|
Description:
We are currently living in a planetary era that is profoundly different to any other in human history. It is one in which we face unprecedented challenges in terms of promoting human wellbeing within the capacity of the environment to sustain this. Individually, the challenges of sustainable development that confront us – poverty, urbanization pressures, disease, food production for a growing population, energy needs, biodiversity loss, effects of climate change - are formidable; however, the realization that these are all closely interconnected and must be responded to simultaneously and in an integrated way is potentially overwhelming.
Shifting the trajectory of human life on earth to one that is sustainable, where it is possible for individual and collective human potentials to be realized, places a new demand on science to enable this. It is in response to this demand that sustainability science has emerged. Defined as use-inspired basic research, sustainability science seeks to learn about the interactions among humans (including their cultural, political, economic and demographic characteristics), their technologies and the environment, and to support the development of policies and their execution, aimed at sustainable development.
It is in this context that sustainability science is explored from a southern African perspective in this book. Four main themes are addressed: philosophical and conceptual foundations for sustainability science; transdisciplinarity and knowledge integration; resilience analysis of social-ecological systems; and, learning for adaptive self-organization within social-ecological systems. A number of thematically-linked chapters address research questions that are posed under each theme.
The book reflects the areas of expertise of our team of contributing authors, including: regional development planning, conservation planning, water science and policy, environmental philosophy, social anthropology, psychology, applied modeling, environmental assessment, adaptive management and environmental economics. Collaborating across disciplines, the authors explore the potential of sustainability science in a number of southern African case studies.
|
