Stockholm Resilience Centre

Research for Governance of Social-Ecological Systems

Annual Report 2007

Stockholm Resilience Centre Annual Report 2007

Stockholm Resilience Centre Annual Report 2007
Printed by ARKET Officin AB, 2008
Edited by Ellika Hermansson Török,Stockholm Resilience Centre andFredrik Moberg, Albaeco
Graphic design: Christine Clifstock
Cover photos: C. Folke, N. Kautsky/azote.se,
R. Kautsky/azote.se, B. Christensen/azote.se

Stockholm Resilience Centre
Stockholm University
SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
Visiting address: Kräftriket 2B
Phone: +46 8 674 70 70

Contents

Preface 										

4Directors´view										

5Development of the Stockholm Resilience Centre					

7Reports from research themes 							13A) Insight cluster themes:
1. Regime shifts, scales and sources of reorganisation in social-ecological systems

14

2. The new economics of complex social-ecological systems 				

153. Knowledge management, learning and social networks in social-ecological systems

16

4. Multilevel institutions and governance of social-ecological systems 			17B) Thematic themes:
5. Governing freshwater for food and ecosystem services 				

186. Urban social-ecological systems and globalisation					

197. Governance and ecosystem management of coastal and marine systems		

20

8. Adaptive governance of dynamic land and seascapes					

21Baltic Nest Institute									

22Research highlights, core projects and collaborations 					

24Science, practice and policy								

28Teaching and training 									

33Communications									

34Accounts in brief 									

36Appendices										

37A) Publications 									

37B) Partnerships 									

39C) A selection of presentations							

40D) List of Staff 									

41Prefacemanner. It has established itself firmly in the
UN follow-up of the Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment, and offers an exciting arena
for senior and young scientists from aroundthe world to carry out innovative inter- andtransdisciplinary research. With more than 30
peer-reviewed scientific papers already publishedafter its first year of existence, the Centre
promises to become an interesting and agendasetting knowledge hub in the field of resilienceand sustainability science.
The institutional arrangement is importantto the development of the Centre. Placed
directly under the Vice-chancellor of Stockholm
University, the Centre provides a strong incentive
for collaborative research across faculties anddisciplines. As a joint Centre with the Royal
Swedish Academy of Sciences, and its International
Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, and theStockholm Environment Institute, the Stockholm
Resilience Centre inherently provides a very strong
institutional capacity for science, practice and policy
research, capacity development and policy impact.
The years to come will no doubt be challenging,creative and exiting for the Stockholm ResilienceCentre!

There was good reason to believe, when Mistra
in 2006 invited Swedish universities to submit
proposals to establish a long-term internationallyleading scientific centre for sustainable governanceand management of social-ecological systems,
that this timely initiative would generate ripples
of interest and engagement among knowledge
institutions around the world.
The Stockholm Resilience Centre has alreadyproven Mistra right. The mission given to the
new Centre resonates strongly with the complex
social and ecological challenges facing humanity,from local ecosystem degradation to global
environmental change. The rapid establishmentof a fully operational centre, today with 40
staff members engaged in research across eightinterdisciplinary themes, is a result not only ofstrong leadership. It is also a response to the swellof demand for social-ecological systems researchand knowledge, translated into a willingness tocollaborate with the new Centre from Swedish andinternational research and policy organisations.
The Centre will “Advance the understandingof complex social-ecological systems, and generate
new and elaborated insights and means for thedevelopment of management and governancepractices, with the aim of securing ecosystemservices for human wellbeing and building
resilience for long-term sustainability”.
It will achieve its mission through;•internationally recognised inter- andtransdisciplinary research that integrates social
science, the humanities and natural sciences;•

fostering an international arena for science,practice and policy dialogues;•

capacity-building by providing academic
programmes and high quality inputs toacademic curricula and training; and•strategic communication for improved policy
and decision support.

Today the Centre, even though still in a formative
phase, is engaged in all four of its mission areasand is working with them in an integrated

Professor Arild Underdal
Chairman of the Board

4

Directors’ viewof sudden change, i.e. on social and ecologicalresilience. A particular focus is on understanding
how to navigate tipping points and regime shifts.
International research collaboration forms
an integral part of the Centre. The aim is toestablish the Centre as a scientifically attractive
and policy relevant international hub for innovative
sustainability science. At the same time, we put
a strong emphasis on policy dialogues, capacity
development and communication. This broad
mandate – from science to change – is made possible
through the incredibly strong support from thethree founding institutions of the Centre. We area Centre at Stockholm University, where we havethe privilege of integrating the former Centre forTransdisciplinary Environmental Research (CTM),
to host the Baltic Nest Institute and collaborate
with researchers, research groups and university
departments. The Beijer Institute of the Royal
Swedish Academy of Sciences provides state-ofthe-art thinking on the ecology and economicsof resilience, and the Stockholm Environment
Institute (SEI) gives the Centre systems oriented
policy research and policy bridging on broad
environment and development issues. Together
we form a complementary research environment,
today nothing less than the strongest concentrationof interdisciplinary scientists on environment anddevelopment issues in Sweden. Mistra has given us asimply fantastic opportunity, which we will nurture
with resolve and care.
We invite all those interested in building
synergies with the Stockholm Resilience Centre to
knock on our door!

Evidence of the acceleration of global
environmental change and growing insights oncross-scale ecological interactions and reinforcing
feedbacks has only over the past five years
placed sustainability science and the sustainable
development policy agenda on a new footing.
Governance and management approaches remain
embedded in the obsolete perspective that change
is incremental, generally linear, predictable andeven controllable. Future growth and humanwell-being is “planned” along projections that
exclude not only nature but above all unexpected
and abrupt change, with ecological shifts
and social transformations. This approach tosocial and economic development worked ona planet with ample resilience and less humanpressures, but is no longer valid. Humanity hasentered the Anthropocene, the planetary phaseof sustainability, where the way we govern andmanage natural capital and its generation of
ecosystem services, such as climate regulationand food production, affects the Earth system
as a whole. Humanity is faced with the largest
challenge ever, to redefine our relationship with
the Biosphere, and translate this into operational
governance and management to enable transitions
to sustainable futures.
The Stockholm Resilience Centre is at theheart of this challenge, contributing inter- andtransdisciplinary science on governance andmanagement for sustainability in times of turbulentsocial-ecological change.
The research framework is defined and guided
by three boundary conditions:•Society and nature represent truly
interdependent social-ecological systems•

Social-ecological systems are complex adaptive
systems, implying that governance has to beadaptive to unexpected change•

Cross-scale interactions in time and spacecause social-ecological feedbacks and pose newchallenges for governance and management

This framework sets a particular focus on the
dynamic evolution of societies and nature and on
the ability to reorganise and develop in the face

Johan Rockström
Professor
Executive Director

5Carl Folke
Professor
Science Director

6

Photo:L. Haydaryan/azote.seDevelopment of the Stockholm Resilience Centre

The mission of the Stockholm Resilience Centre
is to advance the understanding of complex
social-ecological systems and to generate new andelaborated insights and means for governanceand management of ecosystem services for longterm sustainability. We fulfil our mission throughresearch, policy dialogues, capacity building andcommunication. However, how we carry out these
activities is of critical importance for the ability
to live up to our mission. Already from the start,
we set out to develop a centre environment that
stimulates inter- and transdisciplinary researchin an international context. This has been done
through several key initiatives, which will bebriefly developed in the following section.

Key initiatives to stimulate inter- and transdisciplinary research at the Centre

1.

Placement of the Centre outside of the faculty structure2.
3.

Establishment of an internationally recognised Centre board
Co-location of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, the Stockholm Environment Institute’s
headquarters, Albaeco, and parts of the Beijer Institute under the same roof, in offices that are
conducive and adapted for interdisciplinary collaboration and research
4. Launch of a theme-based research organisation, with a mix of theory development andproblem-based thematic research areas, led by pairs of theme leaders from different
disciplinary backgrounds
5. A structure that promotes the integration with faculties and research departments at
Stockholm University, through collaborative arrangements and the integration of the wellestablished University-wide Centre for Transdisciplinary Environmental research (CTM) into the
Stockholm Resilience Centre
6. Establishment of collaborative research agreements with several key knowledge institutions
around the world
7. Recruitment of research staff both from the social and natural sciences.
8. Building a professional communication platform and engagement in science to practice andpolicy bridging
9. Incorporation of academic education as a key pillar of the Stockholm Resilience Centre mission,
through the integration of CTM with the Centre
10. Building of an interdisciplinary creative Centre identity

7

Development of the Stockholm Resilience Centre

Stockholm University Vice-Chancellor Kåre Bremer (left) with Executive Director Johan Rockström and Science
Director Carl Folke (right) during the centre inauguration May 29, 2007. Photo: J. Lundberg

New officesother departments at Stockholm University, otherSwedish universities and also from international
collaborators. A key relationship in this regard
is with the Department of Systems Ecology at
Stockholm University, particularly the Natural
Resource Management Group.

The Stockholm Resilience Centre wasinaugurated in May 2007, some two months
after having moved into the offices at Kräftriket
on the campus of Stockholm University. The
building is shared with Stockholm Environment
Institute and Albaeco. The Beijer Institute at theRoyal Swedish Academy of Science is within close
walking distance from the Centre, making our
new integrative environment for sustainability
research and policy truly unique.

The Centre is in a formative and expansive phase,where we are recruiting key competencies andbuilding an organisation with strong capabilities
in research, capacity building, communications
and management/administration. A key
aim is to establish a diversity of social- andnatural scientists, with a good age, gender andinternational mix. During the second half of2007 we started the recruitment of a senior social
scientist, a central recruitment for the Centre.

Staff development
As of the end of 2007, the Centre had a staff of
35 full-time-equivalents (FTE), or approximately
60 persons. This includes only staff funded from
the Mistra grant (corresponding to 8 FTE), fromprogrammes and projects under the Centre (e.g.
the Formas Centre of Excellence, the Baltic Nest
Institute and the Centre for Transdisciplinary
Environmental Research, CTM), and direct inkind support from SEI and the Beijer Institute(see Annex D for the full staff list). We also haveseveral additional researchers closely associatedwith the Centre, who are involved in our
activities but are funded by different institutions.
This includes researchers of the Beijer Instituteand SEI, researchers and PhD students fromCentre organisation
The Stockholm Resilience Centre is a centre
at Stockholm University, strategically placed
directly under the Vice-Chancellor, i.e. outsideof the faculty structure. This ensures a truly
interdisciplinary endeavour for the Centre. We
thereby rely on close collaboration with faculties
and departments at the University, as academic
staff appointments, PhD positions and academic
education cannot be run by the Centre alone.

8

Development of the Stockholm Resilience Centre

för Tvärvetenskapliga Miljöstudier, RTM),
which will serve as an important platform forcross-faculty collaboration between researchersand departments at Stockholm University andthe Stockholm Resilience Centre. Former CTM
chairman and Professor in History Klas Åmark,and Professor in Environmental Law and head of
CTM Jonas Ebbesson, will continue to provide
strategic support to the integration of the Centre
with Stockholm University (see Annex D for thecomposition of the CTM board during 2007).
The Baltic Nest Institute (BNI), a systemsoriented research programme on marine
environments (described further in this Annual
Report), set up by the Mistra MARE programand now funded through the Swedish EPA, hasbeen placed at the Stockholm Resilience Centre.
The BNI has its own budget and is governed by aboard, that includes the Executive Director of theStockholm Resilience Centre (Annex D).
The Centre has also established a close
institutional collaboration with Albaeco,
an independent organisation focused on thecommunication of sustainability science. Albaeco
forms an integral part of the communications
team at the Centre. Similarly, we have chosen to
establish close links between the communication
capacities at SEI and the Beijer Institute, with theaim of developing a strong joint communications
platform between the core partners of theStockholm Resilience Centre.

