See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: [Link]

net/publication/309619897

Sustainability Theory and Conceptual Considerations: A Review of Key Ideas for

Article  in  Papers in Applied Geography · November 2016

CITATIONS READS

45 25,337

1 author:

Lisa Mathis Butler Harrington

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Lisa Mathis Butler Harrington on 17 November 2017.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

A Review of Key Ideas for Sustainability, and the Rural Context

Lisa M. Butler Harrington

118 Seaton Hall

lbutlerh@[Link]

Harrington, L. M. B. Sustainability theory and conceptual considerations: a review of key

See final published article

1
 Sustainability Theory and Conceptual Considerations:

A Review of Key Ideas for Sustainability, and the Rural Context

Abstract

‘Sustainability’ and ‘sustainable development’ have become important concepts and goals across

science and society. Sustainability, connected to desirable long-term conditions, is an inherently

applied pursuit in geography and other fields. An integrative statement of essential concepts

upon which sustainability studies and applications are being built has been lacking, however.

Based on the literature, a number of key ideas or theoretical concepts are discussed here,

including the importance of choice, place, scale, systems, limits, change, connected concepts,

and the identity of ‘sustainability.’ The rural context is used to present examples illustrating key

ideas for sustainability, but the concepts apply broadly to applications and research related to

improving the directions of environmental and social changes within local, regional, and global

systems under the influence of human actions.

Key words: sustainability; rural geography; global change; social-ecological systems (SES)

2
1. Introduction

Sustainability, including sustainable development (WCED 1987; NRC 1999), has

become a core concern from global to regional and local scales, with numerous attempts to apply

the concept to a variety of places and concerns. As noted by Bettencourt and Kaur (2011), the

“concept of sustainable development…now pervades the agendas of governments and

corporations as well as the mission of educational and research programs worldwide.” The

intertwined concepts of sustainability and development are linked to concerns about the health of

social-ecological systems and the increasingly evident human dimensions of global change

(Vitousek et al. 1997; MA 2005; Kareiva et al. 2007; Steffen, Crutzen, and McNeill 2007;

Steffen et al. 2015a, 2015b). With rising concerns about the capacity of Earth systems and

human technologies to maintain ecosystem services and provide for human needs, sustainability

science emerged at the beginning of the 21st century, with attention to both basic and applied

research (Kates et al. 2001; Clark 2007; Elsevier and [Link] 2015).

Sustainability may be defined as the capacity to maintain or improve the state and

availability of desirable materials or conditions over the long term. This definition retains the

commonly cited characteristics of sustainability and sustainable development as oriented toward

the long term, and the basic identification of sustaining any particular conditions or materials as

keeping or maintaining them. The definition offered here also may be applied to particular

interests, as well as to any spatial scale. Other descriptions, such as “[m]eeting fundamental

human needs while preserving the life-support systems of planet Earth” (Kates et al. 2001, 641)

tend to accentuate the global scale. Pursuit of sustainability or sustainable development implies

that the goal is to maintain or improve beneficial conditions (to sustain them), particularly with

improved capacity to extend desirable conditions over the long term.

3
 It is clear that ‘sustainability’ emphasizes maintaining the desirable aspects of natural

and/or social conditions and, when possible, improving such conditions, including the status of

natural resources. Note that “sustainability” can be considered as a broader concept than

sustainable development. ‘Sustainable development’ focuses on human well-being (WCED

1987). ‘Sustainability’ may be focused on an ecosystem or biodiversity status, for example −

with or without explicit attention to human well-being − or may be focused on a specific aspect

of a human system such as educational equity, or even the financial health of an individual farm

(see, e.g., Palmer, Cooper, and van der Vorst 1997; Waas et al. 2011). In sum, the pursuit of

sustainability is oriented toward long-term treatment of natural resources, social systems, and

people in ways that are consistent with human well-being and dynamic system stability.1

While Bettencourt and Kaur (2011) have discussed the structure and evolution of

sustainability science, the literature on sustainability generally lacks an articulated compilation or

synthesis of overarching principles useful to both applied and basic efforts related to

sustainability and sustainable development.2 The main portion of this paper identifies key ideas

or theoretical concepts to help guide actions meant to support greater sustainability. This is

supplemented by examples drawn from situations in rural environments.

