Author
Brelsford, ChristaDumas, Marion
Schlager, Edella
Dermody, Brian J.
Aiuvalasit, Michael
Allen-Dumas, Melissa R.
Beecher, Janice
Bhatia, Udit
D'Odorico, Paolo
Garcia, Margaret
Gober, Patricia
Groenfeldt, David
Lansing, Steve
Madani, Kaveh
Méndez-Barrientos, Linda Estelí
Mondino, Elena
Müller, Marc F.
O'Donnell, Frances C.
Owuor, Patrick M.
Rising, James
Sanderson, Matthew R.
Souza, Felipe A. A.
Zipper, Samuel C.
Affiliation
Univ Arizona, Sch Govt & Publ PolicyIssue Date
2020-06
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RESILIENCE ALLIANCECitation
Brelsford, C., Dumas, M., Schlager, E., Dermody, B. J., Aiuvalasit, M., Allen-Dumas, M. R., ... & Zipper, S. C. (2020). Developing a sustainability science approach for water systems. Ecology & Society, 25(2), 23.Journal
ECOLOGY AND SOCIETYRights
Copyright © 2020 by the author(s). Published here under license by the Resilience Alliance. This article is under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt the work for noncommercial purposes provided the original author and source are credited, you indicate whether any changes were made, and you include a link to the license.Collection Information
This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at repository@u.library.arizona.edu.Abstract
We convened a workshop to enable scientists who study water systems from both social science and physical science perspectives to develop a shared language. This shared language is necessary to bridge a divide between these disciplines' different conceptual frameworks. As a result of this workshop, we argue that we should view socio-hydrological systems as structurally coconstituted of social, engineered, and natural elements and study the "characteristic management challenges" that emerge from this structure and reoccur across time, space, and socioeconomic contexts. This approach is in contrast to theories that view these systems as separately conceptualized natural and social domains connected by bi-directional feedbacks, as is prevalent in much of the water systems research arising from the physical sciences. A focus on emergent characteristic management challenges encourages us to go beyond searching for evidence of feedbacks and instead ask questions such as: What types of innovations have successfully been used to address these challenges? What structural components of the system affect its resilience to hydrological events and through what mechanisms? Are there differences between successful and unsuccessful strategies to solve one of the characteristic management challenges? If so, how are these differences affected by institutional structure and ecological and economic contexts? To answer these questions, social processes must now take center stage in the study and practice of water management. We also argue that water systems are an important class of coupled systems with relevance for sustainability science because they are particularly amenable to the kinds of systematic comparisons that allow knowledge to accumulate. Indeed, the characteristic management challenges we identify are few in number and recur over most of human history and in most geographical locations. This recurrence should allow us to accumulate knowledge to answer the above questions by studying the long historical record of institutional innovations to manage water systems.Note
Open access journalISSN
1708-3087Version
Final published versionae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.5751/es-11515-250223
Scopus Count
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Copyright © 2020 by the author(s). Published here under license by the Resilience Alliance. This article is under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt the work for noncommercial purposes provided the original author and source are credited, you indicate whether any changes were made, and you include a link to the license.