A dynamic management framework for socio-ecological system stewardship: A case study for the United States Bureau of Ocean Energy Management

Making waves in resilience: Drawing lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic for advancing sustainable development

The current COVID-19 pandemic has affected societies across the world while its economic impact has cut deeper than any recession since the Second World War. Climate change is potentially an even more disruptive and complex global challenge. Climate change could cause social and economic damage far larger than that caused by COVID-19. The current pandemic has highlighted the extent to which societies need to prepare for disruptive global environmental crises. Although the dynamics of combating COVID-19 and climate change are different, the priorities for action are the same: behavioral change, international cooperation to manage shared challenges, and technology's role in advancing solutions. For a sustainable recovery from the COVID-19 crisis to be durable and resilient, a return to 'business as usual' and the subsequent often environmentally destructive economic activities must be avoided as they have significantly contributed to climate change. To avoid this, we draw lessons from the experiences of the waves of the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond to advance sustainable development.

Towards a Better Understanding of Social-Ecological Systems for Basin Governance: A Case Study from the Weihe River Basin, China

Promoting sustainable development of the river basin ecosystem is important for improving human ecological environment. Thus, prior knowledge of natural and social sciences on the integration of natural, economic, and social factors related to rivers should be assimilated to improve river basin governance. This study uses a social-ecological systems (SES) framework to diagnose key factors affecting the governance of the Weihe River Basin, ranging from the social, economic, and political context to related ecosystems, watershed resource systems, watershed management system, and watershed governance actors’ five subsystems. Further, corresponding countermeasures are proposed for the problems found during our diagnosis. The results of this study show that applying an SES framework to the diagnosis and analysis of river basin governance integrates the research results of different disciplines and fields. Thus, this study is helpful in identifying and proposing the key impact variables related to river basin management to establish a comprehensive management counterplan.

Pathways between Climate, Fish, Fisheries, and Management: A Conceptual Integrated Ecosystem Management Approach

The abundance and distribution of marine fishes is influenced by environmental conditions, predator–prey relationships, multispecies interactions, and direct human impacts, such as fishing. The adaptive response of the system depends on its structure and the pathways that link environmental factors to the taxon in question. The “Star Diagram” is a socio-ecological model of marine ecosystems that depicts the general pathways between climate, fish, and fisheries, and their intersection with climate policy and resource management. We illustrate its use by identifying the key factors, pathways and drivers that influence walleye pollock, crab, and sockeye salmon, under a warming scenario on the eastern Bering Sea shelf. This approach predicts that all three species will see reduced populations under a long-term warming scenario. Going forward, the challenge to managers is to balance the magnitude of the effect of harvest and the adaptability of their management system, with the scale and degree of resilience and the behavioral, physiological, or evolutionary adaptation of the ecosystem and its constituents. The Star Diagram provides a novel conceptual construct that managers can use to visualize and integrate the various aspects of the system into a holistic, socio-ecological management framework.

Coevolution of Economic and Industrial Linkages within the Land-Sea Industrial Structure of China

The joint development of continental and marine economies has become an important driving force for the upgrading of industrial structures. However, because of the differences in resource endowment and development potential, developing industrial structures and the quality of economic development are uneven among regions. In this study, the added values of three land-sea industries in the three marine economic circles of northern, eastern, and southern China, were employed to clarify the evolutionary behavior of the industrial structure of these three circles on the land and sea; the synchronization, lag, equilibrium, and dislocation of developing the industrial structure were also explored which a gray relational model based on convex judgment and gray time difference analyses were used to construct a relational model from the static and dynamic aspects of the system, and the internal and external linkages of the industrial structure of the three circles were analyzed from the perspective of industrial correlation. The results show that: (1) Correlations among the linkages of the three economic circles in the marine industrial structure, both including and without temporal and spatial differences, and the marine feedback driver, differ markedly. (2) The effects of feedback for marine industrial development from the Eastern Marine Economic Circle were stronger, whereas those of the Southern Marine Economic Circle were weak and those of the Northern Marine Economic Circle were ambiguous. (3) A significant difference was observed in the degree of coevolution among the land-sea industrial structures of these areas. The Northern Marine Economic Circle exhibited a slightly higher degree of coevolution than the other two economic circles, showing a stable trend of coevolution and wide spatial development. The eastern and southern circles displayed high degrees of coordination in developing their industrial structures. The research results provide a reference for regional adjustment and optimization of industrial structure.

Evaluation of the nanofluid-assisted desalination through solar stills in the last decade

Remote areas and poor communities are occasionally deprived of access to freshwater. It is, therefore, critical to providing a cheap and efficient desalination system that encourages the development of those communities and benefiting society at large. Solar stills are an affordable, direct method of water desalination, but its productivity is the critical challenge hindering its application. To ease this, research has focused on the role of nanofluids to improve heat transfer. Other works have focused on improving the design in consort with utilizing the nanofluids. This review reports and discusses the substantial role of nanofluids to enhance the productivity and energy utilization efficiency of the solar stills. Specifically, the mechanism of energy transfer between the nanoparticles and the base fluid. This includes both plasmonic and thermal effects. It is evident that nanofluid utilization in small fraction enhanced the thermal conductivity compared to base fluid alone. Alumina was found to be the most suitable nanoparticle used as nanofluid inside the solar stills due to its availability and lower cost. Still, other competitors such as carbon nanostructures need to be investigated as it provides higher enhancement of thermal conductivity. Also, several aspects of energy utilization enhancement have been discussed, including innovative application techniques. The challenges of such integrated systems are addressed as well.

How do biosphere stewards actively shape trajectories of social-ecological change?

The biosphere faces an uncertain future! Embracing change, uncertainty and complexity calls for creative transformative pathways. Biosphere stewardship provides a novel multi actor approach towards sustainability. Despite the critical role of individual environmental stewards, biosphere stewardship emphasizes the importance of collective action, and therefore governance. Biosphere stewardship denotes novel governance configurations with the capacity to effectively approach to sustainability transformation. In this paper we seek to advance understanding of how biosphere stewardship actively shapes trajectories of change to foster social-ecological resilience and human wellbeing. Considering the crucial role of governance and more specifically its two pillars of collaboration and learning, we conduct our study of biosphere stewardship through the lens of adaptive co-management. We first set out a framework for diagnosing and analyzing the process of biosphere stewardship. Secondly, we provide evidenced-based insights from applying the framework in four UNESCO biosphere reserves situated in Canada and Sweden to shed light on how active collective shaping of biosphere stewardship occurs and what it produces. In view of the lack of framework for environmental stewardship, we suggest that the present study makes a considerable contribution by providing an appropriate holistic and systemic framework with operational measures. The study also highlights how the comprehensive and consensual understanding of stewardship is proving to be a means of catalyzing biosphere stewardship by enabling effective crafting of policy design and strategic interventions. Moreover, the application of the framework to four case studies reveals the importance of the governance process attributes (collaboration and learning) in mediating outcomes from biosphere stewardship. Finally, the framework provides the basis to address new stewardship enquiries, which require further research in this field.