We will review some of the major results in random graphs and some of the more challenging open problems. We will cover algorithmic and structural questions. We will touch on newer models, including those related to the WWW.

Random graphs

Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Edited by I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave. Pp. viii, 282. £3·50, paperback £1. 1970. (Cambridge University Press.)

▶ Addresses a wide range of timely environment, economic and energy topics ▶ A forum to review, analyze and stimulate the development, testing and implementation of mitigation and adaptation strategies at regional, national and global scales ▶ Contributes to real-time policy analysis and development as national and international policies and agreements are discussed and promulgated ▶ 94% of authors who answered a survey reported that they would definitely publish or probably publish in the journal again

Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change

https://bio.uib.no/te/papers/Grimm_2010_The_ODD_protocol_.pdf

The ODD protocol: A review and first update

There is emerging agreement that sustainability challenges require new ways of knowledge production and decision-making. One key aspect of sustainability science, therefore, is the involvement of actors from outside academia into the research process in order to integrate the best available knowledge, reconcile values and preferences, as well as create ownership for problems and solution options. Transdisciplinary, community-based, interactive, or participatory research approaches are often suggested as appropriate means to meet both the requirements posed by real-world problems as well as the goals of sustainability science as a transformational scientific field. Dispersed literature on these approaches and a variety of empirical projects applying them make it difficult for interested researchers and practitioners to review and become familiar with key components and design principles of how to do transdisciplinary sustainability research. Starting from a conceptual model of an ideal–typical transdisciplinary research process, this article synthesizes and structures such a set of principles from various strands of the literature and empirical experiences. We then elaborate on them, looking at challenges and some coping strategies as experienced in transdisciplinary sustainability projects in Europe, North America, South America, Africa, and Asia. The article concludes with future research needed in order to further enhance the practice of transdisciplinary sustainability research.

/pdf/transdisciplinary-research-in-sustainability-science-4wi0tfk5i7.pdf

Transdisciplinary research in sustainability science: practice, principles, and challenges

Researchers and development organizations regularly grapple with competing ecological and financial strategies for building climate resilience in smallholder agricultural systems, but rarely are such approaches considered in tandem. Using a socialecological simulation model, we explored how different combinations of legume cover cropping, an ecological insurance, and indexbased crop insurance, a financial insurance, affect the climate resilience of mixed crop-livestock smallholder farmers over time. The model simulates interactions between soil nutrient dynamics, crop yields, and household wealth, which is carried solely in the form of livestock. We assume legume cover cropping provides biological nitrogen fixation, thereby increasing soil fertility and productivity over time, whereas microinsurance gives payouts in drought years that provide ex-post coping benefits. Our model results indicate that the benefits of cover cropping to mean household income strongly complement the shock-absorbing benefits of microinsurance. Specifically, we found: (1) insurance always provides larger benefits during and in the wake of a drought, while cover cropping progressively reduces poverty in the mediumto long-term; (2) the use of crop insurance solely as an ex-post coping strategy may not reduce the incidence of poverty; and (3) legume cover cropping offers larger relative benefits in more degraded environments and for poor farmers. These results underscore the complementary roles that ecological and financial strategies could play in building resilience in smallholder agricultural systems. The stylized model constitutes an important social-ecological foundation for future empirical research to inform agricultural innovation and sustainable development priorities.

/pdf/ecological-and-financial-strategies-provide-complementary-2o3qff8ble.pdf

Ecological and financial strategies provide complementary benefits for smallholder climate resilience: insights from a simulation model

Summary In 2018 the last active German hard coal mines have been abandoned and transitioned into the postmining phase. In the postmining phase, mine water pumping, necessary during active mining, becomes technically and economically unnecessary and unprofitable. As a consequence, the controlled process of mine water rebound to predefined levels increases the pore fluid pressure of subsurface rocks and changes the local stress field. As a result, faults may be (re-)activated inducing ground movements and microseismicity. This study presents an interdisciplinary approach consisting of geology, geomechanics, gas technology, geodesy, and geophysics in order to provide a process understanding how subsurface and surface are geomechanically coupled in the eastern Ruhr hard coal mining area, western Germany. Thus, mine workings and favourably oriented fractures represent the major pathways for mine water. This in accordance with CO2, 222Rn, and O2 anomalies detected along a fault. Rock matrices, however, are tight (mean porosity &lt;1 %, mean permeability &lt;1 mD). Furthermore, ground subsidence and microseismic events (–0.8 to 2.6 MLV) are spatially and temporally correlated with the mine water rebound and mine workings, but unrelated to tectonic faults. The applicability of these findings to other hard coal mining areas (e.g. Saarland, Ibbenbüren) will be tested. 

