Analysis of land use and land cover (LULC) change and its drivers and impacts in the biodiversity hotspot of Bale Mountain\'s socio-ecological system is crucial for formulating plausible policies and strategies that can enhance sustainable development. The study aimed to analyze spatio-temporal LULC changes and their trends, extents, drives, and impacts over the last 48 years in the Bale Mountain social-ecological system. Landsat imagery data from the years 1973, 1986, 1996, 2014, and 2021 together with qualitative data were used. LULC classification scheme employed a supervised classification method with the application of the maximum likelihood algorithm technique. In the period between 1973 and 2021, agriculture, bare land, and settlement showed areal increment by 153.13%, 295.57%, and 49.03% with the corresponding increased annual rate of 1.93%, 2.86%, and 0.83%, respectively. On the contrary, forest, wood land, bushland, grass land, and water body decreased by 29.97%, 1.36%, 28.16%, 8.63%, and 84.36% during the study period, respectively. During the period, major LULC change dynamics were also observed; the majority of woodland was converted to agriculture (757.8 km2) and grassland (531.3 km2); and forests were converted to other LULC classes, namely woodland (766.5 km2), agriculture (706.1 km2), grassland (34.6 km2), bushland (31.9 km2), settlement (20.5 km2), and bare land (14.3 km2). LULC changes were caused by the expansion of agriculture, settlement, overgrazing, infrastructure development, and fire that were driven by population growth and climate change, and supplemented by inadequate policy and institutional factors. Social and environmental importance and values of land uses and land covers in the study area necessitate further assessment of potential natural resources\' user groups and valuation of ecosystem services in the study area. Hence, we suggest the identification of potential natural resource-based user groups, and assessment of the influence of LULC changes on ecosystem services in Bale Mountains Eco Region (BMER) for the sustainable use and managements of land resources.

The strong coupling between society and ecosystem makes socio-ecological risks become the main object of risk management. As the link between ecological and social processes, ecosystem services (ESs) are the core variable in deconstructing the social-ecological risks and the crucial point in resolving the risks. We explored the concept and the internal formation mechanisms of socio-ecological risk combining ESs, and further put the cascade logic and evolution process of \"real risk-risk perception-risk behavior\". Based on driver-pressure-state-impact-response framework (DPSIR), we proposed a framework for analyzing socio-ecological risk, and expanded the content and methodology system of research and management practices related to socio-ecological risks. We proposed that socio-ecological risk research coupled with ESs should focus on: 1) exploring the transmission mechanism between ecosystem processes, ecosystem services, and human well-being; 2) exploring the response mechanism of social subject behavior and its impacts on ecosystem services and human well-being; 3) construction of a multi-scale assessment model for social ecological risks coupled with ESs. The socio-ecological risk analysis framework for coupled ecosystem services was based on the mutual feedback between human and nature to explore the logic of risk formation, evolution, and governance, which could provide ideas for clarifying the deep meaning of ecological problems and selecting pathways to resolve socio-ecological risks.
人类社会与生态系统的高度耦合使得社会生态风险成为系统风险治理的主要对象。生态系统服务作为联系生态过程与人类社会活动的纽带,是解构社会生态风险的核心变量与化解社会生态风险的关键抓手。本文首先从生态系统服务视角阐明社会生态风险的内涵与生成机理,提出“客观风险-感知风险-风险行为”的风险演化逻辑。然后,基于驱动-压力-状态-影响-响应(DPSIR)模型提出社会生态风险分析框架,拓展有关社会生态系统风险研究和管理实践的内容和方法体系。最后,提出耦合生态系统服务的社会生态风险研究应当关注以下议题: 1) 生态系统过程、生态系统服务与人类福祉传导机制探索;2) 社会主体行为的响应及其对生态系统服务和人类福祉的影响机制探讨;3) 耦合生态系统服务的社会生态风险多尺度评估模型构建。耦合生态系统服务的社会生态风险分析框架基于人与自然的互馈关系探讨风险形成、演化与治理逻辑,可为明晰生态问题的深层意蕴和化解社会生态风险的路径选择提供思路。.

