Sustainability Science

The ideas of sustainability science are at least two centuries old, but only a decade in practice. This introductory paper reviews some of the key concepts underlying sustainability science beginning with Alexander von Humboldt and the unity of nature, discusses the basic foundation of the science, and illuminates the three major tasks of sustainability science: fundamental research on use-directed problems; nurturing the next generation of sustainability scientists; and moving knowledge into action.

From climate change, deforestation, and depletion of fossil fuels to overexploited fisheries, species extinction, and poisons in our food and water, our society is unsustainable and it is getting worse fast. Many advocate that overcoming these problems requires the development of systems thinking. We have long been told that the unsustainability of our society arises because we treat the world as unlimited and problems unconnected when we live on a finite “spaceship Earth” in which “there is no away” and “everything is connected to everything else.” The challenge lies in moving from slogans to specific tools and processes that help us understand complexity, design better policies, facilitate individual and organizational learning, and catalyze the technical, economic, social, political, and personal changes we need to create a sustainable society. Here I outline a design for a systems science of sustainability that rises to this challenge. Where the dynamics of complex systems are conditioned by multiple feedbacks, time delays, accumulations, and nonlinearities, our mental models generally ignore these elements of dynamic complexity; where the consequences of our actions spill out across time and space and across disciplinary boundaries, our universities, corporations, and governments are organized in silos that focus on the short term and fragment knowledge. I describe how sustainability research, teaching, and engagement with the policy process can be organized to provide scientifically grounded, reliable knowledge that crosses disciplinary boundaries, that engages multiple stakeholders, that grapples with unavoidable issues of ethics, values, and purpose, and that leads to action.

The global life-support system for humans is in peril but no alternative to achieving sustainability is desirable. In response to this challenge, sustainability science has emerged in recent decades. In this chapter, I argue that to advance sustainability science a landscape approach is essential. Landscapes represent a pivotal “place” in the place-based research and practice of sustainability. Landscape ecology, as the science and art of studying and influencing the relationship between spatial pattern and ecological processes at different scales, can play a critically important role in the development of sustainability science. Global sustainability cannot be achieved without most, if not all, landscapes being sustainable. As landscapes are spatial units in which society and nature interact and co-evolve, it is more useful and practical to define landscape sustainability based on resilience rather than stability. Furthermore, the development of landscape sustainability measures can be facilitated by integrating landscape pattern metrics and sustainable development indicators.

For much of the recent past, state and local governments and a number of businesses have led in making sustainability operational in the United States, but federal policies have lagged far behind. Today, however, environmental, economic, and social pressures are beginning to move governments and businesses to more urgently and effectively adopt sustainable management policies and practices. This shift in public policy and business strategy reflects a new reality that today’s problems are more complex, involve new stressors and multiple environmental media, and thus require approaches that extend beyond traditional business practices or media-specific legislation. The transition to sustainability will not be easy. For the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), this means going beyond the existing regulatory framework and advancing an environmental policy and research agenda that promotes sustainability science, innovation, and problem solving. For business and government alike, this means that innovation and sustainability science must be major drivers to advance economic growth while protecting the environment and human health. More than ever, it is “OK to talk about sustainability.”

Ecosystem services are the benefits people obtain from ecosystems. These include provisioning services, such as food and water; regulating services, such as regulation of floods, drought, and disease; supporting services, such as soil formation and nutrient cycling; and cultural services, such as recreational, spiritual, and other nonmaterial benefits. These benefits may or may not be fully perceived by people. Most are outside the market exchange system and are best thought of and managed as public goods (the commons). Ecosystems are experiencing serious degradation in regard to their capability of providing services. At the same time, the demand for ecosystem services is rapidly increasing as populations and standards of living increase.

