Ecological distribution conflicts as forces for sustainability: an overview and conceptual framework

Can ecological distribution conflicts turn into forces for sustainability? This overview paper addresses in a systematic conceptual manner the question of why, through whom, how, and when conflicts over the use of the environment may take an active role in shaping transitions toward sustainability. It presents a conceptual framework that schematically maps out the linkages between (a) patterns of (unsustainable) social metabolism, (b) the emergence of ecological distribution conflicts, (c) the rise of environmental justice movements, and (d) their potential contributions for sustainability transitions. The ways how these four processes can influence each other are multi-faceted and often not a foretold story. Yet, ecological distribution conflicts can have an important role for sustainability, because they relentlessly bring to light conflicting values over the environment as well as unsustainable resource uses affecting people and the planet. Environmental justice movements, born out of such conflicts, become key actors in politicizing such unsustainable resource uses, but moreover, they take sometimes also radical actions to stop them. By drawing on creative forms of mobilizations and diverse repertoires of action to effectively reduce unsustainabilities, they can turn from ‘victims’ of environmental injustices into ‘warriors’ for sustainability. But when will improvements in sustainability be lasting? By looking at the overall dynamics between the four processes, we aim to foster a more systematic understanding of the dynamics and roles of ecological distribution conflicts within sustainability processes.     

Theorizing stakeholders of sustainability in the digital age

Stakeholder theory, originally introduced in 1984 by philosopher Edward Freeman, is among the most influential theories today addressing the complex interplay of societal actors. It underwent several transformations and expansions, but the original Freeman model as well as the latest approaches places the corporation at the center positioning the theory as management driven. In this article—from a sustainability science perspective—we argue that sustainability could also be considered as the center, around which societal actors are grouped, because everyone, individuals as well as stakeholders, have a stake in a ‘common future’ that is built on the transformative concept of sustainability. Next to this shift of perspective from corporation to sustainability at the center, we advance the concept of sustainability stakeholders with the new paradigm of the digital age we (are about to) live in: the proposed sustainability-centered stakeholder theory is developed to incorporate novel parameters as brought about by digitalization (such as big data, real-time transparency, algorithmic correlations, predictive analytics, or changing privacy standards). Hence, we classify the stakeholders of sustainability according to their roles as “big data stakeholders:” collectors, generators, and utilizers of big data. This digital sustainability stakeholder model operationalizes the complex interplay between stakeholders focused on their ‘stake’ in sustainability and a common future and illustrates their roles in the digital age. Thus, it offers a normative framework to analyze stakeholders’ responsibility to contribute to, advance, promote, and achieve sustainability.     

共生视角下中国区域“水-能源-粮食”复合系统适配性评估

水资源、能源和粮食是人类生存发展的基础资源,三者之间的交互关系被称为“水-能源-粮食”纽带。中国水资源、能源和粮食(耕地)资源时空分布不匹配,影响资源流动效率。随着资源供需矛盾加剧,资源管理方式亟需从“单资源”规划向“多资源”协同转变,因此,开展“水-能源-粮食”复合系统适配性评估对推动多资源协同管理具有重要意义。本文引入共生理论,构建“水-能源-粮食”系统共生架构,提出区域“水-能源-粮食”系统适配概念,将“水-能源-粮食”系统适配性分解为稳定性、协调性和可持续性,基于压力-状态-影响-响应(PSIR)模型构建适配性评估指标体系,对2000—2016年我国区域“水-能源-粮食”系统适配性进行综合评估。研究表明:①可持续性对“水-能源-粮食”复合系统适配性影响最大,协调性是适配性提升的短板,稳定性是适配性的重要基础。②我国“水-能源-粮食”复合系统的整体适配性、协调性、可持续性水平呈上升趋势,增长速度先快后慢,稳定性指数小幅波动,趋于平稳。③我国“水-能源-粮食”复合系统适配性时空分异特征明显,东北、东部地区的适配性水平相对较高,主要呈上升趋势;中部、西部地区的适配性水平相对较低,主要呈下降趋势。根据评估结果,提出以下建议:①加强水资源、能源、农业、土地等多部门协同,增加科技、水利、能源等方面投资力度,协调水-能源、水-粮食和能源-粮食关系,提高水资源、能源和粮食系统之间转化效率。②引导自然资源从富集区域向匮乏区域流动,引导高端产业、先进技术和投资等社会资源从发达地区向自然资源富集区域转移,缓解资源匮乏区供需矛盾,提高资源附加值,促进区域协同发展。     

