Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability

• Sustainable hydropower in the 21st century

  Published on November 5, 2018
  Hydropower has been the leading source of renewable energy across the world, accounting for up to 71% of this supply as of 2016

• ECOSYSTEM SERVICES -- Global relationships between biodiversity and nature-based tourism in protected areas

  Published on October 30, 2018
  We present results on the interplay between biodiversity conservation and nature-based tourism, while controlling for environmental and socioeconomic factors in and surrounding terrestrial PAs worldwide.

• China's Environment on a Metacoupled Planet

  Published on October 19, 2018
  China has emerged as a global economic powerhouse after four decades of unprecedented growth

• ANNUAL REVIEW OF ENVIRONMENT AND RESOURCES - China’s Environment on a Metacoupled Planet

  Published on October 19, 2018
  We suggest systems approaches such as nexus approaches and flow-centered governance to help China achieve ecological civilization and become an environmental leader on a metacoupled planet.

• ECOLOGY AND SOCIETY - Network analysis as a tool for quantifying the dynamics of metacoupled systems: an example using global soybean trade

  Published on October 14, 2018
  Network analysis is a powerful and flexible tool that has been used to quantify social, economic, and ecological systems. We evaluate the utility of network analysis for quantifying metacoupled systems by assessing global soybean trade among 217 countries.

• JOURNAL OF GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCES -- Spillover effect offsets the conservation effort in the Amazon

  Published on October 4, 2018
  We used the two supply-chain agreements implemented in the Amazon biome as examples and evaluated their spillover effects to the Cerrado.

• ECOLOGY, ECONOMY AND SOCIETY - An integrated framework for achieving sustainable development goals around the world

  Published on September 15, 2018
  One of the biggest global challenges is to achieve the United Nations‟ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), agreed upon by 193 countries in 2015

• ECOLOGY AND SOCIETY -- Complex effects of natural disasters on protected areas through altered telecouplings

  Published on September 14, 2018
  With long-term data collected in China’s Wolong Nature Reserve for giant pandas, we applied the telecoupling framework to assess the effects of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake on telecouplings that link Wolong with the rest of the world

• NATURE SUSTAINABILITY - Nexus approaches to global sustainable development

  Published on September 14, 2018
  Recent quantitative studies have revealed nexus approaches can uncover synergies and detect trade-offs among sectors. Nexus approaches have potential to reduce negative surprises and promote integrated planning, management and governance.

• Effects of climate change and agronomic practice on changes in wheat phenology

  Published on September 10, 2018
  Using the Crop Environment Resource Synthesis-wheat model, we isolated the impacts of climate change, cultivar selection, and sowing date on phenological change of wheat.

• Detecting the 20 year city-size dynamics in China with a rank clock approach and DMSP/OLS nighttime data

  Published on September 10, 2018
  The results enrich our understanding of city-size evolution and have valuable implications for relevant decision makers and stakeholders.

• JOURNAL OF GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCES - Spatio-temporal variations of the flood mitigation service of ecosystem under different climate scenarios in the Upper Reaches of Hanjiang River Basin, China

  Published on August 27, 2018
  Extreme rainstorm and the subsequent flood increasingly threaten the security of human society and ecological environment with aggravation of global climate change and anthropogenic activity in recent years

• On the banks of the Red Cedar: toward socio-ecologically robust riparian management in an iconic Michigan river

  Published on July 19, 2018
  We developed a framework for evaluating habitat associations of diatoms and native unionid mussels in the Red Cedar River using field collections and mixed-effects modeling to facilitate socio-ecologically informed riparian management.

• ECOLOGY AND SOCIETY -- Feedback of telecoupling: the case of a payments for ecosystem services program

  Published on July 9, 2018
  This study highlights that local human–nature interactions driven by telecouplings, such as human–wildlife conflicts, may trigger feedbacks that affect telecouplings themselves.

• Neglected environmental health impacts of China's supply-side structural reform

  Published on June 6, 2018
  “Supply-side structural reform” (SSSR) has been the most important ongoing economic reform in China since 2015, but its important environmental health effects have not been properly assessed

• Crop diversification as a smallholder livelihood strategy within semi-arid agricultural systems near Mount Kenya

  Published on May 31, 2018
  Crop diversification is one strategy that smallholder farmers may employ to reduce their vulnerability in the face of global environmental change.

• Household-level heterogeneity of water resources within common-pool resource systems

  Published on May 31, 2018
  Prior work has demonstrated the ability of common property systems to sustain institutional arrangements governing natural resources over long periods of time

• Tsetse fly control in Kenya's spatially and temporally dynamic control reservoirs: A cost analysis

  Published on May 31, 2018
  Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) and animal African trypanosomiasis (AAT) are significant health concerns throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa

• Assessing multi-level drivers of adaptation to climate variability and water insecurity in smallholder irrigation systems

  Published on May 31, 2018
  In this study we investigate smallholder adaptation in Kenya from multiple levels.

• Polycentric Transformation in Kenyan Water Governance: A Dynamic Analysis of Institutional and Social-Ecological Change

  Published on May 31, 2018
  Beginning in 2002, Kenyan water governance transitioned from a monocentric, top‐down system to one exhibiting traits of polycentricity