Published In
Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
4-2011
Subjects
Environmental degradation -- Prevention, Urban climatology, Sustainable development
Abstract
Understanding the complexity of human–nature interactions is central to the quest for both human well-being and global sustainability. To build an understanding of these interactions, scientists, planners, resource managers, policy makers, and communities increasingly are collaborating across wide-ranging disciplines and knowledge domains. Scientists and others are generating new integrated knowledge on top of their requisite specialized knowledge to understand complex systems in order to solve pressing environmental and social problems (e.g., Carpenter et al. 2009). One approach to this sort of integration, bringing together detailed knowledge of various disciplines (e.g., social, economic, biological, and geophysical), has become known as the study of Coupled Human and Natural Systems, or CHANS (Liu et al. 2007a, b).
In 2007 a formal standing program in Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems was created by the U.S. National Science Foundation. Recently, the program supported the launch of an International Network of Research on Coupled Human and Natural Systems (CHANS-Net.org). A major kick-off event of the network was a symposium on Complexity in Human–Nature Interactions across Landscapes, which brought together leading CHANS scientists at the 2009 meeting of the U.S. Regional Association of the International Association for Landscape Ecology in Snowbird, Utah. The symposium highlighted original and innovative research emphasizing reciprocal interactions between human and natural systems at multiple spatial, temporal, and organizational scales. The presentations can be found at: http://chansnet. org/Symposium_2009.aspx. The symposium was accompanied by a workshop on Challenges and Opportunities in CHANS Research. This article provides an overview of the CHANS approach, outlines the primary challenges facing the CHANS research community, and discusses potential strategies to meet these challenges, based upon the presentations and discussions among participants at the Snowbird meeting.
DOI
10.1890/0012-9623-92.2.218
Persistent Identifier
http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/16425
Citation Details
Marina Alberti, Heidi Asbjornsen, Lawrence A. Baker, Nicholas Brozovic, Laurie E. Drinkwater, Scott A. Drzyzga, Claire A. Jantz, José Fragoso, Daniel S. Holland, Timothy (Tim) A. Kohler, Jianguo (Jack) Liu, William J. McConnell, Herbert D. G. Maschner, James D. A. Millington, Michael Monticino, Guillermo Podestá, Robert Gilmore Pontius, Jr., Charles L. Redman, Nicholas J. Reo, David Sailor, and Gerald Urquhart 2011. Research on Coupled Human and Natural Systems (CHANS): Approach, Challenges, and Strategies. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America 92:218–228.
Included in
Materials Science and Engineering Commons, Mechanical Engineering Commons, Sustainability Commons
Description
A symposium on Complexity in Human–Nature Interactions across Landscapes held at the 2009 meeting of the U.S. Regional Association of the International Association for Landscape Ecology in Snowbird, Utah
This paper is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits restricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and sources are credited.