Five major interacting global forces heavily influence changed ­distribution and abundance of biodiversity: (1) biological invasions, (2) overharvest, (3) changes in climate, (4) biogeochemical cycles, and (5) habitat. Modified land use, overharvest, and climate change have already affected distributions over large areas, regionally eliminating or substantially reducing natural resources such as fishing stocks, forestry trees, and traditional food plants. Further, habitat and climate change indirectly affect biodiversity patterns by their effects on invasions, biogeochemical cycles, and overharvest. Species-level biodiversity—the number of species on the planet—is unsustainable unless these impacts are ameliorated. Insufficient attention has been paid to how invasions and changed biogeochemical cycles directly affect distribution and abundance of biodiversity, as opposed to indirectly affecting biodiversity by modifying land use. Several direct, large-scale impacts of invasions and altered biogeochemical cycles on distributions and abundances of important species have been documented. These suggest that these global phenomena warrant much more research. Forestalling these global changes, or simply retarding them, has proven difficult, perhaps because of the immense scale of the enterprises causing them. However, great improvements in preventing or minimizing impacts of invasions are attainable, though we have been slow to develop effective policies and management strategies. Risk assessment procedures for planned introductions and invasion pathways are improving and can be modified to account for predicted climate and biogeochemical changes. Early warning systems, an underused tool in invasive species management, can be expanded and tied to effective rapid response procedures. Many approaches to managing established nonnative populations have produced successful control, but these successes result from projects highly tailored to particular species rather than from “silver bullets” that target multiple invaders simultaneously. Such successes will be possible even as other global changes proceed, so long as we remain committed to the effort.

The background to the current financial crisis and the problems ­surrounding policies to combat climate change through transitions out of dependence on carbon are examined. This review provides an example of how the quest for sustainability has invoked new policy tools, and the limitations of these tools in accounting for human behavior and agency. After providing a critique of current sustainable development policy, I suggest that there are fundamental flaws in the way policy has addressed both agency and structure in relation to climate change. I argue for a need to draw away from the path dependence that has served to define mainstream policy initiatives focused on individual consumer behavior, and argue for a stronger recognition of structural inequalities at the international and national level, as the cornerstone of an alternative, more sustainable, political stance. If we have now arrived at a “tipping point” on climate change, then we need to address the problem of decarbonization through an approach that goes well beyond market “mechanisms,” and requires both social and political mobilization.

Ecosystem-based management (EBM) emerged in the late 1980s as an alternative to the piecemeal, jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction approach to natural resource management that dominated the twentieth century. EBM features three central attributes: (1) planning at a landscape scale, (2) collaboration with stakeholders, and (3) adaptive and flexible implementation. According to its proponents, EBM can generate management that is not only ecologically sensitive and responsive to new scientific information but also widely accepted. Application of EBM has yielded some important environmental benefits, including improvements in scientists’ understanding of large-scale ecosystems. Those advances in knowledge, however, have not necessarily translated into the kinds of political and policy changes that the proponents of EBM had hoped for. Nor have they yielded more resilient ecosystems. Instead, in prominent cases of EBM, powerful interests have dominated the collaborative planning process, and flexible implementation has allowed those who are not committed to evade responsibility for implementing environmental sustainability measures. Simply enhancing scientific models to better assess complex risks will not ensure that EBM yields genuine ecological restoration. Also important are a credible and stringent regulatory framework and political leaders who place a premium on ecological integrity.

The urgent need for coastal management of tempo and mode for global population growth and urbanization is generally underappreciated. That growth is inevitable in the coming two decades. With a population of 311 million, the United States must absorb one to two million people per year in coastal watersheds, yet maintain a sustainable and built environment. Degree of success is largely dependent on the policy domain–political will and performance of governance. The ­current compartmentalized governance structure has been inadequate in meeting environmental goals, and the structure is unlikely to change in the next decade. Strategic and targeted approaches that account for the social, economic, and environmental realities of urban space in a sustainability context are needed for framing contemporary management strategies. That is, confronting reality, thinking strategically, and changing the way institutions are managed and their degree of connectivity. Strategic guidelines are advanced as a blueprint for creating practical, sustainability-based frameworks for performance enhancement. Operational imperatives include pragmatism, prioritization, alignment, understanding, anticipation, context, and implementation.

What are the causes of and sources of resistance to transitions from depleting, damaging trends to conserving and restoring trends in the use and management of natural resources? This is a central question in sustainability science, which we address by discussing “forest transition theory,” one well-established area of analysis, and proposing “fisheries transition theory” for another. The general question is whether such transitions take place, their timing, and evident causes. Forest transition theory developed around the questions of how factors such as industrialization and urbanization affect forest cover and what situations encourage turnarounds in forest cover, from deforestation to forestation. We point to similarities and differences in the factors that appear to be involved in the recovery of depleted fish stocks as a first step toward a comparable theory concerning fisheries transitions to sustainability.

