April 2013 – March 2014, Montevideo, Interdisciplinary Space, UdelaR

Proposal in charge of researchers from UdelaR, University of Buenos Aires and SARAS Institute.

“Socio-Ecological Systems: Characteristics, Dynamics and Management” was a proposal for the Thematic Year 2013 under the direction of SARAS and research groups from the University of the Republic of Uruguay and the University of Buenos Aires (UBA).

Context
Human societies depend on ecosystem services for the production of food, products, and for maintaining sanitary conditions. Current ecosystem utilization strategies compromise the sustainability of the systems in the medium and long term.

Natural and socio-economic systems are closely interwoven. Nevertheless throughout history, the natural and social sciences have analyzed these systems independent from one another.

Different theoretical frameworks have been used to approach these issues. Economists have advanced in the understanding of the dynamics of capital flow and accumulation, sociologists in the structure of human interactions and their relation to the political-economic and geographic environment in which they are found, geography and territorial planning in the understanding territorial transformations and the design of strategies for its management, physicists and mathematicians have made remarkable advances in the dynamics of complex systems, and biologists in relation to the functioning of the ecosystems and the services they provide.

The analysis of the main structural and functional characteristics of socio-ecological systems (SES) is a theoretical framework that seeks to overcome the current inability to solve different problems at local, national and global levels. It generates key scientific knowledge for the development of effective policies in favor of socio-economic and ecosystemic sustainability.

Arocena, Porto and Gudynas for the Launching of the Thematic Year on “Socio-Ecological Systems,” April 2013.

This Thematic Year proposes for 2013 seminars and workshops to gain a broader perspective of Socio-Ecological Systems using an interdisciplinary analysis of the following:

Theoretical aspects

Presentations

Case studies