Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Landscapes as culturally and institutionally derived ecological systems have capacities
for self-organization and emergent conditions emanating from property and policy
constructs. A systems view of landscape social-institutional interactions can con-
tribute a useful interdisciplinary meld for innovative, reflexive policy and practice that
leads to a more sustainable resource management. A landscape systems view of prop-
erty and policy can increase the scale and effectiveness of ecological sustainability,
systems resilience, and adaptive capacity. It contributes to practice through identifica-
tion of novel options for reorganization of institutional arrangements that enhance
cross-boundary (tenure) and/or cross-jurisdictional (agency) collaboration.
Institutions and Landscapes
Broad scale and rapid biophysical changes to ecosystems, landscapes, and regions in
recent history have been driven by human societies' interactions with ecological re-
sources. This structuring of landscapes and regions through social-ecological systems
interactions also creates “place identity” in the mind of local community residents
(see chaps. 5, 6, 18, 23, this volume). Such local to regional spaces appear to be use-
ful operational contexts in which to integrate cross-scale interactions of resource use,
property rights, agency jurisdictions, and ecological patterns and processes. Regional
landscape contexts of social-ecological interactions provide the stage for the adaptive
dance between actors from different sets of jurisdictions of property and policy on
which ride many crucial elements for sustainability.
Landscapes internalize many of the interactions among ecosystem elements. Pat-
terns or processes that develop out of interdependent interactions occurring across
landscapes are uniquely different from the individual ecosystem elements that created
them. Systems scientists refer to these as “emergent properties” of systems (not to be
confused with property institutions that confer rights of access and exclusion 4 ). Emer-
gent properties of social-ecological systems interactions are often at the heart of sus-
tainability issues. A subtle synthesis of systems interactions might lead to manifesta-
tion of “surprises.” Such unexpected crises are often emergent conditions due to
fast-moving variables (e.g., economic expediency encouraging agricultural chemical
use) affecting slow-moving variables (e.g., long-term contamination of land and water
leading to ecosystem and production collapse). Social-ecological systems also possess
self-organizing capacities that are responsive to pressures of change. Reorganization of
resource management and conservation across multiple jurisdictions and tenures can
contribute considerable efficiencies and benefits to regional landscape sustainability. 5
While landscapes synthesize human and ecological interactions, they are also a so-
cial construct, whether imagined or understood (as patterns and/or processes), con-
structed inadvertently or deliberately (Crumley and Marquardt 1987; Greider and
Garkovich 1994; Stedman 2003). Institutions and landscapes evolve together over
time; that is, change begets change. Landscape constituents and patterns ebb and
flow, or change in shape and proportions. Social responses to landscape change are re-
flected in new policies, planning, resource management, and activity that generate
new landscape change (fig. 11.1). Reactions can include land and resource tenure ad-
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