Adapting Institutions: Governance, Complexity and Social-Ecological Resilience

by Emily Boyd (Editor), Carl Folke (Editor)

Overview

Global environmental change is occurring at a rate faster than humans have ever experienced. Climate change and the loss of ecosystem services are the two main global environmental crises facing us today. As a result, there is a need for better understanding of the specific and general resilience of networked ecosystems, cities, organisations and institutions to cope with change. In this book, an international team of experts provide cutting-edge insights into building the resilience and adaptive governance of complex social-ecological systems. Through a set of case studies, it focuses on the social science dimension of ecosystem management in the context of global change, in a move to bridge existing gaps between resilience, sustainability and social science. Using empirical examples ranging from local to global levels, views from a variety of disciplines are integrated to provide an essential resource for scholars, policy-makers and students, seeking innovative approaches to governance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521897501
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	10/27/2011
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Emily Boyd works, researches and teaches on climate change and development. She is a lecturer in environment and development in the School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds and deputy director of the Global Development Centre, University of Leeds. She is also a research associate and a leader of the adaptive governance theme at the Stockholm Resilience Centre and an associate of the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment, Oxford University.

Carl Folke is among the founders of the Resilience Alliance and serves on the Executive Committee. The work of his research group in Stockholm emphasises the role that living systems at different scales play in social and economic development and how to govern and manage for resilience in integrated social-ecological systems. He received the 1995 Pew Scholar Award in Conservation and the Environment and in 2004 was awarded the Sustainability Science Award of the Ecological Society of America.

Table of Contents

List of figures; List of contributors; Foreword; Acknowledgements; List of acronyms and abbreviations; 1. Adapting institutions, governance and complexity: an introduction Emily Boyd and Carl Folke; Part I. Adapting Local Institutions, Networks, Leadership and Learning: 2. Knowledge, social networks, and leadership – setting the stage for the development of adaptive institutions? Beatrice Crona and Örjan Bodin; 3. Adaptive capacity of local institutions – the case of taboo forests in southern Madagascar Maria Tengö and Jacob von Heland; 4. The reality of adaptive management: tracing farmers' responses to disturbances in irrigation systems in Nepal Ingela Ternström; 5. Creating incentives for increased public engagement in ecosystem management through urban commons Johan Colding; Part II. Adapting and Governing Public Institutions for Uncertainty and Complexity: 6. Adaptive capacity and the ecostate Andreas Duit; 7. Food systems and adaptive governance: the case of the 2005 food crisis in Niger Sirkku Juhola; 8. Public-private partnerships in the provision of environmental governance: a case of disaster management Emma L. Tompkins and Lisa-Ann Hurlston; Part III. Adapting Multilevel Institutions to Environmental Crisis: 9. Double complexity – information technology and reconfigurations in adaptive governance Victor Galaz; 10. Adaptive governance and natural hazards: the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and the governance of coastal ecosystems in Sri Lanka Alison Ashlin; 11. Adapting to global climate change: evaluating resilience in two networked policy institutions Emily Boyd; 12. Conclusions: adapting institutions and resilience Emily Boyd and Carl Folke; Index.