Scenario and policy assessments in socioeconomic and environmental studies face significant challenges in socio-ecological systems (SES). There are a limited number of studies that have looked at the impact of different scenarios within integrated approaches, and many have used a static approach with a single driver of change. The present work analyzes the SES dynamics for a strategic basin in the Colombian Andes when implementing and analyzing scenarios and policies related to land cover and land use change using a system dynamics simulation model. The model includes natural, ecosystem services, sociocultural, and economic components. Scenarios and policy options are analyzed both individually and jointly to identify synergies or trade-off effects between the different SES components. The results showed the different trajectories of the socio-ecological system according to the cases studied, and its impact on different variables in the analyzed components. Some counterintuitive effects were also identified, such as the importance of intrinsic motivations in decision-making processes, and determinants in land management and policy design.

This paper examines the socio-ecological resilience within China\'s Northeast National Forest Region (NNFR), focusing on the implications of climate change for forest management and carbon sequestration. It offers a critical assessment of the Natural Forest Protection Program (NFPP) and the associated logging ban policy, recognizing their pivotal contributions to forest conservation but also identifying the shortcomings of a one-size-fits-all approach. Integrating panarchy theory, the study proposes sustainable management practices that align ecological dynamics with societal needs, emphasizing nature-based solutions. The overarching aim is to bolster the long-term resilience and enhance the carbon sequestration potential of the NNFR\'s forests. It aims to inform global environmental strategy with lessons from the NNFR, advocating for integrated approaches that ensure both ecological sustainability and community prosperity. This approach seeks to provide a comprehensive and effective strategy for addressing environmental challenges, ensuring both ecological integrity and community well-being.

Succession is a fundamental concept in ecology because it indicates how species populations, communities, and ecosystems change over time on new substrate or after a disturbance. A mechanistic understanding of succession is needed to predict how ecosystems will respond to land-use change and to design effective ecosystem restoration strategies. Yet, despite a century of conceptual advances a comprehensive successional theory is lacking. Here we provide an overview of 19 successional theories (\'models\') and their key points, group them based on conceptual similarity, explain conceptual development in successional ideas and provide suggestions how to move forward. Four groups of models can be recognised. The first group (patch & plants) focuses on plants at the patch level and consists of three subgroups that originated in the early 20th century. One subgroup focuses on the processes (dispersal, establishment, and performance) that operate sequentially during succession. Another subgroup emphasises individualistic species responses during succession, and how this is driven by species traits. A last subgroup focuses on how vegetation structure and underlying demographic processes change during succession. A second group of models (ecosystems) provides a more holistic view of succession by considering the ecosystem, its biota, interactions, diversity, and ecosystem structure and processes. The third group (landscape) considers a larger spatial scale and includes the effect of the surrounding landscape matrix on succession as the distance to neighbouring vegetation patches determines the potential for seed dispersal, and the quality of the neighbouring patches determines the abundance and composition of seed sources and biotic dispersal vectors. A fourth group (socio-ecological systems) includes the human component by focusing on socio-ecological systems where management practices have long-lasting legacies on successional pathways and where regrowing vegetations deliver a range of ecosystem services to local and global stakeholders. The four groups of models differ in spatial scale (patch, landscape) or organisational level (plant species, ecosystem, socio-ecological system), increase in scale and scope, and reflect the increasingly broader perspective on succession over time. They coincide approximately with four periods that reflect the prevailing view of succession of that time, although all views still coexist. The four successional views are: succession of plants (from 1910 onwards) where succession was seen through the lens of species replacement; succession of communities and ecosystems (from 1965 onwards) when there was a more holistic view of succession; succession in landscapes (from 2000 onwards) when it was realised that the structure and composition of landscapes strongly impact successional pathways, and increased remote-sensing technology allowed for a better quantification of the landscape context; and succession with people (from 2015 onwards) when it was realised that people and societal drivers have strong effects on successional pathways, that ecosystem processes and services are important for human well-being, and that restoration is most successful when it is done by and for local people. Our review suggests that the hierarchical successional framework of Pickett is the best starting point to move forward as this framework already includes several factors, and because it is flexible, enabling application to different systems. The framework focuses mainly on species replacement and could be improved by focusing on succession occurring at different hierarchical scales (population, community, ecosystem, socio-ecological system), and by integrating it with more recent developments and other successional models: by considering different spatial scales (landscape, region), temporal scales (ecosystem processes occurring over centuries, and evolution), and by taking the effects of the surrounding landscape (landscape integrity and composition, the disperser community) and societal factors (previous and current land-use intensity) into account. Such a new, comprehensive framework could be tested using a combination of empirical research, experiments, process-based modelling and novel tools. Applying the framework to seres across broadscale environmental and disturbance gradients allows a better insight into what successional processes matter and under what conditions.