Sustainability indicators of water sharing compacts

There is an increasing crisis of fresh water availability throughout the world. Sharing the available water resources in a sustainable manner among numerous stakeholders in the backdrop of this crisis is more challenging. Very often water conflicts are triggered out in this challenging scenario. These conflicts are sometimes reconciled with compacts on sharing. Water sharing compacts on both surface and aquifer resources are very common. Whether these compacts are founded on postulates of sustainability is the important question we want to investigate. Conflicts resurface when the sustainability of a compact is at stake. In this paper, we are reviewing three compacts on surface water sharing to understand their sustainability perspectives and how it has helped addressing conflicts. An introduction to various legal instruments promulgated aiming water conflict abatement is given first. Different types of water sharing agreements being signed in the current water management practice are also looked into. Theoretical background of sustainability analysis, both quantitative and qualitative, applicable in the case of water sharing models is then discussed. This is followed by specific case study analysis of three interstate water sharing agreements executed in basins of different agro-climatic regions across the world. It includes the Colorado basin (USA), Murray Darling basin (Australia) and the Parambikulam Aliyar Project (PAP) basins (India). Interstate water sharing agreement of these basins is critically examined and compared to comment on its sustainability perspective. The Murray Darling basin and its compact appear to be better in its overall considerations of sustainability. Compared to Colorado and Murray Darling, PAP requires major revisions in its sustainability context. E flows and stochastic modeling are the thrust areas of PAP that require major revision.     

Reconnecting with nature for sustainability

Calls for humanity to ‘reconnect to nature’ have grown increasingly louder from both scholars and civil society. Yet, there is relatively little coherence about what reconnecting to nature means, why it should happen and how it can be achieved. We present a conceptual framework to organise existing literature and direct future research on human–nature connections. Five types of connections to nature are identified: material, experiential, cognitive, emotional, and philosophical. These various types have been presented as causes, consequences, or treatments of social and environmental problems. From this conceptual base, we discuss how reconnecting people with nature can function as a treatment for the global environmental crisis. Adopting a social–ecological systems perspective, we draw upon the emerging concept of ‘leverage points’—places in complex systems to intervene to generate change—and explore examples of how actions to reconnect people with nature can help transform society towards sustainability.     

More dams,more violence? A global analysis on resistances and repression around conflictive dams through co-produced knowledge

The present article analyses a unique database of 220 dam-related environmental conflicts, retrieved from the Global Atlas on Environmental Justice (EJAtlas), and based on knowledge co-production between academics and activists. Despite well-known controversial, social, and environmental impacts of dams, efforts to increase renewable energy generation have reinstated the interest into hydropower development globally. People affected by dams have largely denounced such ‘unsustainabilities’ through collective non-violent actions. Nevertheless, we found that repression, criminalization, violent targeting of activists and assassinations are recurrent features of conflictive dams. Violent repression is particularly high when indigenous people are involved. Indirect forms of violence are also analysed through socio-economic, environmental, and health impacts. We argue that increasing repression of the opposition against unwanted energy infrastructures does not only serve to curb specific protest actions, but also aims to delegitimize and undermine differing understanding of sustainability, epistemologies, and world views. This analysis cautions that allegedly sustainable renewables such as hydropower often replicates patterns of violence within a frame of an ‘extractivism of renewables’. We finally suggest that co-production of knowledge between scientists, activists, and communities should be largely encouraged to investigate sensitive and contentious topics in sustainability studies.     

Sustainability assessment of water governance alternatives: the case of Guanacaste Costa Rica

Many new forms of water governance are emerging in response to economic and social needs and wants, as well as water-related problems such as scarcity, injustice, and conflict. However, there is little evidence on how sustainable these governance regimes are, which would be critical for making progress toward sustainable and just water governance. In this article, we present the results of a transdisciplinary multi-criteria sustainability assessment of alternative governance regimes for Guanacaste Province, Costa Rica. The assessment specifies differences between sustainable and unsustainable governance regimes, while also pinpointing how the current water governance regime performs in comparison to those alternatives. The findings indicate that those governance regimes with just and deliberative stakeholder involvement, secure groundwater reserves, and healthy dry tropical ecosystems were considered sustainable and just. In contrast, the current state of water governance was found to be at high risk of digressing toward unsustainable systems where rural communities lack rights and influence, where economies favor agro-industry and high impact tourism at the expense of rural livelihoods, and where water scarcity overwhelms weak governance. This assessment study clarifies water sustainability goals, asserts the need for transformational change, and offers a pragmatic foundation for actions toward sustainable water governance.     

