Efficient and resilient governance of social-ecological systems

Assessing the evolution and attribution of watershed resilience in arid inland river basins, Northwest China

Water scarcity significantly limits the sustainable development of oasis economies in arid inland river basins. Quantifying watershed resilience and its drivers is a major focus in the fields of hydrology and water resources. In this study, the resilience indicator pi represents watershed resilience, while meteorological, hydrological, socioeconomic, and ecological factors are used to investigate the spatial and temporal patterns of resilience and important driving factors in the Hotan River Basin from 1958 to 2020 by combining principal component analysis and random forest model. Results show that the overall resilience of the Hotan River Basin is low, decreasing from the upper (upstream) to the middle and lower (downstream) reaches, and that the intensity of human activities has a negative impact on resilience. Rivers are more likely to reach maximum resilience after experiencing periods of wet and dry conditions, although there is a lag in this progress. The random forest machine learning algorithm was used to accurately predict the resilience levels of the two upstream tributaries Yurungkash and Karakash Rivers, and the downstream Hotan River, with classification accuracies of 84.2 %, 71.4 %, and 87 %, respectively. The factors affecting the resilience of the Yurungkash River are the 30-day maximum, base flow index, low pulse duration, median streamflow in May, median streamflow in August, median streamflow in October, and 7-day maximum. The set of factors used to classify the resilience of the Karakash River include the 7-day maximum, 1-day maximum, median streamflow in June, 30-day maximum, 3-day maximum, median streamflow in February, and autumn temperature. The factors affecting the resilience of the Hotan River are the watershed inflow, Xiaota station runoff, population growth rate, and effective irrigated area. The findings of this study provide a theoretical basis for integrated water resource management and the sustainable development of the oasis economy in the Hotan River Basin.

Synergistic study of the green efficiency and economic resilience of agriculture from a sustainable development perspective: evidence from Northeast China

Under the scenario of the complex external environment and internal structural changes in agricultural development, exploring the synergistic relationship between agricultural green efficiency (AGE) and agricultural economic resilience (AER) can offer a new path for fostering sustainable regional agricultural development. This paper fills the research gap in the interaction between efficiency and resilience in agriculture. We explore the synergistic mechanism of the two based on the perspective of sustainable development, providing a reference for constructing a synergistic theoretical system of AGE and AER. Moreover, we apply the Haken model to the field of the agricultural economy and scientifically evaluate the level of AGE and AER synergy in Northeast China from 2010 to 2020. Finally, we analyze the influencing factors of AGE and AER synergy in Northeast China from three dimensions: economic, social, and natural. The results show that AER is dominant in the AGE-AER synergistic system. The synergy level of AGE and AER in Northeast China is mainly in the higher and advanced synergy stages, with obvious spatio-temporal differences and insufficient inter-regional radiation effects. Social factors are the main factors of spatial differentiation of AGE and AER synergy.

Chilean long-term Socio-Ecological Research Network: progresses and challenges towards improving stewardship of unique ecosystems

Ecosystems provide a variety of benefits to human society and humanity’s utilization of ecosystems affects their composition, structure, and functions. Global change drivers demand us to study the interactions between ecological and social systems, and advise strategies to protect the large fraction of Chilean unique ecosystems. Long-term research and monitoring are vital for meaningful understanding of human impacts and socio-ecological feedback, which occur over multiple spatial and time-scales and can be invisible to traditional grant-sponsored short-term studies.

Despite the large fraction of unique ecosystems, Chilean government agencies have not established long-term monitoring programs to inform and guide management decisions for use, conservation, and adaptation to climate change. Responding to this void, the Chilean Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research Network (LTSER-Chile) was created, comprising nine study sites funded by a variety of private and public institutions, that broadly seeks to understand how global change is altering biodiversity and ecosystem functions. The LTSER-Chile is currently in a phase of institutional consolidation to achieve its objectives of alignment with international efforts, fill the need for high-quality, long-term data on social, biological and physical components of Chilean ecosystems, and develop itself as an open research platform for the world. Despite the wide diversity of ecosystems ecncompased by LTSER-Chile sites, several common variables are monitored, especially climatic and hydrographic variables and many ecological indicator variables that consider temporal fluctuations, population and community dynamics.

The main challenges currently facing the LTSER-Chile are to secure funding to maintain existing long-term monitoring programs, to persuade public and private decision-makers about its central role in informing and anticipating socio-ecological problems, and to achieve greater ecosystem representation by integrating new long-term study sites. This will require a more decisive political commitment of the State, to improve the stewardship of our unique terrestrial and marine ecosystems, and the realization that sound ecologically-sustainable policies will never be possible without a national monitoring network. We argue that the State should build on LTSER and several other private and university initiatives to provide the country with a monitoring network. In the absence of this commitment, the LTSER system is subject to discontinuity and frequent interruptions, which jeopardizes the long-term effort to understand the functioning of nature and its biodiversity.