The three patron organisations of the Stockholm
Resilience Centre – Stockholm University, SEI
and the Beijer Institute – have together chosen
an integrated approach to the development of theCentre. The aim is to establish a joint Centre thatfunctions as an open arena between the threecore institutions, while at the same time building
a distinct Centre identity, focus and culture.
This is illustrated in Fig 1, by the mutual in-kind
contributions from the core partners, and theopen and integrated structure between them. Thismeans, for example, that apart from the major
support from Stockholm University (core funding
and administrative support), SEI and the Beijer
Institute are contributing core functions (support
staff), research staff and joint projects.
During the course of 2007, CTM was integrated
with the Centre adding 12 staff (8 FTE) and 16
PhD students from different faculties engaged
in a CTM-led PhD forum for inter- andtransdisciplinary research (with 5-15 percent
time commitment per person). All CTM activities(research, education and communications) havecontinuously been integrated with the Centre.
CTM had a board, with representatives from thefour faculties at Stockholm University (Natural
Sciences, Humanities, Law and Social Sciences).
The Centre has decided to maintain the functionsof this board, by establishing a council forinterdisciplinary environmental studies (Rådet

Figure 1. Drawing upon synergies and complementary strengths to build a strong new Centre and an open arena
for transdisciplinary research.

9

Development of the Stockholm Resilience Centre

Stockholm Resilience Centre is located in Kräftriket. Photo: ORASIS foto

The way we work

Given the broad inter- and transdisciplinary
research agenda of the Centre, a strong emphasis
has been put on organising open seminars andworkshops at the Centre as a means of sharing
advancements in different research areas. Weekly
staff meetings are organised and an intranet isunder development, as additional means of keeping
staff up-to-date with Centre developments. Several
international guest researchers have actively
contributed to the Centre’s core activities, andabout 30 short-term visitors from our international
partners have spent time at the Centre.
The Centre has established a shared leadership
between Professor Johan Rockström (Executive
Director) and Professor Carl Folke (Science
Director). An internal Advisory Group withsenior staff at the Centre has been established
to help guide the Centre leadership (including
Professors Katarina Eckerberg, Sverker Sörlin,
Thomas Elmqvist, Jonas Ebbesson, Assistant
Director Christina Schaffer, Head of Finance andAdministration Kristina Hagkvist and Head ofCommunications Ellika Hermansson Török).

We have decided to develop a flat and flexible
organisation, with a high degree of selforganisation and delegated responsibilities.
The eight research themes together withthe communications team form the coreorganisational structure of the Centre. Eachtheme is an arena for inter- and transdisciplinary
research, open for core Centre staff, researchers
at SEI, the Beijer Institute and Stockholm
University, and other collaborating partners
in Sweden and internationally. The themes are
all led by two or more researchers who havethe responsibility to lead the development of
the theme research agenda, coordinate theme
research, facilitate interactions between theme
members, keep up-to-date with current researchand oversee the core budget of the themes.
To ensure strong cross-thematic interactions(we believe that many of the most importantresearch outputs may be generated through crossthematic learning) we have established bothorganised and informal theme leader meetings,
in order to advance a joint Centre-wide research
agenda and working culture. Themes are open
arenas, and researchers can, over time, engage tovarying degrees in different themes. The themes
are furthermore flexible structures, with a clear
understanding from the start, that while somethemes may expand, others may evolve in new
directions or even be closed down. An internalmonitoring and evaluation system is being
developed in order to internalise a continuous
process of internal learning and adaptation.

Scholars with deep experience of inter- andtransdisciplinary collaboration and from adiverse set of disciplines and research areas
are represented at the Centre, including
anthropology, agronomy, development studies,
ecology, ecological economics, economic
history, education, environmental and resource
economics, environmental history, environmental
law, history, history of ideas, human geography,hydrology, institutional economics, natural
resource management, physical geography, physicaloceanography, political science and sociology.

10Development of the Stockholm Resilience Centre

Photo: B. Christensen/azote.se

Centre Governance

Board:The Centre has an international and independent
board governing the strategic directions of
the Centre, which is appointed by the ViceChancellor in consultation with the Stockholm
Environment Institute and the Royal Swedish
Academy of Sciences. The Centre board had
its inaugural board meeting on the 28th of May
2007. We are very proud to have a high-profileboard with persons from science and policy
strongly committed to the development of the
new Centre.

• Chair Prof. Arild Underdal, Oslo University• Prof. Carole Crumley, University of North
Carolina• Ass Prof. Christofer Edling, Stockholm
University (represents SU)• Prof. Rashid Hassan, University of Pretoria• Prof. Roger Kasperson, Clark University(represents SEI)
• Leif Lindfors, Stockholm University(represents SU)

International Collaboration• Prof. Jacqueline McGlade, European
Environmental Agency

We are in the process of developing innovative
forms of collaboration with our key international
partners. In addition to collaborative international
research projects and programs, we have initiatedinternational joint positions and exchange of postdocs and researchers. The purpose is to create amobile research platform among internationallyleading research groups and institutes to makeprogress on the understanding of integrated socialecological systems.

• Prof. Elinor Ostrom, Indiana University• Prof. Thomas Rosswall, ICSU (represents
Beijer/KVA)• Prof. Brian Walker, CSIRO, Resilience Alliance• Prof. Frances Westley, University ofWaterloo• Anders Wijkman, European Parliament

Memoranda of understanding for collaboration
have been developed and signed with theAustralian Research Council Centre of Excellence
for Coral Reef Studies, Townsville, Australia;
the Resilience and Adaptation Program of the
University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA; the Nelson
Institute for Environmental Studies, Centre
for Sustainability and the Global Environment(SAGE) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
Wisconsin, USA; The Oxford University Centre for
the Environment, Oxford, UK; The Fenner Schoolof Environment and Society, Australian National
University, Canberra, Australia and the UNESCO,
Man and the Biosphere Program, MAB. Several
others are in progress.

11

Photo: M.Ormestad/azote.se
Photo: F. Wulff

Reports from research themes

At the Stockholm Resilience Centre we haveinitially organised research collaboration into
eight transdisciplinary themes framed by ourthree boundary conditions; society and nature
represent truly interdependent systems; they arecomplex adaptive systems; with cross scale anddynamic interactions representing new challenges
for governance and management of socialecological systems and ecosystem services.

The themes have been quite active during thefirst less than a year of operation, with several
meetings and theme interactions. There arethemes that have come to serve as forums for the
integration of scholars new to social-ecologicalsystems analyses, providing an entrance into theCentre’s activities. Tight collaborations have also
developed between scientists across themes withjoint transdisciplinary projects and applications,multi-authored research papers and anthologies
are in progress. Centre leadership, the advisorygroup and theme leaders have had, and willcontinue to have, strategic meetings to identify
emerging insights and develop cross-theme
syntheses. Successful themes may expand andgenerate new themes, and less creative themes
may be dissolved. The future will tell.

Four of these themes are organised underthe “Insight cluster” and advance theory andmethods, covering broad areas of research, from
regime shifts and a new welfare economics tosocial learning and multilevel governance. The
other four themes are thematic, more appliedand on the ground, covering water and food,urban dynamics, coastal and marine systems
and adaptive governance of dynamic landscapesand seascapes. A ninth theme on understanding
ecosystem dynamics for generating ecosystemservices is under development. The themes feed
into each other through an ongoing dynamic
process of inductive-deductive science, practiceand theory with active involvement of scholars
from the natural and social sciences and thehumanities from within the Centre, in Sweden
and internationally.

1
2
3
4

The aim of the themes is to provide flexible
collaborative arenas for sharing different
perspectives and blending knowledge
from different disciplines and areas in atransdisciplinary learning process with multidirections of inquiry and diverse discoveries.
The objective is not to search for consensus, but
for creative disagreement within the context of
the research framework, mission and vision of
the Stockholm Resilience Centre. Each theme
has theme leaders that facilitate the theme, its
research agenda and direction, and develop
practices for sharing information and keeping
up to date with the research field and theinternational research arena.

5

6

7

Figure 2. The eight research themes are divided
into four themes under the “Insight cluster”(1-4), which advances theory and methods,
and four themes that are “Thematic” (5-8) andmore applied, with ample interactions across allthemes.

13

8

Reports from research themes A. Insight Cluster Themes

Photo: J. Lundberg

1. Regime shifts, scales andPeople on Earth” has been explored during theyear. IHOPE was initiated by the global change
research community (IGBP, IHDP) and is now
spreading among historians, anthropologists andarchaeologists. Understanding the reasons for the
emergence, sustainability, decline, or collapse ofhuman societies is a key prerequisite for creatinga sustainable and desirable future.

sources of reorganisation insocial-ecological systems

The “Regime shifts” group explores from a broad
range of disciplinary perspectives how change
occurs in systems on different scales and how thesesystems reorganise after crises or perturbations.
This is a topic that brings work in many resiliencefields together. It is almost by necessity quite
theoretical, and certainly at the cutting edge ofcurrent discussions. Our work draws on earlier
attempts to write “social ecological histories” indifferent disciplinary frameworks (anthropology,archaeology, environmental history, humanecology and others).

A further purpose of the theme is to advance new
cross-breeding ideas on resilience and socialecological systems in order to contribute to thelong-term vitality of the Stockholm ResilienceCentre’s research program at large. This will
also be a way of harvesting the fruits of many
years of investment in many, hitherto diverse,
research groups. The theoretical work is also a
way to build links between different disciplines
and research traditions within the Stockholm
Resilience Centre and identify common groundon which to focus in future cooperative work.
In particular, this ambition is pertinent to thedeeper integration of social and natural sciencesat the Centre, which has been termed “BigInterdisciplinary”. A more far reaching ambition
is to conceptualise new ways of understanding
change in social systems and the implications forthe interplay with ecological systems.

We also address time scales and singularities. In
particular we wish to take these issues – typicallyaddressed within longer time scales of millennia
or ancient civilisations – to the social ecologies
of modernity and globalisation. We draw onongoing empirical work among several groups
and individuals within the Stockholm ResilienceCentre and its affiliated partners, for example
the Resilience Alliance. The group involves
researchers ranging from the ecological sciences
to various strands of history and the social
sciences including economics. Work goes onamong smaller research groups and in individual
projects. The group as a whole is engaged inwork towards a collection of synthesis articles on
Regime Shifts and Creative Reorganisations –Social Ecological Histories (working title).
The possibility of hosting the secretariat of
IHOPE, “Integrated History and future Of

Theme leaders:
Sverker Sörlin and Carl Folke

14

Reports from research themes A. Insight Cluster Themes

Photo: J. Lokrantz/azote.se

2. The new economics ofcomplex social-ecologicalsystems

Research of the theme
concentrates on:

Conventional models, based on dynamics
approximated by linear models, are of limited
use for the purpose of navigating society towards
sustainability. This theme addresses economic
issues from a complex systems perspective andis rooted in and orchestrated by researchers andnetworks of the Beijer Institute of Ecological
Economics.

• The economics of complex
ecological systems and their
management including
investigations into cooperative
behaviour• Incorporation of spatialaspects in economic models forunderstanding social-ecologicalsystem dynamics

Most economics research on natural resources
and the environment have been based onlinearity (or rather convexity), which excludes
the existence of critical transitions and regime
shifts. Very little has been done to incorporate
ecosystem services and resilience in general in
the analysis or spatial aspects of resource andecosystem dynamics. Current macroeconomic
indicators, such as GNP or NNP or HDI (Human
Development Index) are not set up for monitoring
the sustainability of an economy. The existenceof positive feedback leading to non-convex
dynamics and regime shifts makes it a challenge
to use standard economic instruments in an
efficient way. New understanding and tools areneeded.