Sri Lanka: a political ecology of socio-environmental conflicts and development projects

By analyzing 26 cases in the EJ Atlas for Sri Lanka, their causes, the impacts, the social actors involved, the forms of mobilization, and the main outcomes of the conflicts, this article examines in what ways activities aiming at economic growth produce socio-environmental conflicts. Such activities increase the social metabolism causing changes that translate into environmental, social, and health impacts which due to inequality of power are unequally distributed. As a result, those who are negatively impacted sometimes mobilize claiming environmental justice. The mining of construction materials to support the boom in the building sector and the expansion of intensive plantations into ‘extraction frontiers’ in new territories, cause deforestation, biodiversity loss, and hurt the local communities. Tourism and industries and new infrastructures are causing displacement, pollution, land degradation, and water shortage, affecting communities of farmers and fishermen that mobilize against the adverse impacts. Those with power to appropriate the natural resources are mostly the state together with international finance institutions and international actors who are able to implement the construction of infrastructures, plantations, and mass tourism. Mobilizations are mostly geared to the protection of livelihoods threatened by loss of access to land, pollution, deforestation, diseases, water scarcity, and new uncertain risks. The protection of the environment demanded by the mobilized groups in Sri Lanka does not aim just to protect nature itself but belongs to a wider movement of an “environmentalism of the poor”.     

Linking perceived land and water resources degradation,scarcity and livelihood conflicts in southwestern Tanzania: implications for sustainable rural livelihood

In Africa, the land and water resources quality are key factors for sustainable development. The degradation of the quality of these resources leads to scarcities and conflicts, which together threaten the sustainability of rural livelihoods. This work investigated and analysed the livelihoods conflicts over the land and water resources and their scarcities, policies that contributed to the land and water scarcities and the livelihood conflicts and linkage of the conflicts to the resources scarcities and degradation. Implications of degradation of the resources, development policies and livelihoods conflicts on sustainable development are discussed. Literature study, visits and discussions, participatory assessments, observations and questionnaire survey were used tools to collect data. Interviews of the 266 households revealed that, those experiencing the land and water scarcities and conflicts over these resources are significantly (p < 0.001) higher than those not experiencing the scarcities and conflicts. Crop-livestock competition, over the land and water resources causes prominent conflicts. A significant, (p < 0.05) associations of livelihoods conflicts to water shortage and period of water shortage for crop and livestock production were found. Improved accessibility to soil and water management technologies, wildlife–livestock co-existence, recognition of needs and land rights for pastoralists are recommended to minimize scarcities and herders versus farmers’ conflicts.     

Inside and beyond the Petro-State frontiers: geography of environmental conflicts in Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution

Venezuela is well known for its century-old oil economy, which has significantly shaped its social fabrics, territories, and eco-systems. Since 1999, the Bolivarian Revolution has led to important transformations in the context of the ‘Socialism of the 21st century’ project, but the extractivist model has deepened. This situation has created or intensified several ecological distribution conflicts, which have been further exacerbated by an extraordinary national crisis unleashed in the period 2013–2016. In this paper, a geography of the 20 most emblematic and representative socio-environmental conflicts in the period of the Bolivarian Revolution is presented. From a comparative political ecology perspective, this article aims to understand how power relations are expressed through territorial configurations and spatial dynamics of resistance, and what are the implications for sustainability. It is argued that a remarkable new situation of environmental injustice is occurring in this period. Despite the ‘eco-socialist’ discourse raised, the current Petro-State has updated the traditional regime on eco-systems, territories, and human bodies primarily by resorting to the assimilation of socio-environmental conflicts through a strategic distribution policy of oil rents. However, it has maintained a pattern of ecological degradation and social marginalization as an outcome of its economic development model. The current context of crisis has fostered intense territorial disputes and conditions for the emergence of new social actors, practices, scenarios, and geographies linked to underground economies and criminal bands, which complicate an already concerning scenario of unsustainability. The current extractivist model is reaching a breaking point. New commodity frontiers have become a main area of dispute.     

