Publications

Chrysafi, A., Virkki, V., Jalava, M. et al. 2022. Quantifying Earth system interactions for sustainable food production via expert elicitation. Nature Sustainability. https://doi-org.ezproxy.its.uu.se/10.1038/s41893-022-00940-6

Several safe boundaries of critical Earth system processes have already been crossed due to human perturbations; not accounting for their interactions may further narrow the safe operating space for humanity. Using expert knowledge elicitation, we explored interactions among seven variables representing Earth system processes relevant to food production, identifying many interactions little explored in Earth system literature....

Yamaura, Y., Fletcher, R., Lade, S., Higa, M., Lindenmayer, D. 2022. From nature reserve to mosaic management: Improving matrix survival, not permeability, benefits regional populations under habitat loss and fragmentation. Journal of Applied Ecology. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14122

Although matrix improvement in fragmented landscapes is a promising conservation measure, matrix permeability (willingness of an organism to enter the matrix) and movement survival in the matrix are usually aggregated. Consequently, it is unknown which matrix property needs to be improved. It also remains unclear whether matrix upgrading from dispersal passage to providing reproduction opportunities has large conservation bene...

Kitzmann, N. H., Donges, J. F., Bai, X., Lade, S., Romanczuk, P., and Winkelmann, R.: Contagious Transformations? Inter-City Spreading of Sustainability Innovations., EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-8976, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-8976, 2021

In the Anthropocene, socio-economic systems are an integral and highly interconnected part of Earth System. The internal dynamics of these systems will decide whether the Earth can remain in, or return to, a resilient state that resembles the Holocene. Understanding these dynamics thus represents an important aspect of Earth System Science. To prevent the irreversible crossing of Planetary Boundaries, a rapid, global societal...

Sumaila, U., Skerritt, D., Schuhbauer, A., Villasante, S., Cisneros-Montemayor, A., et.al. 2021. WTO must ban harmful fisheries subsidies. Science. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.abm1680

Sustainably managed wild fisheries support food and nutritional security, livelihoods, and cultures. Harmful fisheries subsidies—government payments that incentivize overcapacity and lead to overfishing—undermine these benefits yet are increasing globally. World Trade Organization (WTO) members have a unique opportunity at their ministerial meeting in November to reach an agreement that eliminates harmful subsidies. We—a group...

Donges, J., Lucht, W., Cornell, S., Heitzig, J., Barfuss, W., Lade, S., Schlüter, M.. 2021. Taxonomies for structuring models for World–Earth systems analysis of the Anthropocene: subsystems, their interactions and social–ecological feedback loops. Earth System Dynamics. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-1115-2021

In the Anthropocene, the social dynamics of human societies have become critical to understanding planetary-scale Earth system dynamics. The conceptual foundations of Earth system modelling have externalised social processes in ways that now hinder progress in understanding Earth resilience and informing governance of global environmental change.New approaches to global modelling of the human World are needed to address these ...

Folke, C., Haider, L., Lade, S., Norström, A., Rocha, J.. 2021. Resilience and social-ecological systems: A handful of frontiers. Global Environmental Change. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102400

Fifteen years have passed since the publication in Global Environmental Change of the article Resilience: the emergence of a perspective of social-ecological systems analyses (Folke 2006). Resilience of social-ecological systems, now widely spread, is found in many academic fields, contributing exciting work and novel insights. Social-ecological resilience thinking has become part of practice, policy, and business, ranging fr...

Radosavljevic, S., Haider, L.J., Lade, S.J. & Schlüter, M. 2021. Implications of poverty traps across levels. World Development 144, 105437.

Recent research has demonstrated the multidimensional nature of poverty and the multi-level organization of social-ecological systems that display poverty traps. The traps on these different levels can reinforce each other, and therefore multi-level traps pose particular challenges for poverty alleviation. Yet, poverty trap models rarely consider more than one level of organization and only a few attributes of the system at ea...

Lade, S.J., Fetzer, I., Cornell, S.E. & Crona, B. 2021. A prototype Earth system impact metric that accounts for cross-scale interactions. Environmental Research Letters 16(11), 115005.

Human activities are disrupting the Earth system's biophysical processes, which underlie human wellbeing. The planetary boundary framework sets 'safe' global limits on these pressures, but a sub-global assessment of these pressures, their interactions and subsequent systemic effects is needed to enable corporate and public entities to assess the systemic environmental impacts of their decisions. Here, we developed a prototype ...

Rockström, J., Gupta, J., Lenton, T.M., Qin, D., Lade, S.J., Abrams, J.F., Jacobson, L., Rocha, J.C., Zimm, C., Bai, X., Bala, G., Bringezu, S., Broadgate, W., Bunn, S.E., DeClerck, F., Ebi, K.L., Gong, P., Gordon, C., Kanie, N., Liverman, D.M., Nakicenovic, N., Obura, D., Ramanathan, V., Verburg, P.H., van Vuuren, D.P. & Winkelmann, R. 2021. Identifying a safe and just corridor for people and the planet. Earths Future 9(4), e2020EF001866.

Keeping the Earth system in a stable and resilient state, to safeguard Earth's life support systems while ensuring that Earth's benefits, risks, and related responsibilities are equitably shared, constitutes the grand challenge for human development in the Anthropocene. Here, we describe a framework that the recently formed Earth Commission will use to define and quantify target ranges for a “safe and just corridor” that meet...

Harker-Schuch, I., Lade, S., Mills, F. and Colvin, R., 2020. Opinions of 12 to 13-year-olds in Austria and Australia on the concern, cause and imminence of climate change. Ambio, pp.1-17.

Early adolescence (12–13 years old) is a critical but under-researched demographic for the formation of attitudes related to climate change. We address this important area by exploring adolescent views about climate change. This paper presents opinions collected from surveys of 463 1st-year secondary school students (12–13 years old) in public secondary schools in inner-urban centres in Austria and Australia on whether climate...