Techno-industrial society and modern cities as presently conceived are inherently unsustainable. This conclusion flows from the energy and material dynamics of growing cities interpreted in light of the second law of thermodyna­mics. In second law terms, cities are self-organizing, far-from-equilibrium dissipative structures whose “self-organization” is utterly dependent on access to abundant energy and material resources. Cities are also open, growing, dependent subsystems of the materially-closed nongrowing ecosphere—they produce themselves and grow by feeding on energy and matter extracted from their host ecosystems. Indeed, high-income consumer cities are concentrated nodes of material consumption and waste production that parasitize large areas of productive ecosystems and waste sinks lying far outside the cities. The latter constitute the cities’ true “ecological footprints.” In effect, thermodynamic law dictates that cities can increase their own local structure and complexity (negentropy) only by increasing the disorder and randomness (entropy) in their host system, the ecosphere. The problem is that anthropogenic degradation now exceeds ecospheric regeneration and threatens to undermine the very urban civilization causing it. To achieve sustainability, global society must rebalance production and consumption, abandon the growth ethic, relocalize our economies and increase urban-regional self-reliance, all of which fly in the face of prevailing global development ideology.

A comprehensive, yet simple, model of the urban metabolism is described using approximately 25 closed-form equations. The equations represent essential interrelationships between the major components of metabolism—materials, water, nutrients, energy, and contaminants. The model expresses the role of infrastructure in the urban metabolism through parameters such as per capita floor space and the density of transportation infrastructure which, as part of a city’s material stock, influence the flows of energy and/or water flows through the city. The density of transportation infrastructure is found to be a potentially universal parameter, with a value of 0.10 km ha⁻¹, which is relatively invariant between cities. The model also includes other parameters which, although having more variation, are independent of climate, city size, population, and other unique characteristics of cities. These other parameters include: material intensities, per capita floor space, intensity of water use for cooling, leakage rates for water distribution systems, heating and cooling intensities of buildings, and utilization rates for transportation infrastructure.

Local governments are in a unique position to manifest and implement the practices of sustainability. They possess a decision-making apparatus that allows sustainability practices to be readily implemented; they are the institutions closest to the people and whose decisions reflect on developing the holistic health of the community, meaning that the goals of equity, economy and environmental quality must all be satisfied equally; and they are the institutions that are most directly accountable to the people. This chapter discusses the origins and principles of sustainability planning for cities, various strategies for implementation, and concludes by providing a case study of a sustainability plan for the city of Manila, Philippines.

Climate change and globalization present significant challenges for ­sustainability. Both processes enhance connections across space and time, such that actions taken in one part of the world have increasingly visible impacts in other parts of the world. The processes also magnify risks and uncertainties, exacerbate vulnerabilities, and undermine resilience to many types of shocks and stresses. This chapter explores how climate change and globalization are together influencing sustainability in urbanized coastal zones with particular emphasis on coastal New Jersey. While urban coastal zones have long confronted a multitude of development-related stresses including reductions in quantity and quality of freshwater flow into estuaries, destruction and degradation of wetlands, and dredging and development of harbor areas, climate change and globalization represent new and interconnected sources of stress. Under climate change, altered temperature regimes, shifts in the variability and seasonality of precipitation, increases in the frequency and magnitude of extreme events, and sea level rise are together transforming the environmental baseline of coastal areas. At the same time, processes of globalization are contributing to growth of coastal tourism, intensification of coastal property investment, expansion of port facilities and shipping traffic, and changes in the availability of public funds needed to manage these complex, coupled systems.

