Fundación Nueva Cultura del Agua, Pedro Cerbuna 12, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain.
Departamento de Didáctica de las Ciencia Experimentales, University of Murcia, 30100 Espinardo, Murcia, Spain.
Sci Total Environ. 2021 Mar 25;762:144457. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.144457. Epub 2020 Dec 15.
The analysis of the sustainability should be addressed with a holistic approach that facilitates an integral analysis of the social, economic, institutional and environmental factors and their interactions characterizing complex socio-ecological systems (SES). Nevertheless, despite the increasing acknowledgment about the need for such systemic approaches, their application in real SES are less frequent than desirable. Among the difficulties behind this, the need for a new conceptual perspective concerning the relationships between science and the management of real SES, as well as the lack of tools to manage the inherent complexity of such systems should be emphasized. In this work, we further discuss these difficulties and propose an integral methodological framework for the assessment of SES sustainability, with the following key components: i) The hierarchical definition of sustainability goals and indicators. ii) A dynamic system model taking into account the key socio-economic and environmental factors and their interactions, in which the most representative indicators and their sustainability thresholds are integrated. iii) The analysis of vulnerabilities to exogenous drivers (scenario analysis) and the exploration of available management and planning options (policy assessment). iv) An uncertainty assessment concerning system behavior and model outcomes to guide decisions for an improved sustainability in complex SES. The whole framework highlights the need to integrate a participative approach, above all at the initial and final steps. In this work, these components are exemplified by means of their application to a real socio-ecological system: Fuerteventura island (The Canary Islands, Spain).
可持续性分析应该采用整体方法，促进对社会、经济、制度和环境因素及其相互作用的综合分析，这些因素是复杂的社会-生态系统（SES）的特征。然而，尽管越来越认识到需要这种系统方法，但在实际 SES 中的应用并不像期望的那样频繁。在这背后的困难中，需要关于科学与实际 SES 管理之间关系的新概念视角，以及缺乏管理此类系统固有复杂性的工具，应该得到强调。在这项工作中，我们进一步讨论了这些困难，并提出了一个 SES 可持续性评估的整体方法框架，具有以下关键组成部分：i）可持续性目标和指标的层次定义。ii）考虑关键社会经济和环境因素及其相互作用的动态系统模型，其中集成了最具代表性的指标及其可持续性阈值。iii）对外生驱动因素的脆弱性分析（情景分析）和可用管理和规划选项的探索（政策评估）。iv）对系统行为和模型结果的不确定性评估，以指导复杂 SES 中改进可持续性的决策。整个框架强调需要整合参与性方法，尤其是在初始和最后步骤。在这项工作中，这些组件通过应用于实际的社会-生态系统（富埃特文图拉岛，西班牙加那利群岛）来举例说明。