2. Purpose

My purpose here is to present important conceptual points or key ideas that can serve as the

theoretical framework for practical sustainability applications. These key ideas should be

particularly useful for planning for and making decisions related to the pursuit of sustainability,

as well as guiding further research. The key ideas synthesized here are essential concepts about

how social-ecological systems work and the conditions that affect sustainability; they are derived

4
from foundational literature focused on sustainability and related concepts, and frequently

overlap. Such organizing ideas are identified as theoretical constructs in social science.

Recommended guiding principles include the interlinked concepts shown in Table 1, described

explicitly and implicitly below.

Table 1. Key ideas: Important considerations linked to application of the sustainability concept.

Related works
Choices Matter.
 It is not possible to sustain everything, everywhere, forever.
 Transitions and pathways toward sustainability are key; we will
not be able to identify arrival at “sustainability.” NRC 1999; Leathers
 Because systems are dynamic, sustainability is a moving target; and Harrington
there is no endpoint for efforts to reach or maintain it. 2000; Kates, Travis,
 For any identified place or region, and for any identified material and Wilbanks 2012
or condition, there will be different states of lesser or greater
sustainability.
 Gradual changes and sudden threshold-related shifts are both
possible.
Sustainability is a normative concept.
 The idea of sustainability is inextricably connected to what we
see as desirable.
 What is desired varies with reference frame: people have NRC 1999, Kates et al.
different desires, and judge possible futures in different ways 2001, Parris and
Kates 2003
depending on the situation, including temporal outlook and
spatial location.
 Research provides improved understandings relevant to
normative decisions.
Sustainability is a fuzzy concept.
 Sustainability is defined differently by different communities and More 1996; Palmer,
interest groups. Cooper, and van der
 Because the term is applied to many different desires, meaning Vorst 1997; Ducey
is not always clear. and Larson 1999;
Cawley, de S.M.
 Perceptions matter to judgments and management relevant to
Bicalho, and Laurens
sustainability 2013
 Utilitarian and human values tend to be focal concerns, but sole
attention to narrow definitions could cause irredeemable losses.

5
Scale matters, in both space and time.
Wilbanks 1994, 2006;
 What is sustainability at one scale may not be so over a smaller NRC 1999; Wilbanks
or larger area; to become ‘sustainable,’ cities will most likely and Kates 1999;
need connections to supporting rural areas that are sustainable. Kates, Parris, and
 Conditions change over time, and trends affect progress with Leiserowitz 2005
respect to sustainability goals, from local to global scales.
Place matters.
Wilbanks 1994, 2006,
 Places (at whatever scale) differ; at the most basic, the physical Wilbanks and Kates
environmental characteristics available for sustaining also differ. 1999, Bergstrom
 Cultures differ from place to place and can greatly influence 2009, Bergstrom and
societal efforts to move forward along a path toward Harrington 2013
sustainability.
Systems thinking is an organizing concept. Nelson 2005, Carpenter
 Systems of concern for sustainability and sustainable et al. 2006, Liu et al.
development efforts are both connected and embedded 2007, Reid et al.
 Dependence between systems is variable in time and space. 2010, Bettencourt
and Kaur 2011,
 Both proximate and ultimate drivers of conditions and change
Costanza et al. 2013
are of importance.
Limits exist.
 The Earth is finite, and although humans have the capacity to
Rockström et al.
modify conditions and resource production, there are physical
2009a, 2009b; Mace
limits to how far various aspects of the system can be pushed.
et al. 2014; Steffen
 Feedbacks affect system resilience and nearness to thresholds. et al. 2015a, 2015b
 Renewable resources should be removed and used at no more
than the rate of renewal.
Sustainability is interconnected with other essential concepts. Gunderson and Holling
• Practitioners should be aware of resilience, adaptive capacity, 2002, Turner et al.
and vulnerability. 2003Walker et al.
2004, Adger 2006,
Eakin and Luers
2006, Walker and
Salt 2006, O’Brien et
al. 2012
Change is an essential consideration and challenge for
sustainability.
• Environmental (climatic and oceanic systems, land use and land Turner et al. 1990a,
cover), economic, and social/cultural changes are factors in 1990b; NRC 1999;
sustainability. Kates et al. 2001;
• Change at one location/scale can propagate through systems at Walker and Salt
different scales. 2006
• Unanticipated change constitutes what is known as ‘surprise’
and requires adaptive approaches to management.