• National accounting and valuationof ecosystem service•

Economic policy issues for global
problems and challenges

theme has been engaged with Baltic Nest in thedevelopment of a project on a Stern-like reportfor the Baltic Sea region; involved in a joint
workshop with the ARC Coral Reef Centre of
Excellence, Australia, on ‘Understanding socialand economic benefits in coral reef systems:
multiple actors, scales and inter-dependencies’;
given lectures at e.g. Harvard/MIT, anddeveloped a PhD course that will take place inspring 2008 at Stockholm University.

The theme organised an international workshop
in September on ‘Accounting for ecosystemservices’; has participated in European policy
meetings on national accounting systems
beyond GDP; and hopes to, as a continuationof this work, start collaboration with Stanford
University on the Natural Capital project. The

Theme leaders:
Aart de Zeeuw and Karl Göran Mäler

15

Reports from research themes A. Insight Cluster Themes

Photo: N. Kautsky/azote.se

3. Knowledge management,

During her stay in May-June 2007, Prof. Frances
Westley held a workshop on leadership andqualitative research methods.

learning and social networks insocial-ecological systems

In October 2007 a change of theme leadershiptook place and a new round of recruitment of
theme members was initiated. Several of the
new recruits are affiliated with the Stockholm
Environment Institute in addition to staff fromthe Stockholm Resilience Centre, the Beijer
Institute, and Stockholm University departments.

Successful management of complex socialecological systems requires adaptive approaches
and a system of continuous learning for building
knowledge and effective management practices
to interpret and respond to ecological feedbacks.
The generation of knowledge on such complex
systems is an ongoing process which typicallytakes years to accumulate. Learning is essential
for individuals, communities, other stakeholders
and agencies to develop their ability to deal
effectively with new situations and to prepare
for change and surprise. In addition, thecumulative knowledge should be embedded in the
management process.

Prioritised activities during the first half of 2008
will be the reconciliation of the enlarged theme.
Further, the development of the research agenda
and research network will continue, as will thedevelopment of the theme work processes andmember collaborations.
Theme leaders:Örjan Bodin and Åsa Swartling(from October 2007).
Cecilia Lundholm (Jan – Oct). From 1 October2007 on a fellowship in England.

This theme addresses the issues of information
sharing, knowledge generation, participation,
learning, organisation, leadership, agency, (co-)
management of common pool resources, social
networks and social simulation, in order toexplore how these social processes promote orconstrain management of ecosystem services.
During 2007 the theme co-organised a course
on using computer modelling as a means tofacilitate stakeholder dialogue together with Dr
Michel Etienne from the Agri-Food Researchand Development Initiative in Avignon, France.
Furthermore, the theme participated in theongoing process of developing the Man &Biosphere research initiative with the aim ofpromoting a dynamic learning community of
Man & Biosphere researchers and practitioners.

16

Reports from research themes A. Insight Cluster Themes

Photo: Å. Gallegos Torell/azote.se

4. Multilevel institutions andPriority research questions

governance of social-ecologicalsystems

1. Can complexity be governed, and if so, how?
2. How may resilient governance systems be
designed and maintained? What factors
create “success”?
3. How do we develop new modes ofgovernance with improved ability to govern
complex social-ecological systems?
4. What kind of new tools and methods
are needed for the study of social andpolitical complexity in natural resource
management?

Research within the theme focuses on governanceof social-ecological systems, with a special
emphasis on issues of institutional design,
environmental policy, and crisis management. In
particular, we study how societal actors succeed
or fail to create institutions and governancesystems that affect and are affected by ecologicalsystems. Despite the vast challenges posed by
global environmental change, social sciencehas been slow in taking on the scientific andgovernance challenges posed by interconnectedsocial-ecological systems and non-linear
dynamics in complex systems.

total of five scientific articles published by theme
members and an additional six manuscripts
submitted or under preparation. Theme members
have also been involved in a number of policy
outreach activities, for example through theleading daily papers Dagens Nyheter and Svenska
Dagbladet, as well as through channels such as
the Swedish Environmental Advisory Council,
Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI),
Tällberg Foundation, the Commission on Climate
Change and Development, and the Swedish
Government Inquiry on climate change andvulnerability. During the fall of 2007 we werealso responsible for a highly successful graduate
student workshop entitled “Complexity and theSocial Sciences”.

Our ambition is to create a group that not
only advances a world-leading research agenda
focusing on governance of dynamic socialecological systems and global environmental
change, but also to create a group devoted tocontributing to the Centre’s transdisciplinary
research environment. In order to reach thesegoals, activities during 2007 have to a large
extent been directed at team-building within
the theme itself, and at establishing contacts
with potential research partners. The themeis at present in the process of establishingpartnerships with for instance CRISMART(Swedish National Defence College) and theCenter for Environmental Strategic Research at
KTH (Sweden), and key individual researchers
around the world, for example at FOI (Sweden),
STEPS (UK), Öko-Institut (Germany) and SEIOxford. Some of the highlights of 2007 include a

Theme leaders:Andreas Duit, Victor Galazand Katarina Eckerberg

17

Reports from research themes B. Thematic Themes

Bildbyte till: Jakobs hinkar

Photo: J. Lundberg

frameworks for improving analysis of how
multiple ecosystem services, including waterprovisioning and food production, interact inorder to generate synergies and produce trade-offs.

5. Governing freshwater for foodand ecosystem services
How to deal with increasing water-induced tradeoffs between food production and other ecosystemservices in complex agricultural landscapes isan enormous challenge for society. Agriculture
enables food security and is a major driver behind
economic growth. However, it currently covers
around 40 percent of all terrestrial land and its
impact on water resources and hydrology has
major consequences on a global scale. Agriculture
currently consumes 70 percent of all blue water
withdrawn from rivers and aquifers. It alters thegreen water flows to the atmosphere, and impacts
water quality through alterations of nitrogen andphosphorous cycles. During the first year we haveinitiated research in four main directions:

3. Global green water assessment: Since most
freshwater assessments so far have focused onblue water resources, we are developing a new
global green water assessment to investigate
how a green water perspective changes theanalysis of water scarcity and availability
globally. Several Centre researchers served aslead authors on the Comprehensive Assessmentof Water in Agriculture. We are also developing
a collaborative project together with some of theworld’s leading hydrological modellers to addressthese issues, and will host an international
workshop in early 2008.
4. Tipping points in the biosphere: water,
agriculture and resilience: We analyse how
agriculture, through its effects on hydrology,
affects the risk of ‘tipping points’ or regime
shifts in ecosystems. During 2007 a review ofthese types of regime shifts has been acceptedfor publication. We co-organised a symposium
at the Ecological Society of America’s annual
conference on this important issue.

1. Water for resilience in semi-arid sub-SaharanAfrica: Tropical savannah regions in sub-SaharanAfrica are challenging in terms of resiliencebuilding. Water availability is often scarce andhighly variable; crop yields are often low and crop
failures due to droughts are common; and there
are high levels of malnutrition and poverty. The
research focuses on understanding the potential
role of investments in small-scale water systeminnovations in rain-fed agriculture to build
resilience in smallholder societies. During 2007 wehave published an analysis of the water dimensionsof meeting the Millennium Development Goals
in these regions as well as continued work in ourcase-study areas in Tanzania and South Africa.

Theme leaders:Line Gordon and Johan Rockström

2. Bundles of ecosystem services in agriculturallandscapes: We are developing conceptual

18

Reports from research themes B. Thematic Themes

Photo: J. Lundberg

6. Urban social-ecologicalsystems and globalisation

The theoretical framework will be tested within alarger international collaborative network, involving
site-based urban research groups in Bangalore,
Cape Town, Canberra, Helsinki, Istanbul, New
Delhi, New Orleans, New York City, Phoenix andStockholm.

The global and multidimensional process ofurbanisation has major impacts on the generationand provisioning of ecosystem services which are
fundamental for human well-being and for thesocial-ecological capacity to buffer and deal withchange. The research activities of the urban theme
focus on increasing our understanding of urban
ecosystem services and how governance systems
and urban designs can be developed to strengthen
the provisioning of these services.

Science-Policy interface
To initiate a dialogue between researchers, policy
makers and civil society, the urban research theme
has organised events at the World Congress on
Biosphere Reserves in February 2008, and will
carry out activities at both the Resilience 2008
Conference in Stockholm in April 2008, and at
the 9th meeting of the Parties to the Convention
on Biological Diversity in Bonn in May 2008.
Investigations into the relevance of the
UNESCO Man and the Biosphere concept inseveral urban areas have revealed that Urban
Biospheres could provide alternative modes ofpublic space to invest in a dynamic relationshipbetween people, their natural environment and thevarious forms of governance of urban landscapes.
Based on the accumulated experience andknowledge in the network, links are now formed
with UNESCO and the IUCN WCPA task force on
urban biodiversity.

Research and framework
The research consists of several lines of inquiry
that are envisioned to cross-fertilise each other.
One line merges insights generated on commonpool resource management systems, socialecological adaptations for resilience building,and governance and management of urban
ecosystem services. The framework builds on
the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment andparticularly on experiences from the Stockholm
MA sub-global assessment (SUA) as well asurban resilience research developed within the
Resilience Alliance. The notion of ecosystemservices is particularly promising for deepening
our understanding of cities as integrated socialecological systems. This research will strengthen
the MA initiatives as well as contribute toa deeper understanding of ‘hotspots’ and‘coldspots’ in the provisioning of ecosystemservices in urban landscapes and provide aframework for the adaptive testing of designs andgovernance structures for restoration of services.

Theme leaders:
Johan Colding and Thomas Elmqvist

19Reports from research themes B. Thematic Themes

Photo: J. Lokrantz/azote.se

7. Governance and ecosystem

A number of collaborative projects are indevelopment with researchers around the world(e.g. ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef
Studies, CSIRO, Resilience Alliance Marine
Group, West Indian Ocean Marine Association(WIOMSA), Tyndall Centre, Chiang Mai
University, the Sustainable Mekong Research
Network (Sumernet)).

management of coastal andmarine systems

The overall goal of coastal and marine ecosystemmanagement is to secure the ability of theoceans to provide ecosystem services for societal
development. While there have been some local
successes, current management of marine socialecological systems has largely failed to achieve
this goal at regional and global scales.

Priority areas for future research• Reorganisation after extreme events

Marine environments worldwide are in serious
decline primarily due to over-harvesting,pollution, disease and climate change. In many
locations around the world, human induced
stress to marine ecosystems has exceeded theirregenerative capacity, causing dramatic shifts inspecies composition and ecosystem states that
result in severe economic and social costs.

