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Managing
Watersheds as Social-Ecological Systems
Environmental
problems within a watershed are complex, and resolving them requires
an ability to consider different points of view. Solutions require
scientific understanding and a grasp of the policies and community
practices involved. Sustainable solutions require a citizenry
that has the capacity and commitment to analyze complex problems,
balance competing issues, and take informed actions
Managing
watersheds as integral social-ecological systems, therefore, involves
confronting ecological, institutional, social and political complexities.
Each of these dimensions generates different types of uncertainty.
Interactive watershed management is the process of confronting
uncertainty by using management actions as hypotheses. Interactive
watershed management has been successful where sufficient social-ecological
resilience exists.
Resilience
is a key property of complex systems and is derivative of growing
evidence that ecosystems occur in multiple configurations or regimes.
Ecological resilience provides an ecological buffer that protects
the ecosystem from the failure of management actions that are
taken based upon incomplete understanding. Loss of resilience
is usually indicated by abrupt shifts in ecosystem configuration
(structure and function).
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