6
 The ordering of concepts is not based on any suggested differences in relative

importance; rather the order of description is based on clarity and ease of connections among the

identified principles. Some of the ideas expressed here are often implicitly recognized, but not

always explicitly acknowledged. Making such concepts explicit can help with follow-through,

although the broad ideas are simply stated in this compilation.

The concepts/key ideas presented here are broadly applicable across environments, from

urban to the breadth of rural and wildland areas. However, with the secondary purpose of giving

attention to rural sustainability issues in this paper, the more developed rural world serves as the

focus for examples relevant to theoretical concepts presented here.3 Rural environs in the

developed world have seen extensive modifications during the “great acceleration” in human-

caused changes to the environment during the last century (Steffen, Crutzen, and McNeill 2007;

Steffen et al. 2015a, 2015b). Examples used to illustrate rural conditions and guiding concepts

or key ideas for sustainability have been selected based on clarity of connections to the key

ideas, as well as the existence of related literature.

The Rural sustainability and resiliency have garnered increased attention among scholars

(e.g., Marsden 2003; Essex et al. 2005; Robinson 2008; Wilson 2010; McManus et al. 2012).

Woods (2012) identified three of five key challenges for rural research in the 21st century as

“sustainable use of resources,” “resilience of rural communities to environmental uncertainties,”

and “rural economic development based on the sustainable use and management of

environmental resources.”

3. The Rural Context for Sustainability

As noted by Grimm et al. (2008, 756),

7
 The unprecedented rates of urban population growth over the past
century have occurred on <3% of the global terrestrial surface, yet the
impact has been global, with 78% of carbon emissions, 60% of
residential water use, and 76% of wood used for industrial purposes
attributed to cities … Urban dwellers depend on the productive and
assimilative capacities of ecosystems well beyond their city boundaries
‒ “ecological footprints” tens to hundreds of times the area occupied by
a city ‒ to produce the flows of energy, material goods, and nonmaterial
services (including waste absorption) that sustain human well-being
and quality of life.

In other words, the non-urban world provides the materials and energy for urban use and takes

up much of the waste materials released by urban people and processes.

Most of the world’s land area is rural and the dynamics of rural areas regulate many Earth

system functions, provide crucial ecosystem services, and are the source of most of the natural

resources that provision cities as well as rural places, including the global food supply.5 For

example, in an inventory of inputs and outputs for Rome, Italy, Zucaro et al. (2014) identified a

number of ‘imported inputs’ for 2008, including fuels at 2.35E+17 joules, food at 7.17E+11

grams, building materials at 2.11E+13 grams, and wood at 6.95E+11 grams. Such material and

energy exchanges, where environmental goods and services are provided to cities and waste

materials are exported to the countryside, have generally been studied from the perspective of

urban ecological footprints and metabolism (e.g., Kennedy, Cuddihy, and Engel-Yan 2007;

Villarroel Walker and Beck 2012; Moore, Kissinger, and Rees 2013; Zhang 2013). Zucaro et al.

(2014) described cities as “highly dependent open systems which rely on the provision of energy,

food, materials and information from other systems at different scales,” and noted earlier work

that emphasized “the parasitic nature of cities.” Hence, although urban environs are

unquestionably important, it also is important to recognize the role, status, and needs of rural

areas as they relate to their own, urban, and planetary sustainability.