• Application of resilience in coastal & marine
areas• Costs of phase shifts for human welfare• Globalisation and future seafood production• Restoring key tropical coastal and marine
habitats – a global review• Sustainable management of the Baltic Sea using the unique ecosystem model NEST
• Ecological and social resilience in coastal

Anticipating and preventing unwanted regime
shifts will require improved understanding of thecomplex dynamics and processes that support orundermine resilience and of the socio-economic
drivers and governance systems that shape theuse of living marine resources and services. Thus,
responding to the global marine crisis requires new
approaches that focus on supporting and sustaining
social-ecological resilience. Such approaches
contest current management and metrics and stressthe significance of multilevel adaptive governancesystems for marine and aquaculture management.
Such governance systems need features that candeal with cross-scale socio-economic drivers ofglobalisation to avoid vulnerability to coastal andmarine social-ecological systems.

fishing communities and implications forsustainable fisheries resource management

The theme will have a session at the Resilience
2008 Conference focusing on resilience in thecontext of environmental changes and risks incoastal social-ecological systems and produce
a joint synthesis paper on critical insights andknowledge gaps for sustaining coastal & marine
ecosystem resilience.
Theme leaders:Henrik Österblom, Max Troell and FrankThomalla20

Reports from research themes B. Thematic Themes

Photo: J. Lokrantz/azote.se

8. Adaptive governance ofdynamic land- and seascapes

Program, as well as the start of research andlong-term collaboration across sites in Sweden,
Canada, France, India and South Africa on thebarriers and bridges of adaptive governance.
Other highlights include the publication ofvarious papers and book chapters on adaptive
governance, with examples from some of themost important and threatened ecosystems, suchas the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, Amazonia
in Brazil and the dry forests of Madagascar.
Emerging insights of how these systems arebeing governed, in response to the climate crisis,
gives hope to the possibility that institutions arelearning how to incorporate that new experience
into action.

The overall aim of the theme is to examine
dynamic governance of complex social-ecologicalsystems. The purpose is to better understandthe emergence of new forms of governance andmanagement of such systems and the socialfeatures and strategies that make transitions
to ecosystem management possible, including
the significance of building understanding of
ecosystem dynamics into governance systems.
The theme is unique in that it aims to link strandsof ecosystem management, adaptive management
and multi-level governance. The theme focuseson transdisciplinary, empirical case studies
on both the local and global levels and theinteractions between them, while also focusing
on developing theories on governance that reflecttransformations of the 21st Century.

A number of interesting meetings withinternational research programmes are leading to
new exiting collaborations. One such example isthe synergies with the work of the International
Human Dimensions Programme and theEarth Systems Governance Programme. Other
important emerging network collaborations
are with the Tyndall Centre; in particular the
Adaptive Governance theme is collaboratingclosely on aspects of adaptive governance anddevelopment in natural resource dependentcommunities. Work on transitions in socialecological systems is developing with ÖkoInstitut in Berlin and the STEPS Centre andUniversity of Sussex.

The theme’s strategic approach includes
networking and collaboration with a range ofinternational and national organisations andinstitutions such as University of Manitoba
and University of Waterloo Canada, Oxford
University, Arizona State University, Universityof Alaska Fairbanks and James Cook University
Australia, to name a few.
Some of the highlights of 2007 include
the establishment of a Memorandum ofUnderstanding between the Stockholm ResilienceCentre and UNESCO. This achievement has
provided interesting and exiting collaborative
linkages between the adaptive governance theme,
the Centre and the UNESCO Man and Biosphere

Theme leaders:
Per Olsson and Emily Boyd

21

Baltic Nest Institute

Photo: F.Wulff

Baltic Nest Institute
The Baltic Nest Institute forms an integral
part of the Stockholm Resilience Centre andmainly performs research linked to the themeof Governance and ecosystem management ofcoastal and marine systems. Specifically, Baltic
Nest Institute hosts and develops the Nestdecision support system, which was createdduring the Mistra funded MARE program(Marine Research on Eutrophication).

During 2007, the Baltic Nest Institute has
recruited additional scientists to further develop
the decision support system, for example bydeveloping components looking at the effects
of climate change on eutrophication and thefood web, as well as developing an ecosystemmodel focusing on the effects of fishing on otherecosystem components. A Danish branch of
Baltic Nest was also established in 2007 at Århus
University in order to foster international cooperation and increase the capacity to provide
timely advice to relevant policy processes.

The decision support system is developed togive advice on the management of the Baltic
Sea, related to eutrophication and fishing.
The Nest system is a unique ecosystem model
describing the dynamics of nutrient flow fromland to sea, the internal dynamic of thesenutrients in the Baltic as well as the effects on
the ecosystem. Nest can be used to perform
scenarios on future developments (e.g. changes
in agricultural practices or fishery management)
and, more importantly, to link actions on landto effects in the sea. The decision support
system was successfully used to identify needed
nutrient reductions in order to reach politicallyagreed goals in the Baltic Sea area. The
recommendations by the Baltic Nest Instituteformed a substantial part of the Baltic Sea Action
Plan, agreed on by all the states bordering theBaltic, on November 15, 2007. Nest is thus not
only a research institution but also a tool toprovide science-based advice to policy makers,
contributing to the formulation of policies forsustainable use of the Baltic Sea.

Contacts:
Fredrik Wulff and Henrik Österblom

22

Reports from research themes B. Thematic Themes

Research highlights

During the year the Stockholm ResilienceCentre has been engaged in many
international project and researchcollaborations, through the emerging
activities of the themes and other efforts.
More than 30 articles have been publishedin scientific journals and books, 7 books
are in progress and a number of popularand outreach articles have been produced,
and there are several articles in press (seeappendix A). Among the highlights of theStockholm Resilience Centre’s researchCore projects and collaborations

23

Photo: S.Zeff /azote.seResearch highlights, core projects andResearch highlights
During the year the Stockholm Resilience Centre has been engaged in many international projectand research collaborations, through the emerging activities of the themes and other efforts.
More than 30 articles have been published in scientific journals and books, 7 books are in
progress and a number of popular and outreach articles have been produced, and there areseveral articles in press (see appendix A). Among the highlights of the Stockholm ResilienceCentre’s research findings we can report on the following.

1. Agricultural expansion and intensification substantiallyalters freshwater flows and dynamics, which may cause
catastrophic ecosystem shifts.

2. Global food demand over the coming 50 years will generate
major water induced trade-offs between agriculture and otherecosystem services, which will require a new green-blue waterparadigm to build social-ecological resilience and enable humanwellbeing.

3. New economic measures for human wellbeing that
capture changes in ecosystem services and resilience provide
a comprehensive assessment of wealth with more accurate
estimates of economic progress.
4. Stable or increased forests cover in Madagascar are foundin areas with the highest human population density and welldeveloped market access, while the highest loss of forest coveroccurs in areas with low population density and lack of secure
property rights.

5. Informal institutions, like taboo systems with strong social
norms and social capital, is central in sustaining keystone
endemic species and associated ecosystem services in dryforest landscapes.

24collaborations

The findings 1 to 10 above each refer to a specific scientific article indicated in the publication
list with the same number (see Appendix B).
In addition, there are book contracts with Cambridge University Press, Columbia University
Press, Palgrave MacMillan, Springer Verlag and Taylor & Francis Group. During the year
papers have been published or accepted for publication in e.g. Science, PLoS One, PNAS,
Ambio, Ecology Letters, Environmental Conservation, Global Environmental Change,
Ecology and Society, Phil. Trans.

6. Strong social capital among fishermen in an African coastal

area is insufficient to prevent overexploitation of fish stocks;
appropriate leadership is needed as well.

7. Blueprint policies seldom work because interactionsof social-ecological systems vary across space, time, andorganisational units with past couplings having legacy effects
on present conditions and future possibilities.

8. Social-ecological inventories complement ecologicalinventories and help reduce social tension by identifying andengaging people with ecosystem knowledge and practicefundamental in ecosystem management and associatedgovernance systems.

9. A flexible governance regime and skilful navigation
generated a social tipping point and transition of governanceof the Great Barrier Reef seascape towards ecosystem-based
management.
10. Governance theory is challenged to address the steering
capacity of governance at all political levels subject to nonlinear dynamics, threshold effects, cascades and limited
predictability.

25

Research highlights, core projects and collaborations

Photo: J. Lokrantz/azote.se

Centre of ExcellenceCentre of Excellence:
Research agenda

A central project is Resilience and Sustainability:
Integrated Research on Social-Ecological
Systems, a five year Swedish Centre-ofExcellence project provided by FORMAS – theSwedish Research Council for the Environment,
Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning.
This grant, of which three years remain, hasbeen instrumental in the start-up phase of the
Resilience Centre and the focus of the research
serves as a core for the Centre’s research agenda.
Like the Centre, the project is a joint effort
between the Beijer Institute, Stockholm
University and SEI with a strong focus oncomplex systems, regime shifts and resilience. We
argue that because of positive feedbacks causing
non-linear dynamics and regime shifts in socialecological systems a resilience approach will be
required for guiding management and policy
towards sustainability.

• What are basic processes andsources of resilience in socialecological systems and features
behind loss of resilience and how dothey interact across temporal andspatial scales?
• How can governance systems be
shaped and stimulated to emerge
across spatial and temporal scalesin order to cope with uncertainty,
surprise and vulnerability in socialecological systems? What are thelessons from past experience andhistory?
• To what extent is there a need

Resilience Allianceto revise current approaches toeconomic policy, indicators of

One of the most central partners is the Resilience
Alliance (RA), an international network ofleading research organisations that collaborate to
explore the dynamics of social-ecological systems(www.resalliance.org). The RA and the focus onsocial-ecological systems emerged out of research
programmes at the Beijer Institute in the 1990s
and during its first year the Centre has received acentral role in the Resilience Alliance (RA). The
Board of Members of the Alliance have elected a
new Executive Committee that will be chaired by
the Centre’s Science Director and two out of three
Executive Deputy Directors of the RA are Centre
researchers. The new Resilience Alliance Youngwealth, and governance in the lightof complex systems and crossscale interactions? In particular, isit possible to assess the value ofresilience so as to include it in an
accounting framework?

Scholars (RAYS) group is also coordinated by the
Stockholm Resilience Centre.

		26

Research highlights, core projects and collaborations

Expect the Unexpected! Collage: C. Clifstock Photo: New York/C. Clifstock, Lemur/J. Lundberg

Resilience 2008 – Resilience, Adaptation andTransformation in Turbulent Times

America; a Session with IHDP at the Stockholm
Water Week; the inauguration and science boardof SARAS (the South American Institute for
Resilience and Sustainability Studies), Uruguay;
host for the bioSUSTAINABILITY International
Project Office of DIVERSITAS; etc.

The first international science and policy
conference on resilience will take place on
Stockholm University campus and the Royal
Swedish Academy of Sciences April 14-17,
2008. It brings together scientists from all over
the world working with the complex dynamics
of interconnected social-ecological systems topresent and discuss with policy makers fromgovernment, business and other actors the current
understanding of resilience, adaptability andpathways of transformation in such systems. New
ways of interacting, including a collaborative
effort between resilience science and art are partof the conference. The Centre has been strongly
engaged in the planning of this major event,which is a joint conference of the Resilience
Alliance, International Council of Science (ICSU),
the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and theRoyal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts.

Several memoranda of understanding with key
international collaborators have been signed(see page 11).
Researchers from the Centre have been visiting
scientists or done post docs at the Centre for
Institutional Diversity and School of Human
Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State
University; Australian Research Council Centreof Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, Townsville;
McGill University, Montreal; the Fenner Schoolof Environment and Society, Australian National
University, Canberra; University of Cape Town; etc.

Other selected research collaborations
The Centre has been involved in many
international workshops and meetings during
2007, including the first workshop of the new
Para Limes Institute, the Netherlands; a resilienceand adaptation workshop at Tyndall Centre
for Climate Change Research; a resilience anddevelopment workshop at the Oxford University
Centre for the Environment; the IHDP Earth
System Governance meeting, Amsterdam; theassessment and development of the Earth System
Science Program (ESSP); a Symposium at theannual meeting of the Ecological Society of27

Science, practice and policy

Follow-up of the UN Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment

The Stockholm Resilience Centre has alreadyduring our first year of existence engaged actively
in science to policy bridging. The reason is
not only to take responsibility for the impactof science on policy development and decision
making, but also as a strategic way of interactingwith practice and policy as part of the research
process, as well as for receiving feedback on
research priorities for the Centre already at an
early stage of its evolution.