暂无摘要。

The concept of fire resilience has become increasingly relevant as society looks to understand and respond to recent wildfire events. In particular, the idea of a \'fire resilient landscape\' is one which has been utilised to explore how society can coexist with wildfires. However, the concept of fire resilient landscapes has often been approached in silos, either from an environmental or social perspective; no integrated definition exists. Based on a synthesis of literature and a survey of scientists and practitioners, we propose to define a fire resilient landscape as \'a socio-ecological system that accepts the presence of fire, whilst preventing significant losses through landscape management, community engagement and effective recovery.\' This common definition could help guide policy surrounding fire resilient landscapes, and exemplify how such landscapes could be initiated in practice. We explore the applicability of the proposed definition in both Mediterranean and temperate Europe.

Despite the abundance of tree diversity in the natural world, and generally high tree species richness in urban areas, urban forests continue to be dominated by a limited number of species. As socio-ecological systems, urban forests are shaped by historical and current management efforts and decision-making across a wide range of human actors. Drawing on past research, we offer a conceptual framework for describing the complex interactions among tree producers and consumers as trees are selected, grown, specified, and planted in private and public urban areas. We illustrate how multiple layers of selection criteria filter down the entirety of potential local tree diversity to a handful of commonly used and accepted tree species. We detail the actors and decision-makers who impact tree composition and diversity across several land types. Finally, we identify research, education, and outreach needs as they relate to creating more diverse and resilient urban forest ecosystems.

Studies of landscape dynamics in protected areas often rely exclusively on remotely-sensed data, leading to bias by neglecting how local inhabitants, who often have a long history of interaction with their environment, perceive and structure the landscape over time. Using a socio-ecological system (SES) approach in a forest-swamp-savannah mosaic within the Bas-Ogooué Ramsar site in Gabon, we assess how human populations participate in landscape dynamics over time. We first conducted a remote sensing analysis to produce a land-cover map representing the biophysical dimension of the SES. This map is based on pixel-oriented classifications, using a 2017 Sentinel-2 satellite image and 610 GPS points, that categorized the landscape in 11 ecological classes. To study the landscape\'s social dimension, we collected data on local knowledge to understand how local people perceive and use the landscape. These data were collected through 19 semi-structured individual interviews, three focus groups and 3 months of participant observation during an immersive field mission. We developed a systemic approach by combining data on biophysical and social dimensions of the landscape. Our analysis shows that in the absence of continued anthropic interventions, both savannahs and swamps dominated by herbaceous vegetation will experience closure by encroaching woody vegetation, leading to eventual biodiversity loss. Our methodology based on an SES approach to landscapes could improve the conservation programs developed by Ramsar site managers. Designing actions at the local scale, rather than applying one set of actions to the entire protected area, allows the integration of human perceptions, practices and expectations, a challenge that is more than essential in the context of global change.

Transhumance routes mark the natural path followed by herds during their seasonal movements. These routes are disappearing in many European countries. In Italy, a few fragments survive in Molise, in southern Italy, called Tratturi and run along grassy paths. The Tratturi are considered to be of archaeological, economic and landscape interest, sources of cultural and environmental attraction, protected by a national law. However, the landscapes connected to the Tratturi are disappearing both as a consequence of non-use and as a consequence of the advancement of wooded areas, and this poses a problem related to the governance system that involves many stakeholders, both at international, national and local level. The study, through the use of the combined approach of Stakeholder Basic Analysis and Social Network Analysis, identifies the role of the stakeholders involved, their power, their interest and their ability to support the decision-making system. Furthermore, the paper uses multivariate statistical analysis to detect the key stakeholders. A new model of governance, allowing to preserve the Tratturi and to enhance the services they can provide, is introduced, and it is named Authority for the Conservation and Enhancement of Tratturi (ACET). This study can help to identify appropriate management models for ancient routes based on all stakeholders involved, and more generally to implement shared and co-responsible planning choices in socio-ecological systems.