Quantifying economic and ecological sustainability

Fath, B. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9440-6842 (2015). Quantifying economic and ecological sustainability. Ocean & Coastal Management 108 13-19. 10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2014.06.020.

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

Sustainability is an important concept currently at the forefront of many policy agendas. Yet, the science of sustainability is still inchoate: What does it means for a system to be sustainable? What are the features of sustainable systems and how can they be quantified? The systems we deal with - ecological, economic, social, and integrated - are complex and operate by maintaining functional gradients away from equilibrium. While there are basic requirements regarding availability of input and output boundary flows and sinks, sustainability is centrally a feature of system configuration. A system must provide a basis of positionally-balancing, wholeness-enhancing centers of activity. One aspect of this system balance is between efficiency and redundancy which can be measured in ecological and economic systems using information-based network analysis. Specifically, the robustness indicator as developed by Robert Ulanowicz and colleagues offers deep insight into the structure and function of these self-sustaining autocatalytic configurations (through constant flows of energy and matter). In this paper, I overview these concepts and methods and provide examples from economic and ecological systems and discuss the meaning of the differences in outcome.

Item Type:	Article
Research Programs:	Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA)
Bibliographic Reference:	Ocean & Coastal Management; 108:13-19 (May 2015) (Published online 16 July 2014)
Depositing User:	IIASA Import
Date Deposited:	15 Jan 2016 08:53
Last Modified:	27 Aug 2021 17:25
URI:	https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/11486

Actions (login required)

View Item