Complexity of Coupled Human and Natural Systems

2007/09/13 by Jianguo Liu, Thomas Dietz, Stephen R. Carpenter +13 · 10 citations
Decision Sciences · Environmental Science · #Complex Systems and Decision Making #Ecosystem dynamics and resilience #Sustainability and Ecological Systems Analysis

paper · doi:10.1126/science.1144004

openalex publication_date 2007/09/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04

Abstract

Integrated studies of coupled human and natural systems reveal new and complex patterns and processes not evident when studied by social or natural scientists separately. Synthesis of six case studies from around the world shows that couplings between human and natural systems vary across space, time, and organizational units. They also exhibit nonlinear dynamics with thresholds, reciprocal feedback loops, time lags, resilience, heterogeneity, and surprises. Furthermore, past couplings have legacy effects on present conditions and future possibilities.

Citations

• Resilience: The emergence of a perspective for social–ecological systems analyses

Cited by

• Ecosystem services: The economics debate
• Sociohydrology: Scientific Challenges in Addressing the Sustainable Development Goals
• Sixteen years of change in the global terrestrial human footprint and implications for biodiversity conservation
• Coupled Human and Natural Systems
• Dynamic interactions of life and its landscape: feedbacks at the interface of geomorphology and ecology
• Accountability and the academy: producing knowledge about the human dimensions of climate change
• Dynamic conservation for migratory species
• Essential Variables help to focus Sustainable Development Goals monitoring
• The End of Sustainability
• Carl Folke [wikipedia]