8
 Rural residents generally live and very often work in close connection with the ecosystem

processes that support global, regional, and local populations. People living in rural areas often

are part of resource dependent social-environmental systems, whether based on agricultural

production, mining, timber, energy, or fisheries (Krannich and Luloff 1991; Randall and Ironside

1996; Stedman, Parkins, and Beckman 2004; Marshall et al. 2007; Lawrie, Tonts, and Plummer

2011). This rural resource dependence is related to an economic dependence on outside markets:

transfers of food products and other materials, including wood, fuels, construction materials, and

embodied energy and embodied or virtual water, are important for sustaining both urban life and

the economic well-being of many rural residents.

Agriculture provides a relevant example. Agriculture accounts for nearly 40% of

freshwater withdrawals in the U.S. (Kenny et al. 2009), and most freshwater usage worldwide

FAO 2016). Much of this water supports urban populations in the form of ‘virtual water’ where,

in essence, movement of food, forest products, and other goods also represents movement of

water inputs to these products. There are global concerns with freshwater availability and

quality connected to high demands for agriculture and other uses associated with changing

populations and resource consumption (Simonovic 2002; Hoekstra et al. 2012; UN WWAP

2015). In addition to freshwater scarcity, resource sustainability concerns connected to rural

situations include soil salination; erosion; reduced soil fertility; deforestation; and loss of natural

habitats, biodiversity, and ecosystem services like pollination (MA 2005; Foley et al. 2005,

2011). According to Foley et al. (2005, 570), there is a “worldwide loss of ~1.5 million hectares

of arable land per year, along with an estimated $11 billion in lost production” due to salination

of irrigated land, and perhaps 40% of global croplands are being affected by erosion, reduced

fertility, and overgrazing. They also noted that “modern agricultural landuse practices may be

9
trading short-term increases in food production for long-term losses in ecosystem services,

including many that are important to agriculture.” Clearly, all these losses do not support

sustainability of rural economic systems, food production, or other ecosystem services essential

to both rural and urban inhabitants.

A number of key ideas to guide the pursuit of more sustainable conditions in rural areas

and beyond can be identified, as shown in Table 1 and described below. Awareness of these

foundational concepts and their interconnections should aid practitioners’ efforts to enhance

sustainability in a variety of situations.

4. Sustainability and Sustainability Theory: Key Ideas and the Rural Context

The key ideas or conceptual-theoretical foundations for applications of sustainability (Table 1)

are complex. There are not clear boundaries among these key concepts, and they are

interconnected. To introduce and organize the more complex, interwoven concepts for

sustainability applications, key ideas have been simplified as short statements, with elaboration

in the discussion of each.

4.1. Choices matter

It will not be possible to sustain everything, everywhere, forever: either by choice or default, in

a given place some things will not be sustained over the long term. In some cases, conflicting

desires lead to management that preferentially sustains some resources or qualities over others.

Such is the case in U.S. National Forests, where a multiplicity of uses cannot always be

maintained at the same levels in a specific area. For example, timber production, recreation, and

cattle grazing are all uses for which National Forests are managed, but they generally are not

compatible in a specific area. Additionally, some resources are not renewable and can only be

10
used at faster or slower rates. Fossil groundwater in the High Plains/Ogallala Aquifer region of

western Kansas, USA, is a relevant example: it may be used more slowly to lengthen its useful

lifespan for irrigation, but it will eventually be depleted to the point where the cost to extract

water will exceed its economic benefits to crop agriculture (e.g., Kromm and White 1992;

Harrington 2005; Kettle, Harrington, and Harrington 2007; Harrington, Lu, and Harrington 2009;

Steward et al. 2013). The current choice is to use (up) the resource, limiting the lifespan of

irrigated crop agriculture. Agriculture in some form will likely survive in the region, but

sensitivity to rainfall and rainfall variability will increase with conversion to rain-fed crop

production. The absence of explicit sustainability-related decision-making still is a choice, and

the outcome (sustainable or otherwise) is affected.

