Mapping social-ecological systems
Identifying 'green-loop' and 'red-loop' dynamics based on characteristic bundles of ecosystem service use
Abstract
We present an approach to identify and map social-ecological systems based on the direct use of ecosystem services by households. This approach builds on the premise that characteristic bundles of ecosystem service use represent integrated expressions of different underlying social-ecological systems. We test the approach in South Africa using national census data on the direct use of six provisioning services (freshwater from a natural source, firewood for cooking, firewood for heating, natural building materials, animal production, and crop production) at two different scales.
This research was supported by the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) programme
Citation
Hamann, M., Biggs, R., Reyers, B., Mapping social-ecological systems: Identifying 鈥榞reen-loop鈥� and 鈥榬ed-loop鈥� dynamics based on characteristic bundles of ecosystem service use, Global Environmental Change-Human and Policy Dimensions, vol.34, pp.218-226, 2015