Learning for change: an educational contribution to sustainability science

Transition to sustainability is a search for ways to improve the social capacity to guide interactions between nature and society toward a more sustainable future and, thus, a process of social learning in its broadest sense. Accordingly, it is not only learning that is at issue but education and educational science, of which the latter is about exploring the preconditions of and opportunities for learning and education—whether individual or social, in formal or informal settings. Analyzing how educational science deals with the challenge of sustainability leads to two complementary approaches: the ‘outside-in’ approach sees the idea of sustainability influencing educational practice and the way the relationship of learning and teaching is reviewed, theoretically as well as within the social context. In an ‘inside-out’ approach, an overview is given of how educational science can contribute to the field of sustainability science. An examination of the literature on education and sustainability shows that, while sustainability features prominently in one form or another across all sectors, only little work can be found dealing with the contributions of educational science within sustainability science. However, as sustainability is a concept that not only influences educational practices but also invites disciplinary contributions to foster inter- and transdisciplinary research within the sustainability discourse, the question remains as to how and to what extent educational science in particular can contribute to sustainability science in terms of an ‘inside-out’ approach. In this paper, we reconstruct the emergence of education for sustainable development as a distinctive field of educational science and introduce and discuss three areas of sustainability research and throw into relief the unique contribution that educational science can make to individual action and behavior change, to organizational change and social learning, and, finally, to inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration.     

Social-ecological resilience and the quest for sustainability as object of science

The term ‘sustainability science’ has been employed to refer to a scientific trend, movement or program aimed at studying problems related to human–nature interactions. However, since it does not have its own set of principles for knowledge building and lack of a definition of a study object, sustainability science is not a science, at least in the usual sense of the word. A study object is the conceptual delimitation of the problems tackled by a science, and therefore, its search in the context of a science of sustainability requires exploring different notions of sustainability. This article presents different perspectives on the concept of sustainability and analyzes the viability to assume them as study object of sustainability science. Such exploration demands concepts based on a processual ontology that directs the researcher toward the dynamic, historic and temporal and social-ecological character of problems of unsustainability. The concept of social-ecological resilience seems to comply with such requirements.     

Ecological distribution conflicts and sustainability: lessons from the post-socialist European semi-periphery

Understanding how ecological distribution conflicts (EDCs) have changed through the transition from socialism to capitalism in the European semi-periphery can provide valuable lessons for global efforts towards sustainability. This article traces the social, political and economic origins of EDCs, and evaluates the outcomes of the 74 most illustrative cases of such conflicts from five ex-Yugoslav countries reported in the Environmental Justice Atlas (EJatlas): Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia. It analyses how the occurrence and characteristics of the conflicts changed through three distinct phases in the region’s history, i.e., the periods of Socialism (1945–1990), Transition (1991–2003), and EU-accession (2004–present), each characterised by different socio-metabolic, political and institutional profiles. The article also evaluates the level of environmental justice (EJ) in the region. The greatest diversity of conflicts were identified in the last phase, a period characterised by an increase in material and energy flows through a number of controversial projects, many of which arose as a result of ‘modernisation’. Fortunately, the resulting ‘unsustainabilities’ were immediately politicised by EJ movements, whose composition, demands and success differed in line with changing dominant political and institutional conditions. Currently, the EJ movements in ex-Yugoslavia are led by national NGOs, while urban movements embrace the broadest spectrum of socio-environmental issues. Timely mobilisation and support from local authorities have been crucial for the successful resolution of conflicts. However, EJ movements have proved impotent to resist projects deemed to be of national economic interest in contexts characterised by high levels of corruption and low political accountability. Stronger alliances among different movements would assure more EJ and lasting sustainability solutions in the region.     

On the concept of sustainability – assessing the sustainability of large public infrastructure investment projects

Assessing the sustainability of large public investment projects within the general framework of three-pillar thinking is a complex affair. Such ventures involve multiple actors – e.g. planners from various disciplines such as engineers, economists and social scientists, in addition to politicians, users and other people affected – each carrying with them particular agendas and priorities, and corresponding understandings of the concept of sustainability. In this paper, we propose to frame the concept of sustainability assessment within the context of investment projects, in order to enable communication between the multiple actors, to assess different impacts of an investment project against one another in a meaningful way and, ultimately, to enhance the commensurability of investment project alternatives. Our main idea is that there exist different levels according to which the assessment of sustainability ought to refer – operational, tactical and strategic – and that properly addressing these levels can permit the different actors to comprehend one another, and thereby allow for more clarity and positive action.     