The Centre initiated a process during the second
half of 2007 to host an MA follow-up meetingin Stockholm, with the purpose of advancing
the formulation of a follow-up strategy for the
MA. Based on consultations with several MA
stakeholders, among them UNEP (hosting thefollow-up work), UNDP, WRI, Sida and SwedBio,a meeting was organised, hosted by Sida and
UNEP, in Stockholm in October 2007. This
meeting gathered the key stakeholders of the MA,
and developed a framework for the continued
MA follow-up work, focusing on: (1) developing
further the knowledge base; (2) taking knowledge
to action (implications of the MA to governanceand management); (3) sub-global assessments andperiodic global assessments (the question of a
2nd MA and whether an intergovernmental panel
should be considered); and (4) capacity building
and outreach.

Top priority initiatives in science
to policy bridging:• The Follow-up of the UN Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment• Collaboration with the Tällberg
Foundation and the science to policy
dialogues at the Tällberg fora

The Stockholm Resilience Centre has been
proposed as the lead organisation on academic
capacity building, and a partner in advancing
the knowledge base and sub-global assessments(essentially new research). The Centre is also
proposed to have a person on the executive
committee of the follow-up work. Together
with UNEP and SwedBio, a special side-event
was organised for the UNEP Governing Council
meeting in Monaco 19-22 February 2008 (the10th Special Session of the UNEP Governing
Council/Global Ministerial Environment
Forum). This side-event, with representationfrom the Swedish Minister for the Environment,
and Ministers from developing and developed
countries, was organised as a launch event of the
MA follow-up strategy.

In addition, the Centre is actively engaged inscience-practice-policy processes in local andregional social-ecological systems throughactivities of the research themes.
Our resilience and sustainability research
agenda is inspired by the achievements of the
UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA).
The Mistra call for proposals to establish a
new Centre on “sustainable governance andmanagement of linked ecological and social
systems” actually took its starting point in the
MA and in finding ways to secure ecosystemservices for human wellbeing. The MA
framework fits nicely with our research agenda
on social-ecological systems, and the follow-up of
the MA is a top priority process in our science topolicy bridging.

Taking a broader approach to global
sustainability
The Swedish, European and global environmental
agenda has over the past two years increasingly

28

Photo: R. Kautsky/azote.se

to convey the links to policy makers between
climate change and ecosystem management.
Furthermore, this has been done in a broadersocial-ecological systems perspective, byconnecting the two with human wellbeing, inparticular the urgent need to address ecosystem
resilience and climate change in the context ofpoverty alleviation. This has been tied to thethree UN processes (depicted in Figure 3) thatneed to develop a coherent joint approach tosocial-ecological resilience and development, butwhich until today have made little progress inaddressing interdependencies (climate-poverty,
poverty-ecosystems, ecosystems-climate).

focused on the climate change agenda. While thisis incredibly positive, there is a risk that otherecosystem-related issues are being neglected. Even
more important, the risk of focusing strongly onmechanisms for mitigation of greenhouse gases(which have dominated the agenda) is that theinterdependencies between human wellbeing,
ecosystem services and climate change, bothin terms of mitigation (the climate regulation
function provided by ecosystems) and adaptation(the ecological resilience provided by ecosystems
to buffer climate shocks) are forgotten in policy
and governance. Consequently, the Stockholm
Resilience Centre has been active during the year

Figure 3. Three closely interdependent UN policy processes with limited interrelations: the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change, the UN Millennium Development process (with the Millennium Development Goals)
and the UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (which also includes the Convention on Biodiversity, the French
IMoSEB initiative on Biodiversity, and the Potsdam Initiative on the Economics of biodiversity/Ecosystem services)29

Science, practice and policy

Photo: A. Löf

Tällberg Consensus

the role of ecosystem management for adaptationand mitigation of climate change, which waspresented at the first meeting of the Commission.

The Tällberg Forum has established itself, after
30 years of work to take a holistic approach on
the relationship between Man and Nature, as aninternationally recognised arena for knowledge
bridging and dialogue between science, politicalleaders, the private sector and civil society. The
Centre has established a close collaboration
with the Tällberg Foundation on a project
named the “Tällberg Consensus” that has the
purpose of carrying out a knowledge-driven
dialogue process, in search of a consensus, on thegovernance and management implications of therapidly emerging evidence of the unprecedented
magnitude of environmental challenges facing
humanity. Together with SEI, the Stockholm
Resilience Centre will coordinate several
sub-projects, advancing and synthesising ourunderstanding of resilience, transformations, andtipping points, and also co-host science-policy
meetings at the Tällberg Forum.

Valuation of Ecosystem Services
The European Environment Agency (EEA) has
taken the initiative to carry out a European
assessment of the economic value of ecosystemservices. The Resilience Centre together with the
Beijer Institute has attended preparatory expert
meetings, and the aim is to contribute scientificexpertise into this process.

Commission on Sustainable Development
The Swedish Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt,
has established a Commission for Sustainable
Development, with the aim of supporting
Swedish policy on sustainability issues, withan initial focus on climate change. We have
had several interactions with the secretariat of
the Commission, which has requested from the
Resilience Centre a policy synthesis on the role ofresilience and ecosystem services for sustainable
development, to be produced during 2008.

The International Commission on Climate
Change and Development
The Swedish government, lead by Gunilla
Carlsson, Minister for Development Cooperation,
has established an international commission on
climate change and development, with a focus
on adaptation to climate change in developing
countries. The Secretariat of the commission has
been located at SEI, i.e., in the same offices as
the Stockholm Resilience Centre. The Carlsson
Commission will include a focus on the role ofecosystems and ecosystem services for adaptationand mitigation of climate change. The ResilienceCentre was invited to prepare a Policy brief on

Swedish Government Inquiry on Climate
Change and Vulnerability (Klimat- ochsårbarhetsutredningen).
As part of the Swedish government inquiry
on vulnerability and adaptation requirements
in Sweden to climate change, the Stockholm
Resilience Centre led the writing of a report on
the health effects of climate change, and prepareda report on the role of resilience for adaptation
to climate change. Moreover, researchers at
the Centre have during the year served on the30

Science, practice and policy

keynote address at the Charity Ratings conference
2007, which gathered several key Civil Society
organisations in Sweden, and prepared andpresented a report on Agriculture, Water andEcosystems for the Swedish Water House.

Swedish government’s Scientific Council on
Climate Issues.

Science-practice-policy processes in local andregional social-ecological systems
Through our network of partners and activities ofseveral of the themes we are involved in bridging
the science-policy interface all the way down to
the local level by interacting and engaging withstakeholders for practice and policy. During theyear the Centre has been involved in developing
the science-practice-policy interface within
the Man and Biosphere-programme (MAB),
particularly in Sweden (Kristianstads Vattenrike
and other emerging MAB sites), South Africa(Cape Winelands BR), India (through ourpartner ATREE), Canada (McGill University
and University of Waterloo) and in collaboration
with MAB-coordinators and scientists in France.
Such collaborations have also taken place in thecontext of the governance of the Great Barrier
Reef, Australia, coastal areas in East Africa andSouth East Asia, the dry forest of Madagascar,and been initiated for collaborative learning andmanagement in Swedish lake fisheries. Centre
scientists and local farmers have collaborated
on rain-fed agriculture in Africa, including field
schools, social learning processes with policy
briefs from those experiences produced andspread internationally. As part of the Urban
theme, established science policy dialogues
have intensified during 2007 in cities like New
Orleans, Phoenix, Cape Town and Canberra,with a special focus on developing the concept
of Urban Biospheres as a tool for addressing
ecosystem services.

On the international stage, the Centre hosted
a side-event at UNESCO, launching an
institutional agreement of collaboration between
the Centre and UNESCO. The Centre also gavea presentation on aquaculture at FAO, andpanel input on climate change and sustainability
at the COP13 Bali meeting. The Centre waspresented to the 15th session of the Commissionof Sustainable Development at the UN in New
York and represented at the G8-UNESCO World
Forum on ‘Education, Research and Innovation:
New Partnership for Sustainable Development’ inTrieste, Italy.
Apart from the close interaction with the Tällberg
Foundation, which includes dialogues with theprivate sector, the Centre has collaborated with
the World Resources Institute and Albaeco on
the semination of a corporate Ecosystem Services
Review (ESR) and has contributed significant
inputs to the strategic sustainability planning of
Ericsson.

Further interactions with the Private Sector,
Agencies, Political processes and civil society
The Resilience Centre has during the course of its
first year had several dialogues and interactions
with government agencies (e.g. Sida, Swedish
Environmental Protection Agency and the Swedish
Emergency Management Agency) and ministries(e.g. half-day dialogue with the Minister for theEnvironment Andreas Carlgren on ecosystemservices and the follow-up of the Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment; presentation to theEnvironmental and Agricultural Committee of
the Swedish Parliament, and to the Globalisation
Council of the Swedish Government) and there
have been presentations in Swedish Parliament.
Furthermore, in Sweden, the Centre gave a

31

32

Photo: J.Lokrantz/azote.seTeaching and training
benefits from the students’ works (projects andtheses) and involvement in education provides anarena to foster the next generation of researchers.

Stockholm Resilience Centre offers several
interdisciplinary courses on the first level(Undergraduate), second level (Master) and thirdlevel (Postgraduate). The courses are part of
the CTM legacy, which until 2007 developed
and promoted interdisciplinary courses at
Stockholm University (SU). Consequently, allcourses are developed in collaboration withseveral departments at SU. This also opens up
for extended networking opportunities and new
research collaborations.
The synergy-effect of integrating Centre
research with education generates course content
that is closely linked to the Centre’s core research.
For instance, one of the Master programmes
departs from the principles of the Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment. Furthermore, guest
researchers and various research activities help
increase the quality of the courses. The research

The transdisciplinary PhD Group
The transdisciplinary PhD group is a cross faculty
forum for PhD students from all departments at
SU. Their academic backgrounds vary from law,human geography, sociology, systems ecology
and zoology. This arena was started by CTM
in 2000 and some 40 PhD students have since
been involved in this group. The aim is to create
a forum where researchers early in their careers
can communicate with people from different
academic backgrounds. This is a precondition
for interdisciplinary research, and several of
the young generation of scientists at Stockholm
Resilience Centre has a background in this forum.

Courses at the Stockholm Resilience Centre• Ecosystems, Governance andGlobalisation (EGG), 120 credits.
An interdisciplinary Master’s Programmein cooperation with several departments at
Stockholm University.
• Sustainable Enterprising, 120 credits.
A Master´s Programme that is apartnership between Stockholm
Resilience Centre, the School ofBusiness, the Department of Law andthe Department of Biology Education at
Stockholm University.
• Third level courses (Postgraduate)
A combined workshop and PhD course,“Complexity and the social sciences, 5credits.”, was given at SRC in September
2007. PhD students from six different
countries participated, representing awide range of academic backgrounds. Keynote lecturer was Professor Steve Lansing
from the Santa Fe Institute, California.

• Hållbar samhällsutveckling, 60 credits.
An introductory course at the Departmentof Physical Geography. Eight departments
at Stockholm University are involved andStockholm Resilience Centre plays anactive role in the course.
• Världens Eko, 7,5 credits.
An introductory course on sustainable
development, initiated and driven by
students.
• Miljövetenskapliga seminarier, 7,5credits. An interdisciplinary course
offered for students at the Environmental
Science program at the Institute forApplied Environmental Science (ITM).
• Sustainable development and resilience
perspectives, 7,5 credits.
An introductory course for exchange
students within the Swedish Program.

