Iterative scenarios for social-ecological systems

Navigating the multiple dimensions of the creativity-mental disorder link: a Convergence Mental Health perspective

BACKGROUND

This paper discusses a paradox in mental health. It manifests as a relationship between adverse "bad" effects (suffering, clinical costs, loss of productivity) in individuals and populations and advantageous "good" aspects of mental disorders. These beneficial aspects (scientific, artistic and political accomplishments) emanate at the societal level through the frequently unprecedented creativity of people suffering from mental disorders and their relatives. Such gains can contribute to societal innovation and problem-solving. Especially in times of accelerated social-ecological change, approaches are needed that facilitate best-possible mental health care but also recognize creative ideas conducive to beneficial clinical and social-ecological innovations as soon as possible.

DISCUSSION

This paper emphasizes the need to account for creativity as a crucial component in evolving mental health systems and societies. It highlights the need for wide-ranging approaches and discusses how research targeting multiple facets (e.g., brain level, cognitive neuroscience, psychiatry, neurology, socio-cultural, economic and other factors) might further our understanding of the creativity-mental disorder link and its importance for innovating mental health systems and societies.

CONCLUSION

Our discussion clarifies that considerable research will be needed to obtain a better understanding of how creativity associated with mental disorders may help to create more sustainable societies on a fast-changing planet through innovative ideas. Given the current-state-of-the-art of research and healthcare management, our discussion is currently speculative. However, it provides a basis for how pros and cons might be studied in the future through transdisciplinary research and collaborations across sectors of society.

Multi-scale adaptive management of social-ecological systems

Adaptive management is a powerful approach to management of social-ecological systems in circumstances with high uncertainty and high controllability. Cross-scale interactions increase uncertainty while managing. When undertaking adaptive management, although largely overlooked, it is important to account for spatial and temporal scales to mediate within- and cross-scale effects of management actions. This is particularly true when managing for multiple social and ecological goals. The iterative nature of an adaptive approach has the capacity to accommodate tradeoffs among different stakeholder priorities and multiple ecosystem attributes within and across scales. In this paper, we introduce multi-scale adaptive management of social-ecological systems and demonstrate the importance of this approach with case studies of the Great Plains of North America and the Platte River Basin in the United States. Adaptive management combined with a focus on scale and cross-scale interactions using the panarchy model of social-ecological systems can help to improve management outcomes.

Connecting distinct realms along multiple dimensions: A meta-ecosystem resilience perspective

Resilience research is central to confront the sustainability challenges to ecosystems and human societies in a rapidly changing world. Given that social-ecological problems span the entire Earth system, there is a critical need for resilience models that account for the connectivity across intricately linked ecosystems (i.e., freshwater, marine, terrestrial, atmosphere). We present a resilience perspective of meta-ecosystems that are connected through the flow of biota, matter and energy within and across aquatic and terrestrial realms, and the atmosphere. We demonstrate ecological resilience sensu Holling using aquatic-terrestrial linkages and riparian ecosystems more generally. A discussion of applications in riparian ecology and meta-ecosystem research (e.g., resilience quantification, panarchy, meta-ecosystem boundary delineations, spatial regime migration, including early warning indications) concludes the paper. Understanding meta-ecosystem resilience may have potential to support decision making for natural resource management (scenario planning, risk and vulnerability assessments).

Towards a global sustainable development agenda built on social-ecological resilience

Non-technical summary

The United Nations' sustainable development goals (SDGs) articulate societal aspirations for people and our planet. Many scientists have criticised the SDGs and some have suggested that a better understanding of the complex interactions between society and the environment should underpin the next global development agenda. We further this discussion through the theory of social-ecological resilience, which emphasises the ability of systems to absorb, adapt, and transform in the face of change. We determine the strengths of the current SDGs, which should form a basis for the next agenda, and identify key gaps that should be filled.

Technical summary

The United Nations' sustainable development goals (SDGs) are past their halfway point and the next global development agenda will soon need to be developed. While laudable, the SDGs have received strong criticism from many, and scholars have proposed that adopting complex adaptive or social-ecological system approaches would increase the effectiveness of the agenda. Here we dive deeper into these discussions to explore how the theory of social-ecological resilience could serve as a strong foundation for the next global sustainable development agenda. We identify the strengths and weaknesses of the current SDGs by determining which of the 169 targets address each of 43 factors affecting social-ecological resilience that we have compiled from the literature. The SDGs with the strongest connections to social-ecological resilience are the environment-focus goals (SDGs 2, 6, 13, 14, 15), which are also the goals consistently under-prioritised in the implementation of the current agenda. In terms of the 43 factors affecting social-ecological resilience, the SDG strengths lie in their communication, inclusive decision making, financial support, regulatory incentives, economic diversity, and transparency in governance and law. On the contrary, ecological factors of resilience are seriously lacking in the SDGs, particularly with regards to scale, cross-scale interactions, and non-stationarity.

Social media summary

The post-2030 agenda should build on strengths of SDGs 2, 6, 13, 14, 15, and fill gaps in scale, variability, and feedbacks.

Adaptation, Transformation and Resilience in Healthcare Comment on "Government Actions and Their Relation to Resilience in Healthcare During the COVID-19 Pandemic in New South Wales, Australia and Ontario, Canada"

Adaptive capacity is a critical component of building resilience in healthcare (RiH). Adaptive capacity comprises the ability of a system to cope with and adapt to disturbances. However, "shocks," such as the current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, can potentially exceed critical adaptation thresholds and lead to systemic collapse. To effectively manage healthcare systems during periods of crises, both adaptive and transformative changes are necessary. This commentary discusses adaptation and transformation as two complementary, integral components of resilience and applies them to healthcare. We treat resilience as an emergent property of complex systems that accounts for multiple, often disparately distinct regimes in which multiple processes (eg, adaptation, recovery) are subsumed and operate. We argue that Convergence Mental Health and other transdisciplinary paradigms such as Brain Capital and One Health can facilitate resilience planning and management in healthcare systems.

Resisting-Accepting-Directing: Ecosystem Management Guided by an Ecological Resilience Assessment

As anthropogenic influences push ecosystems past tipping points and into new regimes, complex management decisions are complicated by rapid ecosystem changes that may be difficult to reverse. For managers who grapple with how to manage ecosystems under novel conditions and heightened uncertainty, advancing our understanding of regime shifts is paramount. As part of an ecological resilience assessment, researchers and managers have collaborated to identify alternate regimes and build an understanding of the thresholds and factors that govern regime shifts in the Upper Mississippi River System. To describe the management implications of our assessment, we integrate our findings with the recently developed resist-accept-direct (RAD) framework that explicitly acknowledges ecosystem regime change and outlines management approaches of resisting change, accepting change, or directing change. More specifically, we developed guidance for using knowledge of desirability of current conditions, distance to thresholds, and general resilience (that is, an ecosystem's capacity to cope with uncertain disturbances) to navigate the RAD framework. We applied this guidance to outline strategies that resist, accept, or direct change in the context of management of aquatic vegetation, floodplain vegetation, and fish communities across nearly 2000 river kilometers. We provide a case study for how knowledge of ecological dynamics can aid in assessing which management approach(es) are likely to be most ecologically feasible in a changing world. Continued learning from management decisions will be critical to advance our understanding of how ecosystems respond and inform the management of ecosystems for desirable and resilient outcomes.