Social-ecological system resonance: a theoretical framework for brokering sustainable solutions

Sustainability science is a solution-oriented discipline. Yet, there are few theory-rich discussions about how this orientation structures the efforts of sustainability science. We argue that Niklas Luhmann’s social system theory, which explains how societies communicate problems, conceptualize solutions, and identify pathways towards implementation of solutions, is valuable in explaining the general structure of sustainability science. From Luhmann, we focus on two key concepts. First, his notion of resonance offers us a way to account for how sustainability science has attended and responded to environmental risks. As a product of resonance, we reveal solution-oriented research as the strategic coordination of capacities, resources, and information. Second, Luhmann’s interests in self-organizing processes explain how sustainability science can simultaneously advance multiple innovations. The value logic that supports this multiplicity of self-organizing activities as a recognition that human and natural systems are complex coupled and mutually influencing. To give form to this theoretical framework, we offer case evidence of renewable energy policy formation in Texas. Although the state’s wealth is rooted in a fossil-fuel heritage, Texas generates more electricity from wind than any US state. It is politically antagonistic towards climate-change policy, yet the state’s reception of wind energy technology illustrates how social and environmental systems can be strategically aligned to generate solutions that address diverse needs simultaneously. This case demonstrates that isolating climate change—as politicians do as a separate and discrete problem—is incapable of achieving sustainable solutions, and resonance offers researchers a framework for conceptualizing, designing, and communicating meaningfully integrated actions.     

A discourse-analytical perspective on sustainability assessment: interpreting sustainable development in practice

Sustainable development is a ubiquitously used concept in public decision-making: it refers to an ideal vision of global society where human development and environmental quality go hand in hand. Logically, any decision-supporting process aiming at facilitating and steering society toward a sustainable future then seems desirable. Assessing the sustainability of policy decisions is, however, influenced by what sustainable development is believed to entail, as different discourses coexist under the umbrella of the sustainable development meta-discourse. This paper proposes a typology of sustainable development discourses, and, subsequently, applies a discourse-analytical lens on two practical cases of sustainability assessment in different institutional and geographical contexts (in Belgium and in Benin). The results indicate that sustainability assessments tend to be influenced mainly by the consensual ‘sustainable development as integration’ discourse, while also providing a forum for dialogue between different discourses. The results shed light on context-specific discursive and institutional dynamics for the development and application of sustainability assessment. Acknowledging these dynamics as well as sustainable development’s inherent interpretational limits can lead to an improved use of sustainable development as a decision-guiding strategy.     

基于图模型的流域跨界水污染冲突研究

水资源短缺和水污染是我国面临的重要资源与环境问题。流域行政区划的分割使水污染可以由上游行政区向下游行政区进行转移,造成跨界水污染冲突。解决冲突的图模型是一种基于非合作博弈理论的冲突分析方法,该方法在策略层面对局中人行为进行分析,寻求冲突的均衡或者冲突解。最后,将解决冲突的图模型方法应用于太湖流域跨界水污染冲突,选取太湖流域跨界水污染冲突的两个实例进行研究。经分析,得到冲突潜在的均衡状态。结果表明,中央政府同时采取激励策略与控制策略、江苏省采取部分削减污染物排放策略和浙江省采取沟通协调策略是一种最稳定状态;且杭州和绍兴采取联合治污、两地排污企业服从管理不偷排污染物成为最终稳定状态。在实例研究之后,对图模型展开进一步的讨论。解决冲突的图模型方法对于流域跨界水污染冲突分析具有较好的效果     

“Measuring Sustainability”: A Multi-Criterion Framework

So far, the elementary question of whether one country’s or region’s economy is moving towards sustainability or away from it cannot be answered with unanimous consensus on the ‘measuring rod(s)’ to be employed. The main assumption of this article is that sustainability assessment needs a set of multi-dimensional indicators. From this assumption a question arises: how could such indicators be aggregated? Often, some indicators improve while others deteriorate. For instance, when incomes grow, SO₂ might go down while CO₂ increases. It has to be noted that this is the classical conflictual situation studied in multi-criteria decision theory. The use of a multi-criterion framework for making operational the ‘measuring of sustainability’ is discussed here by means of illustrative examples and more formal arguments.