33

Communications
Seminars at the Royal Swedish Academy of
Sciences, with leading scientist from around theworld. Another example is the new series called
Wisdom Seminars, with talks by Paul Ehrlich andCS Holling during the fall 2007.

Strategic communication for improved policy
and decision support is an important part of theStockholm Resilience Centre’s mission.
During its first year the Centre has invested muchtime and resources into establishing effective
communication channels and developing agraphic profile for the Centre.

Other key activities
One of the key start-up activities has been topresent the Centre to important stakeholders
both in Sweden and internationally. The Centre
was successfully inaugurated in May, in thepresence of more than 200 Swedish stakeholders.
Furthermore, the Centre has been presented toimportant international stakeholders on several
occasions, including the 15th session of theCommission of Sustainable Development in
New York in May and the UNESCO general
conference in Paris in October.
We are currently preparing for the
Resilience2008 conference in Stockholm in
April. This will be a major event attracting
media interest to key issues such as resilience,
adaptation and transformation in turbulent times.
For more information on the conference, see page
27 or www.resilience2008.org.

Website developments
The website, www.stockholmresilience.su.se, isan important channel for communication andthe ambition has been to develop a website thatreflects a centre that is in the very forefront of its
field. This also includes research communication.
The website uses modern video technology toaccompany textual information along withan extensive use of pictures. Seminar videos,
specially designed movies and pictures are allprovided by professional partners.
The website offers several full-length videos
of key speakers from the Stockholm Seminars:
Frontiers in Sustainability Science and Policy,
a series given by the Centre in cooperation
with the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciencesamong others. Here, leading scientists present
their research on sustainable development.
Furthermore, the website offers video interviews
with visiting scientists explaining key issuesof resilience research. A monthly electronic
newsletter is under development together with a
new centre intranet.

Collaboration with Albaeco
The Stockholm Resilience Centre works in close
collaboration with Albaeco, located in the samebuilding as the centre. Albaeco is an independent
non-profit organisation working to mainstream
insights from the transdisciplinary researchon resilience and ecosystem services amongindividuals as well as policy makers within the
public and private sector. Albaeco assists in manyof the communications activities of the centre,
including the production of news items andvideo for the website, and arranging seminars
and media contacts. Albaeco and the centre havealso co-produced “Manna – Food in a New
Light”, an exhibition on the links between foodproduction, resilience and ecosystem services.
Apart from this, Albaeco is also engaged in thecommunication of resilience science throughits own channels, including the Sida-financed
newsletter “Sustainable Development Update”.

Media coverage
Researchers at the Stockholm Resilience Centre
have been frequently interviewed by the Swedish
media. During 2007 there have been some 40
newspaper articles, TV and radio programmes,
as well as some debate articles and editorials
in national daily newspapers. Collaboration isestablished with media consultants to improvethe contacts with international media. All press
clippings are available on the Centre website.

Seminars
We have during 2007 organised a number ofopen seminars. These include 14 Stockholm

34

From the exhibition “Manna - Food in a New Light”.
— The art of fitting 200 litres of water into one bottle of beer.
Photo: Eric Langenskiöld

Accounts in brief
MISTRA financing of the Stockholm Resilience Centre is a grant of 105 MSEK in total for seven years, distributed as follows:

20

20
15

15
10

10

5
20

15

5

0

0

The total funds allocated in 2007 to the Stockholm Resilience Centre was 37,7 MSEK and divided according to thefollowing table. In addition, the Beijer institute and the Stockholm Environment Institute contributed in-kindapproximately 2 MSEK during 2007.

10

5

0

The subsidy from Stockholm University is in total 7,3 MSEK, including a
PhD-grant of 4 years (1,54 MSEK).
Courses and Education gave 3,1 MSEK.
Baltic Nest Institute is funded by the Swedish EPA with 7 MSEK per year.
*External grants during 2007 were 10,7 MSEK, divided among thefollowing funders:36Appendix A.

Svedin. 2007. The Problem of Fit Between Ecosystems andInstitutions: Ten Years Later. Ecology and Society 12(1):30. [online]
URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol12/iss1/art30/

Publications
Books in progress (signed contracts)

Galaz, V. 2007. Water Governance, Resilience and Global
Environmental Change: A Reassessment of Integrated
Water Resources Management. Water Science andTechnology 56: 1-9.

Baker, S. and K. Eckerberg (eds.) In Pursuit of Sustainable
Development: New Governance at the Sub-National Levelin Europe. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, London.

Gunderson, L. and C. Folke. 2007. Looking Forward,
Looking Back. Ecology and Society 12(1): 32. [online]
URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol12/iss1/art32/

Boyd, E. and C. Folke (eds.).Governing Social
Ecological Systems: Adapting to the Challenge of Global
Environmental Change. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge UK.

Gunderson, L., C. Folke, and M. A. Janssen. 2007.
Reflective Practice. Ecology and Society 12(2): 40. [online]
URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol12/iss2/art40/

Chapin, T, G. Kofinas and C. Folke (eds.). Principles
of Natural Resource Stewardship: Resilience-BasedManagement in a Changing World. Springer Verlag, NewYork.

Hughes T.P., D.R. Bellwood, C. Folke, L.J. McCook and
J.M. Pandolfi. 2007. No-Take Areas, Herbivory and Coral
Reef Resilience. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 22:1-3.

Niemelä, J., J. Breuste, G. Guntensberger, N. McIntyre, T.
Elmqvist and P. James (eds). Handbook of Urban Ecology.
Oxford University Press.

Hughes T.P., L. Gunderson, C. Folke, A. Baird, D.
Bellwood, F. Berkes, B. Crona, A. Helfgott, H. Leslie,
J. Norberg, M. Nystrom, P. Olsson, H. Österbloom, M.
Scheffer, H. Schuttenberg, R.S. Steneck, M. Tengö, M.
Troell, B. Walker, J. Wilson, and B. Worm. 2007. Adaptive
management of the Great Barrier Reef and the Grand
Canyon World Heritage Areas. Ambio 36:586-592.

Norberg, J. and G. Cumming (eds.). Complexity Theory
for a Sustainable Future. Columbia University Press, NewYork.
Rickinson, M., C. Lundholm and N. Hopwood.
Environmental Learning. Insights from Research into theStudent Experience. Springer Verlag, Amsterdam.

Jansson, Å. and J. Colding. 2007. Tradeoffs between
environmental goals and urban development: The case of
nitrogen load from the Stockholm County to the Baltic
Sea. Ambio 36: 650-656.

Sörlin, S. and P. Warde (eds.), Nature’s End: Environmentand History. Palgrave MacMillan, London.

Liu, J., T. Dietz, S.R. Carpenter, C. Folke, M. Alberti,
C.L. Redman, S.H. Schneider, E. Ostrom, A.N. Pell, J.
Lubchenco, W.W. Taylor, Z. Ouyang, P. Deadman, T.
Kratz and W. Provencher. Coupled Human and Natural
Systems. Ambio 36:639-649.

Scientific articles 2007
Chapin, F.S. III, K. Danell, T. Elmqvist, C. Folke,
and N. Fresco. 2007. Managing Climate Change
Impacts to Enhance the Resilience and Sustainability of
Fennoscandinan Forests. Ambio 36:528-33.

7. Liu, J., T. Dietz, S.R. Carpenter, M. Alberti, C. Folke,
E. Moran, A.C. Pell, P. Deadman, T. Kratz, J. Lubchenco,
E. Ostrom, Z. Ouyang, W. Provencher, C.L. Redman, S.H.
Schneider, W.W. Taylor. 2007. Complexity of Coupled
Human and Natural Systems. Science 317:1513-1516.

Deutsch, L., S. Gräslund, C. Folke, M. Huitric, N.
Kautsky, M. Troell and L. Lebel. 2007. Feeding
Aquaculture Growth through Globalization; Exploitationof Marine Ecosystems for Fishmeal. Global Environmental
Change 17:238-249.

Olsson, P., C. Folke, V. Galaz, T. Hahn and L. Schultz.
2007. Enhancing the Fit through Adaptive Comanagement:
Creating and Maintaining Bridging Functions for
Matching Scales in the Kristianstads Vattenrike Biosphere
Reserve Sweden. Ecology and Society 12(1): 28. [online]
URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol12/iss1/art28/

Duit, A. 2007. Path Dependency and Institutional Change:
The Case of Industrial Emission Control in Sweden. Public
Administration 85: 1097-1118.
(4.) Elmqvist T., M. Pyykönen, M. Tengö, F.
Rakotondrasoa, E. Rabakonandrianina et al. 2007.
Patterns of Loss and Regeneration of Tropical Dry Forest
in Madagascar: The Social Institutional Context. PLoS
ONE 2(5): e402.doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000402

Österblom, H., S. Hansson, U. Larsson, O. Hjerne, F.
Wulff, R. Elmgren and C. Folke. 2007. Human-induced
Trophic Cascades and Ecological Regime Shifts in theBaltic Sea. Ecosystems 10:877-889.

Enfors, E. and L. Gordon. 2007. Analysing Resilience in
Dryland Agro-ecosystems: A case study of the Makanya
catchment in Tanzania over the past 50 years. Land
Degradation & Development 18: 680 — 696.

(2.) Rockström, J., M. Lannerstad and M. Falkenmark.
2007. Assessing the Water Challenge of a New Green
Revolution in Developing Countries. Proceedings National
Academy of Sciences USA (PNAS) 104: 6253-6260.

Fabricius C., C. Folke, G. Cundill and L. Schultz. 2007.
Powerless Spectators, Coping Actors, and Adaptive CoManagers? A Synthesis of the Role of Communities in
Ecosystem Management. Ecology and Society 12(1):29.
[online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol12/
iss1/art29

Rockström, J. and J. Barron. 2007. Water Productivity in
Rainfed Systems: Overview of challenges and analysis ofopportunities in water scarcity prone savannahs. Irrigation
Science 25:299-311

Folke, C. 2007. Social-Ecological Systems and Adaptive
Governance of the Commons. Ecological Research 22:14-15.

Savage, V., C. Webb and J. Norberg. 2007. A GeneralMulti-trait-based Framework for Studying the Effectsof Biodiversity on Ecosystem Functioning. Journal of
Theoretical Biology 247: 213-229

Folke, C., L. Pritchard, F. Berkes, J. Colding and U.

(8.) Schultz, L., C. Folke and P. Olsson. 2007. Enhancing

37

Ecosystem Management through Social-EcologicalInventories: Lessons from Kristianstads Vattenrike,
Sweden. Environmental Conservation 34: 140-152.

svenska Klimat- och sårbarhetsutredningen. [Climate
Change and Resilience - expert report for the Swedish
Government Inquiry on Climate and Vulnerability]. October.

(6.) Tengö, M., K. Johansson, F. Rakotondrasoa, J.
Lundberg, J.-A. Andriamaherilala, J.-A. Rakotoarisoa
and T. Elmqvist. 2007. Taboos and Forest Governance:
informal protection of hot spot dry forest in southern
Madagascar. Ambio 36: 683-691.

Deutsch, L. 2007. Svensk mat som sätter internationella
spår. chapter in: Konsumtion i ett hållbart samhälle:Business as usual - eller måste vi ändra livsstil? Formas
Fokuserar nr. 12. In Swedish. The Swedish ResearchCouncil for Environment, Agricultural Sciences andSpatial Planning (Formas).

Tittensor, D.P., F. Micheli, M. Nyström and B. Worm.
2007. Human Impacts on the Species-Area Relationship in
Reef Fish Assemblages. Ecology Letters 10:760-772.

