Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability

Publications

• BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION -- Microhabitat selection by giant pandas

  Published on May 25, 2020

  Findings shed new light on the importance of microhabitat characteristics that are generally overlooked in coarse-scale models in influencing giant panda habitat selection within the home range.

• PLOS ONE - Governing the Commons Beyond Harvesting: An Empirical Illustration from Fishing

  Published on April 23, 2020

  Our study highlights the importance of historically and contextually situating analyses linking the effects of pre-harvesting processes on harvesting outcomes, broadening the scope of inquiry beyond a narrow policy attention on harvesting.

• RESOURCES, CONSERVATION AND RECYCLING - Ecological civilization and government administrative system reform in China

  Published on April 13, 2020

  Understanding how China's recent adaptation of ecological civilization differs from previous national sustainability strategies is critical to evaluate how China’s eco-civilization can contribute to global sustainability.

• GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE - Quantifying interregional flows of multiple ecosystem services – A case study for Germany

  Published on March 20, 2020

  A first multi-ES quantification of a nation's use of ecosystem services from abroad.

• SUSTAINABILITY - Understanding How Smallholders Integrated into Pericoupled and Telecoupled Systems

  Published on February 20, 2020

  A potential approach to ending poverty and increasing well‐being for smallholders is creating and increasing pericoupling flows to empower smallholders for desired livelihood and social‐ecological outcomes.

• JASSS - Land-Use Changes in Distant Places: Implementation of a Telecoupled Agent-Based Model

  Published on January 31, 2020

  We construct a new type of agent-based model (ABM) that can simulate land-use changes at multiple distant places (namely TeleABM, telecoupled agent-based model).

• 

  JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY - Emerging risks of non‐native species escapes from aquaculture

  Published on January 6, 2020

  Non‐native aquatic species escapes from aquaculture facilities can result in serious aquatic bio‐invasions. We discuss aquaculture expansion and NAS escapes, illustrate emerging risks and propose recommendations for improved aquaculture management.

• 

  NATURE -- Assessing progress towards sustainable development over space and time

  Published on January 3, 2020

  In Nature, scientists show that indeed all sustainability, like politics, is local. China has improved its aggregated SDG score. At the provincial level, however, there is disparity between the country’s developed and developing regions.

• 

  SCIENCE - Pervasive human-driven decline of life on Earth points to the need for transformative change

  Published on December 12, 2019

  Human impacts on life on Earth are unprecedented, requiring transformative action to address root economic, social and technological causes.

• AQUATIC ECOSYSTEM HEALTH & MGT - Using the telecoupling framework to improve Great Lakes fisheries sustainability

  Published on December 2, 2019

  Understanding the causes and consequences of complex social-ecological fisheries interactions and develop informed strategies for sustainable fisheries management and governance

• JOURNAL OF LAND USE SCIENCE - Land-use changes across distant places: design of a telecoupled agent-based model

  Published on November 18, 2019

  We apply the framework to design an agent-based model (TeleABM) that represents land-use changes in telecoupled systems to investigate how local land-use changes are affected by flows. The Brazil–China telecoupled soybean system is used as a demonstration.

• 

  ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS - Hidden cost of conservation: A demonstration using losses from human-wildlife conflicts under a payments for ecosystem services program

  Published on November 15, 2019

  Conservation programs can come with hidden costs -- often to vulnerable populations.

• ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS - Hidden cost of conservation: A demonstration using losses from human-wildlife conflicts under a payments for ecosystem services program

  Published on October 28, 2019

  As a first attempt to quantify a previously hidden cost, we estimated the impact of converting cropland to forest under one of the world’s largest conservation policies on crop raiding in a demonstration site using the matching approach.

• CHINESE GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE - Spatial and Temporal Changes of Arable Land Driven by Urbanization and Ecological Restoration in China

  Published on October 21, 2019

  Arable land decreased by 3.31%. Urbanization and ecological restoration programs were the main drivers of arable land loss, while reclamation of other land cover types was the primary source of increased arable land.

• 

  ORGANIZATION & ENVIRONMENT - How Different Forms of Social Capital Created Through Project Team Assignments Influence Employee Adoption of Sustainability Practices

  Published on October 14, 2019

  A practical and cost-effective way to promote organizational learning for sustainability may be to strategically form cross-organizational unit project teams that include sustainability practice innovators.

• SCIENTIFIC REPORTS - Interactive spatial scale effects on species distribution modeling: The case of the giant panda

  Published on October 10, 2019

  This study highlights the impacts of the selection of spatial scale when evaluating species’ habitat and distributions

• CURRENT BIOLOGY - Hidden loss of wetlands in China

  Published on September 23, 2019

  Xu et al. examine the sufficiency of the ‘‘no net loss’’ goal for managing wetlands.

• FISH AND FISHERIES - A fresh look at inland fisheries and their role in food security and livelihoods

  Published on September 1, 2019

  This paper synthesizes recent data on the role of inland fisheries and innovative approaches for assessing livelihood contributions and their importance in countries with limited access to ocean resources and aquaculture.

• JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES AND SCIENCES - Activating values for encouraging pro-environmental behavior

  Published on August 14, 2019

  The role of religious fundamentalism and willingness to sacrifice

• SCIENCE BULLETIN - Alignment of social and ecological structures increased the ability of river management

  Published on August 1, 2019

  Here, we analyze potential institutional causes of ecological degradation and how it can be reversed by introducing new forms of governance.