Improving sustainability trajectories related to the biological health of urban waters requires enhancing the effectiveness of US nitrogen control programs for watersheds, cities, and ocean waters. A trajectory consists of identification of sustainability values, use of science to identify alternative solutions, selection of means for change, and assessment of results. Nitrogen, a limiting nutrient in most marine waters, contributes to algal blooms, declining levels of dissolved oxygen, and changes in biodiversity when it is present in bioavailable and excess amounts. Left unchecked nitrogen enrichment results in a regional trajectory trending away from biological sustainability. Its impacts have been observed on local, national, and global scales. The sustainability trajectory framework provides a novel way to view success or failure by clarifying values promoted and the means to reach them. Sequences of decisions related to nitrogen enrichment of New York Bight, Narragansett Bay, and Chesapeake Bay show that positive ecological trajectories rely upon the linkage of sustainability targets to authoritative governance techniques.

Perhaps more than any other ecotone, the land–water interface has been “reclaimed” solely for human uses—living space, ports and harbors, and agriculture—essentially extirpating other goods and services that these ecosystems provide. Although the importance of ecosystem services associated with wetland transition zones has been increasingly recognized in the past 60 years, the approach to “restoration” and “rehabilitation” has largely lacked scientific rigor. The status of coastal wetland restoration science is discussed herein with specific attention to design criteria that attempt to restore wetland functions and ecological fidelity. Methods for better integration of restoration science and practice to inform policy, and the quantification of restored functions are described within the context of three case histories.

Climate change, species invasions, and changes in social practices and cultural beliefs about nature are creating new ecosystems, some of which have no apparent roots in the past. The emergence of hybrid (familiar ecosystems with new combinations) and novel (unfamiliar) ecosystems challenges conventional ecological restoration practices, which places reliance on robust notions of historical fidelity. There is an extent to which the science and practice of restoration can be adapted to cope with significant change and discontinuities, but beyond a certain point, yet unknowable, it may be necessary to look ahead to emerging practices that blend the important qualities of restoration with wild or regenerative design.

It is often argued that in the fields of conservation and restoration, research, practice, public perceptions, and societal interests should not only engage one another but also be integrated in order to guarantee success in the long term. Moreover, there is need for concepts and practices that are flexible enough to be acceptable to different parties and still have a common meaning. Such concepts and practices have been labeled “boundary objects.” Here, we describe the concept of “natural limits” and the practice known as the “hands on the tap approach” as successful examples of boundary objects introduced into the discussion of gas exploitation in the Dutch Wadden Sea area. While the concept of natural limits focuses primarily on natural issues, in many restoration projects, societal issues—for example, protection against flooding—are often of at least comparable importance, especially in highly populated areas where many stakeholders are involved. The concept of social limits, on the other hand, refers to widely accepted “limit” values for important societal parameters, for example, safety, agriculture, and recreation. How these “social limits” can be taken into account is discussed in relation to a number of Dutch projects, including dune management, the protection of meadow birds, brook valley restoration, and the introduction of ungulates. Links between social and natural limits in environmental standard setting are addressed along with the issue of communication.

A sustainable system is not necessarily a high-quality one, but it could be. We could, for example, “survive” on the desperate edge, as the remnants in a self-fouled and deteriorating environment. Why won’t a future sustainable system be just another industrial model of mass efficiency and throughput? Perhaps the incompatible outcomes are a choice between the sometimes nearly invisible civilizing aspects of culture nurturing respect, equality, and cooperation on one hand, and the greed and self-indulgences undermining social tolerance, empathy, and cooperation that ends up promoting violence and dehumanization. The human heritage is subtle, indestructible, and worth nurturing if we want that hospitable sustainable system. But, assuming that a kind of social osmosis will be sufficient to sustain justice and fairness is wrongheaded and dismisses the historical examples. A new cultural narrative is needed to override the maladaptive dissonance preventing formation of sustainable systems. This narrative will be anchored in personal initiatives, incorporates an appreciation of our evolved heritage, and is informed by intentional social learning within groups and occasional social punishment.

The greatest challenge our generation faces is creating a sustainable future. At the core is maintaining the services ecosystems provide humanity, but our ability to achieve that objective is made more difficult because ecosystems, the biosphere, and the socio-economic system with which they are linked are complex adaptive systems, in which individual agendas translate into global consequences. For management, that introduces problems of the Commons, and of how to achieve cooperation in attaining the best possible solutions for the collective good. At the core are issues of equity, of prosociality, and of the management of public goods and common-pool resources. Progress has been made in addressing these issues, but realism argues that new institutional frameworks will be necessary to create a sustainable future for the global biosphere.