Deutsch, L. and J. Björklund. 2007. How Swedish is a
Swedish Cow? How Swedish consumption and productionof food is dependent on and affects ecosystems in Sweden
and abroad. Kungliga Skogs- och Lantbruksakademien(KSLA) and SIDA.

Worm, B., E.B. Barbier, N. Beaumont , J.E. Duffy,
C. Folke, B.S. Halpern. J.B.C. Jackson, H.K. Lotze,
F. Micheli, S.R. Palumbi, E. Sala, K.A. Selkoe, J.J.
Stachowicz and R. Watson. 2007. Biodiversity Loss in the
Ocean: How Bad Is It? Response. Science 316:1282-1284.

Ekman, B., T. Ries, J. Rockström, Goda möjligheter bli
vinnare, Svenska Dagbladet, Brännpunkt, 2007-03-25.
Ekman, B., C. Folke, C. Mossfeldt, J. Rockström.
2007. Vår Tids Största Utmaning. Svenska Dagbladet
Brännpunkt. 2007-06-28.

Book chaptersde Fraturier C., D. Wichelns, J. Rockström, E. KempBenedict, N. Eriyagama, L.J. Gordon, M.A. Hanjra, J.
Hoogeveen, A. Huber-Lee and L. Karlberg. 2007. Looking
Ahead to 2050: Scenarios of Alternative Investment
Approaches. In. Molden D. (editor) Water for Food,
Water for Life: A Comprehensive Assessment of Water
Management in Agriculture. pp. 91-145. Earthscan,
London.

Falkenmark, M. and V. Galaz. 2007. Agriculture, Water
and Ecosystems. Swedish Water House Policy Brief Nr. 6.
SIWI, 2007.
Folke, C. 2007. Vår Miljö: En Ödes- och Utvecklingsfråga.
Nyhetsbrev Nr. 9 från Mistra, oktober 2007. p. 2.
Galaz, V. 2007. Klimat och politik, Essä Dagens Nyheter
Kultur, 2007-03-14.

Falkenmark M., C.M. Finlayson. L.J. Gordon, E.M.
Bennett, T. Matiza Chiuta, D. Coates, N. Gosh, M.
Gopalakrishnan, R.S. de Groot, G. Jacks, E. Kendy, L.
Oyebande, M. Moore, G.D. Peterson and J.M. Portugez.
2007. Agriculture, Water and Ecosystems: Avoiding theCosts of Going too Far. In. Molden D. (editor) Water
for Food, Water for Life: A Comprehensive Assessmentof Water Management in Agriculture. pp. 233-277.
Earthscan, London .

Galaz, V. 2007. Varning för klimatkrisens överraskningar,
Essä Svenska Dagbladet Kultur, 2007-10-25.
Galaz, V. 2007. Jordens akilleshälar synas i komplexa
system, Miljöforskning, nr 4, 2007.
Galaz, V., L. Gordon, F. Miller and G. Han. 2007. Water
and Agricultural Systems under Stress: Avoiding Regime
Shifts by Building Resilience in Policy and Institutions.
Policy Report III, The Swedish Water House/StockholmInternational Water Institute.

Folke, C., J. Colding, P. Olsson and T. Hahn. 2007.
Integrated Social-Ecological Systems and Adaptive
Governance of Ecosystem Services. In: Pretty, J., A. Ball,
T. Benton, J. Guivant, D. Lee, D. Orr, M. Pfeffer and
H. Ward (editors). Sage Handbook on Environment andSociety, Chapter 37: 536-552. Sage Publications, London.

Larsen, R.K., F. Miller and F. Thomalla. 2007.
Vulnerability in the Context of Post 2004 Indian Ocean
Tsunami Recovery: Lessons for Building More Resilient
Coastal Communities. A Synthesis of Documented
Factors Contributing to Tsunami Related Vulnerabilities
in Sri Lanka and Indonesia. SEI Risk, Livelihoods &Vulnerability Report, Stockholm Environment Institute,
Stockholm, Sweden, December 2007, 44 pp.

McCook L.J., P. Marshall, C. Folke, T. Hughes, M.
Nyström, D. Obura and R. Salm. 2007. Ecological
Resilience, Climate change and the Great Barrier Reef . In:
Vulnerability of the Great Barrier Reef to Climate Change.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA)
and the Australian Greenhouse Office.

Larsson, M., and T. Hahn. 2007. Tillväxt, välfärd och
miljö. Tvärdrag nr. 1, 2007.

Olsson, P. 2007. The Role of Vision in Framing Adaptive
Co-Management Processes: Lessons from Kristianstads
Vattenrike ,SouthernSweden. In: Armitage, D., F. Berkes
and N. Doubleday (editors). Adaptive Co-Management:
Collaboration, Learning, and Multi-level Governance.
Chapter 14: 268-285. UBC Press, Vancouver.

Larsson, M., A. Löf and T. Hahn. 2007. Local Organic
Food System in Järna  Ecosystem Management andMultilevel Governance in Agricultural Production GEMCON-BIO Case Study Report.
Larsson, M. 2007. Trust, Social Capital and Community
Development - A Caste study of Environmental
Entrepreneurs. Conference proceedings of International
Sustainable Development Research Conference, Västerås,June 2007.

Rockström, J., N. Hatibu, T. Oweis, S. Wani, J. Barron, A.
Bruggeman, Z. Qiang, J. Farahani and L. Karlberg. 2007.
Managing Water in Rainfed Agriculture. In. Molden D.
(editor) Water for Food, Water for Life: A Comprehensive
Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture. Chapter
9: 315-348. Earthscan, London.

Lindgren, E. 2007. Klimat- och sårbarhetsutredningens
betänkande Sverige inför klimatförändringar  hotoch möjligheter, SOU 2007:60, underlagsrapport om
hälsoeffekter. M2007:60

Policy papers, reports and editorials

Lundqvist, J., J. Barron, G. Berndes, A. Berntell, M.
Falkenmark, L. Karlberg, and J. Rockström. 2007.

Boyd, E., Galaz, V., A-S Crepin, J. Norberg and P. Olsson.
2007. Klimat och resiliens - underlagsrapport till den

38

Water pressure and increases in food and bioenergy
demand - implications of economic growth and options
for de-coupling (ch.3). Scenarios on economic growth
and resource demand´ Background report to the Swedish
Environmental Advisory Council memorandum 2007:1(3.) Mäler, K.-G., S. Aniyar and Å. Jansson. Accounting
for Ecosystem Services. Proceedings National Academy of
Sciences, USA
Milly, P.C.D., J. Betancourt, M. Falkenmark, R.M.
Hirsch, Z.W. Kundzewicz, D.P. Lettenmaier, R.J. Stouffer.
2008. Stationarity is Dead: Whither Water Management.
Science 319:573-574.

Olsson, P. 2007. Förvaltning av lokala fiskbestånd. In H
Tunón, M Iwarsson, S Manktelow (eds) Människan och
Faunan: etnobiologi i Sverige 3, pp. 380-381. Wahlström& Widstrand, Stockholm.

(9.) Olsson, P., C. Folke and T.P. Hughes. Navigating theTransition towards Ecosystem-Based Management of theGreat Barrier Reef Marine Park, Australia. Proceedings
National Academy of Sciences, USA

Olsson, P. 2007. Vattenriket i Världen. In M. Starendal(ed) Mat, råvaror, och energi: en kunskapsresa i Linnés
anda, pp 91-97. Formas, Stockholm.

Robertson-Andersson, D.V., M. Potgieter, J. Hansen,
J. Bolton, M. Troell, R.J. Anderson, C. Halling and T.
Probyn. Integrated Seaweed Cultivation on an Abalone
Farm in South Africa. Journal of Applied Phycology.

Olsson, P. 2007. The rich wetlands of Kristianstad. In
M. Starendal (ed) Food, raw materials, and energy: aknowledge journey in the spirit of Linnaeus, pp 91-97.
Formas, Stockholm.

Rockström, J., P. Kaumbutho, J. Mwalley, A.W. Nzabi,
M. Temesgen, L. Mawenya, J. Barron, J. Mutua and S.
Damgaard-Larsen. Conservation Farming Strategies
in East and Southern Africa: Yields and Rain Water
Productivity from On-Farm Action Research. Soil &Tillage Research.

Rockström, J., Berntell, A., Moulden, D., FN-rapport:
Vattenbrist redan verklighet - och värre blir det,
Göteborgs-Posten, debatt, 2007-03-21

Publications in press

Sörlin, S. Essay review: Sharon E. Kingsland. The
Evolution of American Ecology, 1890-2000. Baltimore,
MD: Johns Hopkins University Press: 2005, and otherworks on the modern history of ecology. Lychnos.

(5.) Bodin, Ö. and B. Crona. Management of Natural
Resources at the Community Level: Exploring the Roleof Social Capital and Leadership in a Rural Fishing
Community. World Development.

Troell, M. Integrated Marine and Brackish Water
Aquaculture in Tropical Regions: Research, Implementation
and Prospects. FAO Technical Report. 76 p.

Boyd, E. Navigating Amazonia under Uncertainty:
Learning from Past and Present Forms of Environmental
Governance. Phil. Trans. Royal Society.

Master theses of the Stockholm ResilienceCentreChopin T., S.M.C. Robinson, M. Troell, A. Neori, A.
Buschmann and J.G. Fang. Ecological Engineering: MultiTrophic Integration for Sustainable Marine Aquaculture.
In: Jorgensen, S.E. (editor.), Encyclopedia of Ecology.
Elsevier, Oxford.

During the year the Ecosystem, Governance andGlobalization programme has produced 17 master theses
and the Sustainable Enterprising program 14 master theses.

Elmqvist, T and Tengö, M. Spontaneous Regeneration of
Tropical Dry Forest in Madagascar In: Nagendra H andSouthworth J (editors) Forest Regeneration: Patterns andProcesses. Springer Verlag, Amsterdam.

Appendix B.

Partnerships

Elmqvist, T., C. Alfsen and J. Colding. Urban Systems. In:
Jorgensen, S.E. (editor), Encyclopedia of Ecology. Elsevier.

The Stockholm Resilience Centre collaborates
with a great number of international research
partners including:(10.) Galaz, V. and A. Duit. Governing Complexity:
Emerging Challenges for Governance Theory. Governance.
Galaz, V., T. Hahn, P. Olsson, C. Folke and U. Svedin.
The Problem of Fit Between Governance Systems andEnvironmental Regimes. In: Young, O., L.A. King and
H. Schroeder (editors). Institutions and Environmental
Change: Principal Findings; Applications and Research
Frontiers, MIT Press, Boston.

Resilience Alliance
ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reefs Studies, James
Cook University, Australia(1.) Gordon, L.J., G.D. Peterson and E. Bennett.
Agricultural Modifications of Hydrological Flows Create
Ecological Surprises. Trends in Ecology and Evolution.

The research group on social-ecological resilience atUniversity of Alaska Fairbanks, USA

Gordon, L.J, E. Enfors. Land Degradation, Ecosystem
Services and Resilience of Smallholder Farmers in
Makanya catchment, Tanzania. Book Chapter prepared
for the Comprehensive Assessment book “Reversing theTrends in Land and Water Degradation”.

The Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian
National University, Australia
Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and theCenter for Sustainability and other groups at University of
Wisconsin, USA.

Lundholm, C. 2008. Discourse, Cause and Change: A
Study on Economics Students’ Conceptions of Child
Labour. In Öhman, J. (Ed.) Ethics and Democracy in
Education for Sustainable development. Contributions
from Swedish Research. Stockholm: Liber.

Oxford Centre for the Environment, University of Oxford,
UK
Ashoka Trust for Ecology and the Environment (ATREE),
Bangalore, India

39

Institute for Economic Growth, Dehli

Building resilience of agricultural landscapes”, November.

