing the larger events of epidemic and pandemic.

Towards future-oriented conservation: Managing protected areas in an era of climate change

Management of protected areas must adapt to climate impacts, and prepare for ongoing ecological transformation. Future-Proofing Conservation is a dialogue-based, multi-stakeholder learning process that supports conservation managers to consider the implications of climate change for governance and management. It takes participants through a series of conceptual transitions to identify new management options that are robust to a range of possible biophysical futures, and steps that they can take now to prepare for ecological transformation. We outline the Future-Proofing Conservation process, and demonstrate its application in a pilot programme in Colombia. This process can be applied and adapted to a wide range of climate adaptation contexts, to support practitioners in developing positive ways forward for management and decision-making. By acknowledging scientific uncertainty, considering social values, and rethinking the rules that shape conservation governance, participants can identify new strategies towards "future-oriented conservation" over the long term.

Sociotechnical Resilience: A Preliminary Concept

This article presents the concept of sociotechnical resilience by employing an interdisciplinary perspective derived from the fields of science and technology studies, human factors, safety science, organizational studies, and systems engineering. Highlighting the hybrid nature of sociotechnical systems, we identify three main constituents that characterize sociotechnical resilience: informational relations, sociomaterial structures, and anticipatory practices. Further, we frame sociotechnical resilience as undergirded by the notion of transformability with an emphasis on intentional activities, focusing on the ability of sociotechnical systems to shift from one form to another in the aftermath of shock and disturbance. We propose that the triad of relations, structures, and practices are fundamental aspects required to comprehend the resilience of sociotechnical systems during times of crisis.

Gender-specific responses to climate variability in a semi-arid ecosystem in northern Benin

Highly erratic rainfall patterns in northern Benin complicate the ability of rural farmers to engage in subsistence agriculture. This research explores gender-specific responses to climate variability in the context of agrarian Benin through a household survey (n = 260) and an experimental gaming exercise among a subset of the survey respondents. Although men and women from the sample population are equally aware of climate variability and share similar coping strategies, their specific land-use strategies, preferences, and motivations are distinct. Over the long term, these differences would likely lead to dissimilar coping strategies and vulnerability to the effects of climate change. Examination of gender-specific land-use responses to climate change and anticipatory learning can enhance efforts to improve adaptability and resilience among rural subsistence farmers.

Closing the collaborative gap: Aligning social and ecological connectivity for better management of interconnected wetlands

Understanding how governance structures align to ecological processes in a landscape is critical for effective management of ecological resources. Ecological resources are not independent from each other, instead they are interconnected, and their well-being is often critically dependent on upholding ecological connectivity, especially in times of change and disturbances. Coordination and collaboration among managing actors, each managing their own piece of the puzzle, is therefore essentially a requirement for effective management. We present a conceptual model that includes ecological resources, managing and coordinating actors, along with an explicit representation on how all these entities are connected to each other. We apply this model to 25 municipalities that manage 408 wetlands in central Sweden. The study shows a good social and ecological alignment, however with a high prevalence for coordination through third parties. We discuss this pattern emergence, its potential implications, and examine which municipalities adopt these coordinating functions.

Implications of climate and land-use change for landscape processes, biodiversity, ecosystem services, and governance

This introduction to the Special Issue summarizes the results of 14 scientific articles from the interdisciplinary research program Ekoklim at Stockholm University, Sweden. In this program, we investigate effects of changing climate and land use on landscape processes, biodiversity, and ecosystem services, and analyze issues related to adaptive governance in the face of climate and land-use change. We not only have a research focus on the 22 650 km(2) Norrström catchment surrounding lake Mälaren in south-central Sweden, but we also conduct research in other Swedish regions. The articles presented here show complex interactions between multiple drivers of change, as well as feedback processes at different spatiotemporal scales. Thus, the Ekoklim program highlights and deals with issues relevant for the future challenges society will face when land-use change interacts with climate change.