FloodRisk – Postmining, mine water rebound, microseismicity, and ground movements

Groundwater governance in Cuyama valley unites in a nutshell the structural dilemmas ofneoliberal environmental governance: a weak state, powerful corporations, a population called to participate but not to decide and a limited vital resource. Creating institutions of self-governance in the conflictual domain of groundwater use draws local actors into the centerof  political struggles and strategies, as the State of California avoids to govern or limit, groundwater use purportedlyfor fear of getting embroiled in costly and lengthy lawsuits with private agroindustry. The SGMA process shows the power of property and money in thepolitical game of sustainable resource governance, but it also confronts powerful actors with objectivizing satellite measurements, that point to absolute limits and challenge the growth myth. The institution building for groundwatergovernance in Cuyama presents similar paradoxes and dilemmas as the attempts onthe international level to create national self-governance mechanisms for mitigating climate change.@font-face{font-family:"Cambria Math";panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;mso-font-charset:0;mso-generic-font-family:roman;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face{font-family:NSimSun;panose-1:2 1 6 9 3 1 1 1 1 1;mso-font-alt:"Microsoft YaHei";mso-font-charset:134;mso-generic-font-family:modern;mso-font-pitch:fixed;mso-font-signature:3 680460288 22 0 262145 0;}@font-face{font-family:"\@NSimSun";mso-font-charset:134;mso-generic-font-family:modern;mso-font-pitch:fixed;mso-font-signature:3 680460288 22 0 262145 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal{mso-style-unhide:no;mso-style-qformat:yes;mso-style-parent:"";margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;mso-hyphenate:none;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-fareast-font-family:NSimSun;mso-font-kerning:.5pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:AR-SA;}.MsoChpDefault{mso-style-type:export-only;mso-default-props:yes;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}div.WordSection1{page:WordSection1;}

Whose Limit? Water and Democracy in a Green Californian Desert

Fracture network characterisation of the naturally fractured Upper Carboniferous sandstones combining outcrop and wellbore data, Ruhr Basin, Germany

Sustainability challenges in socio-environmental systems (SES) are inherently multiscale, with global-level changes emerging from socio-environmental processes that operate across different spatial, temporal, and organisational scales. Models of SES therefore need to incorporate multiple scales, which requires sound methodologies for transferring information between scales. Due to the increasing global connectivity of SES, upscaling – increasing the extent or decreasing the resolution of a modelling study – is becoming progressively more important. However, upscaling in SES models has received less attention than in other fields (e.g., ecology or hydrology) and therefore remains a pressing challenge. To advance the understanding of upscaling in SES, we take three steps. First, we review existing upscaling approaches in SES as well as other disciplines. Second, we identify four main challenges that are particularly relevant to upscaling in SES: 1) heterogeneity, 2) interactions, 3) learning and adaptation, and 4) emergent phenomena. Third, we present an approach that facilitates the transfer of existing upscaling methods to SES, using two good practice examples from ecology. To describe and compare these methods, we propose a scheme of five general upscaling strategies. This scheme builds upon and unifies existing schemes and provides a standardised way to classify and represent existing as well as new upscaling methods. We demonstrate how the scheme can help to transparently present upscaling methods and uncover scaling assumptions, as well as to identify limits for the transfer of upscaling methods. We finish by pointing out research avenues on upscaling in SES to address the identified upscaling challenges.

Birgit Müller

Papers

Ecological and financial strategies provide complementary benefits for smallholder climate resilience: insights from a simulation model

FloodRisk – Postmining, mine water rebound, microseismicity, and ground movements

Whose Limit? Water and Democracy in a Green Californian Desert

Fracture network characterisation of the naturally fractured Upper Carboniferous sandstones combining outcrop and wellbore data, Ruhr Basin, Germany

Upscaling in socio-environmental systems modelling: Current challenges, promising strategies and insights from ecology