Tyndall Centre, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

ECPR (European Consortium for Political Research), Pisa,
Italy, Olsson, P., Duit, A. paper presentations, September.

Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity and Schoolof Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State
University, USA

IGBP 20 year anniversary, Stockholm, Rockström J.,“Adaptation and Sustainable Development”, September.

CSIRO, Canberra and Townsville, Australia

Ecological Society of America, Symposium on “Tipping
points in the biosphere: Water, agriculture and resilience”,
Gordon, L., Invited speaker, “Human modificationof green water flows: Influencing tipping points inecosystems” August.

SARAS, South American Institute for Resilience andSustainability, Montevideo, Uruguay
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, PIK,
Germany

European Society for Ecological Economics (ESEE),
Leipzig, Germany, Folke, C. Plenary presentation, June.

Department of Environmental Sciences, Wageningen
University, The Netherlands

Centre for the Environment, workshop Resilience,
Realities and Research in African Environments, Oxford
University, Folke, C. Invited pres., June.

Natural Resources Institute, University of Manitoba,
Winnipeg, Canada.

IHDP open meeting, Amsterdam, Olsson, P. invited
keynote speaker, and Galaz, V., Duit, A. paper
presentations, May.

Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, University ofVermont, USA
International Geosphere-Biosphere Program, (IGBP)

Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James
Cook University, Townsville, Australia, Thomalla, F.,“Governance and Ecosystem Management of Coastal andMarine Systems: Defining the Research Agenda for the
Stockholm Resilience Centre”, May.

International Human Dimension program on Global
Environmental Change (IHDP)Earth Systems Science Program (ESSP)
Governance for Sustainable Development program atthe Donald Bren School of Environmental Science andManagement, USA

IARU Young Scholars Workshop, The Australian National
University- ANU Canberra, Australia, Session: Sustainable
Water Management at the Local, Regional and Global
Scales, Deutsch, L., “Global Trade, Food Production and
Ecosystem Support”, March.

School of Earth Science and other groups at Stanford
University, USA

Learning for Sustainable Development, Conference, Umeå,Eckerberg, K., ”Lärande för hållbar utveckling i globalt,
nationellt och lokalt perspektiv”, February.

Sustainability Science Initiative and Clark University, USA
UNESCO, Ecological and Earth Science and Man and the
Biosphere Program MAB

Skinnskatteberg International Workshop on Sustainable
Landscapes, Hahn, T., Invited speaker, “Accounting
systems and areas for sustainable landscapes: Economic
analysis.” February

University of Cape Town, South Africa
Rutgers University, USA
International Institute for Environment and Development,
IIED, UK

Policy fora

Several CGIAR institutes, particularly IWMI, ICRISAT
and ICRAF.

UNFCCC Bali, Boyd, E., Panel speaker, “Can we reduce
emissions from the atmosphere and achieve sustainable
development?”, December.

The SEI research network Sumernet (Sustainable Mekong
Research Network) that includes research institutions in
the Mekong river basin.

UNESCO AquaTerra Integrated Project, Venice, Gordon,L., Keynote speaker on the resilience perspective,
December.

Appendix C.

EuroMAB conference in Antalya, Turkey, Elmqvist, T.,
Olsson, P., Schultz, L., opening talk, keynote talk andpresentation, November.

A selection of presentations
Scientific presentations

European Commission, DG Environment and theEuropean Parliament, Brussels. de Zeeuw, A.: “Beyond
GDP: Measuring progress, true wealth, and the well-beingof nations”, November.

UK-India Young Scientists Networking Conference
on Extreme Weather Events in the Context of Climate
Change, British Council, New Delhi, India, Boyd, E.,
Invited speaker, Talk title: ‘Cultural interpretations offloods in UK and India in 2007’, November.

UNEP Trondheim Conference “Ecosystems and people- Biodiversity and Development-The Road to 2010
and beyond”, Elmqvist, T., Keynote speaker. October-November.

Conference Adaptive and Integrative Water Management(CAIWA), Basel, Switzerland, Folke, C. Plenary
presentation, November.

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) follow-up
meeting, the Ministry for Environment, Stockholm,
Elmqvist, T., Folke. C., Rockström, J., October.

McGill School of the Environment Speaker Series, Gordon,
L. Invited speaker.”Water, food and ecosystem services:40

UNESCO general conference, side event on Biosphere
Resilience, Elmqvist, T., Folke, C., Rosswall, T., October.

Head of Communications Ellika Hermansson Török, MSc

Global Sustainability - A Nobel Cause, Nobel Laureates
symposium led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel on
global sustainability.

Web Editor Sturle Hauge Simonsen, BSc

Communications Officer Cajsa Martinsson, MSc
ED Assistant Teresa Ogenstad
Office Manager Christine Börjesson, MSc

Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK),
Johan Rockström, October.

Project Coordinator Rebecka Henriksson, MSc
Research and Project Assistant Annette Löf, MSc

Sida Development Area, Stockholm, Schultz, L.,“Ecosystems, livelihoods and climate change: How can
we manage ecosystems to improve human wellbeing?”
September.

EDUCATION
Director of Studies Thomas Hahn, PhD

Meeting the Climate Challenge, Seminar with Nicholas
Stern, Aula Magna, Stockholm University. Panelpresentations, Folke, C., Mäler, K-G., June.

Programme Director Lisa Deutch, PhD
Programme Director Miriam Huitric, PhD
Course assistant/administrator Johan Ahlenius, MSc

Scientific Exchange and Technical Review Meeting on“Development Co-operation for Marine Research in Eastand West Africa: Lessons Learned and Future Directions”,
organised by Sida, IUCN, Swedish Water House, PRCM,
FIBA and Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm,
Sweden, Thomalla, F. and Folke. C., “Building Research
Capacity for Improved Governance of Coastal & Marine
Systems”, May.

Course Coordinator Marmar Nekoro, MSc
Course Coordinator Jennie Svedén, MSc
Course Coordinator Johan Törnberg, MSc
Course Leader Markus Larsson, PhD student

RESEARCH THEMES

Commission of Sustainable Development 15th session,
UN, New York, Elmqvist, T and Sörlin, S., “Research on
resilience and the Stockholm Resilience Centre”, May.

The new economics of complex socialecological systems

G8-UNESCO World Forum on ‘Education, Researchand Innovation: New Partnership for Sustainable
Development’, Trieste, Italy, Sörlin, S., Rapporteur’s
Report, session, “Environment: Global Challenges”, May.

Theme Leader Aart de Zeeuw, Prof.
Karl-Göran Mäler, Prof.
		

FAO, Workshop on ”Ecosystem approach to Aquaculture
development, Mallorca, Spain, Troell, M. Presentation“Integrated Aquaculture in the Tropics”, May.

Multi-level institutions and governance ofsocial-ecological systems
Theme Leader Andreas Duit, PhD

The Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research
40-year jubilee, Eckerberg, K., ”Globala perspektiv påmiljö och utveckling”, April.

Theme Leader Katarina Eckerberg, Prof.
Theme leader Victor Galaz, PhD

Swedish Parliament, the Environmental and Agricultural
Committee, Elmqvist, T., Hahn, T., Lundholm, C., Invited
speakers, March.

Adaptive governance of dynamic land- andseascapes

Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, Hahn, T.,
Invited speaker “The ecosystem approach in practice:
Kristianstads Vattenrike Biosphere Reserve (KVBR).”
February.

Theme Leader Per Olsson, PhD
Theme Leader Emily Boyd PhD

Regime shifts, scales and sources ofreorganisation in social-ecological systems

Appendix D.

Staff

Theme Leader Sverker Sörlin, Prof.
Theme Leader Carl Folke, Prof., Science Director

Below are only staff members that have been employed or
financed directly from the Stockholm Resilience Centre
during 2007.

Governing freshwater for food and ecosystemservices
Theme Leader Johan Rockström, Prof., Executive Director

MANAGEMENT, ADMINISTRATION AND
COMMUNICATION

Theme Leader Line Gordon, PhD

Science Director Carl Folke, Prof.

Governance and ecosystem management ofcoastal and marine systems		

Assistant Director Christina Schaffer, MSc

Theme Leader Frank Thomalla, PhD

Head of Finance and Administration Kristina Hagqvist, BSc

Theme Leader Henrik Österblom, PhD

Finance Administrator Rickard Castillus, MSc

Theme Leader Max Troell, Associated Prof.

Executive Director Johan Rockström, Prof.

41

Urban social-ecological systems andglobalisation

Supriyo Das

Theme Leader Thomas Elmqvist, Prof.

Visiting Scientists

Åsa Romson

Theme Leader Johan Colding, PhD

Frances Westley, Prof. University of Waterloo, Canada

Knowledge management, learning and social
networks in social-ecological systems

Steve Lansing, Prof. University of Arizona and Santa Fe
Institute, US
Will Steffen, Prof. Australian National University,

Theme Leader Åsa Swartling, PhD

Australia

Theme Leader Örjan Bodin, PhD
Cecilia Lundholm, PhD

Post doc		

Researchers

Jagdish Krishnaswamy, PhD, India

Jennie Barron, PhD

CTM BOARD(From 1 January 2008 The Council For
Transdisciplinary Environmental Studies)

Maria Bohn, PhD student
Ann-Sophie Crepin, PhD
Henrik Ernstsson, PhD student
Malin Falkenmark, Prof

Chair: Klas Åmark, Prof. History

Jacob von Heland, PhD student

Faculty of Law: Jonas Ebbeson, Prof. Environmental Law

Louise Karlberg, PhD

Faculty of Social Sciences: Christofer Edling, Ass. Prof.

Elisabeth Lindgren, PhD

Sociology

Vikrom Mathur, PhD student

Faculty of Natural Sciences: Margaretha Ihse, Prof.

Jon Norberg, Associated Prof.

Physical Geography

Markku Pyykönen, GIS Manager

Faculty of Humanities: Ulf Jonsson, Prof. Economic History

Lisa Segnestam, PhD student
Uno Svedin, Prof.

BOARD OF THE BALTIC NEST INSTITUTE

Fiona Miller, PhD
		

Niels Peter Revsbech, Professor, University of Aarhus,

Baltic Nest Institute

Institute of Biological Sciences (Chair)
Henrik Sandbech, Director, National Environmental

Director BNI Fredrik Wulff, Prof.

Research Institute, Aarhus University

Research Engineer Miguel Rodriguez-Medina, PhD

Johan Rockström, Executive Director, Stockholm

Researcher Oleg Savchuk, PhD

Resilience Centre, Stockholm University

Researcher Alexander Sokolov

Erik Fellenius, Director of the Research Secretariat,

Researcher Christoph Humborg, Associate Prof.

Swedish Environment Protection Agency (Naturvardsverket)

Researcher Magnus Mörth, Associate Prof.
Researcher Thorsten Blenckner, PhD
Policy Officer/Researcher Henrik Österblom, PhD
Assistant Martina Kadin, MSc

PhD-forum at SRC
Adolfine Kateka
Angelina Sandersen
Dan Wilhelmsson
Fredrik Hannerz
Hanna Kling
Jenny Appelblad
Joakim Philipson
Karin Reuterswärd
Katrin Holmström
Li Wang
Lisbeth Segerlund
Lisen Schultz
Paul Fuehrer
Per Mühlenbock

42

Postal address: Stockholm Resilience Centre
Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
Phone: +46 8 674 70 70, Fax: +46 8 674 70 20
E-mail: info@stockholmresilience.su.se
Visiting address: Kräftriket 2B

Visit our website: www.stockholmresilience.su.se