The ways people relate to their physical and social environments – and their associated

decisions – are affected by a number of emotional and reasoning-related ‘internal’ factors. These

include values (e.g., humanistic altruism, biospheric altruism, biospheric attitudes/associations,

self-interest, traditionalism, and openness to change) frequently approached through the value-

belief-norm (VBN), new environmental paradigm (NEP), and implicit association frameworks

(e.g., Stern and Dietz 1994; Stern 2000; Dunlap et al. 2000; Dietz, Fitzgerald, and Shwom 2005;

Schulz et al. 2004, 2005; Dunlap 2008; Dunlap and York 2008; Hawcroft and Milfont 2010). A

farmer may choose to produce with organic methods, risking reduced yields but gaining organic

premium pricing and the psychological benefits of a closer connection to the environment. Other

farmers opt for conventional agriculture with higher inputs but usually a higher yield, along with

greater risk of externalities like soil and water contamination. These choices reflect values and

personal normative decision-making.

11
 In addition to more individually-based decision-making, institutions and governance

structures also affect choices made and scales of policy development, recognizing that

conflicting interests are thus addressed. Policy development and management actions, such as

the U.S. Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) which incentivizes protection of highly erodible

soils and wildlife habitat, are directed to sustainability or sustainable development of certain

aspects of human-environmental systems. As of May 2016, well over 9.6 million ha of

agricultural land is enrolled in CRP and subprograms (USDA FSA 2016). Effectiveness of such

programs depend in part on group and individual experiences, perceptions, attitudes, and internal

values, as well as specific program requirements, general economic conditions, and land

characteristics. Land managers may make decisions counterproductive to policy intent when

there are opportunities to do so at a profit (see Leathers and Harrington 2000).

4.2 Sustainability is normative

Deliberate choices are, of course, based on desires − what people want and see as “good” or

preferable in some way. With its link to choice, sustainability is a normative concept (NRC

1999, Kates et al. 2001, Parris and Kates 2003): sustainability and sustainable development have

been widely adopted as representing something “good” (or “better”) and beneficial for people

and environmental health. The directive of medical ethics to “first, do no harm” is an ideal goal

and relevant for pursuit of sustainability and sustainable development. In environmental risk

management this is applied as the precautionary principle: the goal is to ensure that outcomes

and safety of an action are known before adopting it. Given the complexity of Earth systems,

however, and the choices that must be made, there may be instances when “harm” is done to one

system characteristic in order to sustain others. This may be intentional, as people pursue

12
competing interests, but history indicates that harm often occurs unintentionally following from

incomplete understanding of system complexities. The use of DDT for insect control, leading to

cascading effects in the food web, and the use of CFCs as coolants, leading to stratospheric

ozone depletion, are two clear examples of actions that led to unintentional harmful changes. An

example of intentional alteration occurs with land use change from forests and other ecosystems

to farming or ranching. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA 2005) points out that

human populations have benefited from enhanced production of crops and livestock since the

mid-20th century but there have been related unintentional losses of other ecosystem services.

Wild foods, wood fuel, erosion regulation, and pest regulation have seen diminished status.

Essentially, the choice to sustain/increase food production for the growing world population has

meant a reduction in the sustainability of a number of other environmental components,

particularly when considering biodiversity losses.

In rural regions, the traditionalism that many observers associate with farming and other

rural livelihoods like timber production and fisheries becomes a normative value-shaping

approach which may in some cases hinder overall environmental sustainability or well-being.

The Goulburn-Broken Catchment in Australia has seen increased sensitivity to rainfall and rising

saline groundwater related to agricultural practices and water use (Anderies 2005; Anderies,

Ryan, and Walker 2006; Walker and Salt 2006; Walker et al. 2009). As Walker and Salt (2006,

41) described the situation, the choice of farmers to “continue doing things the way they’ve

always done things” is largely at fault, with irrigation applications helping to raise the water table

and keeping soils in jeopardy of salinization. Normative values, as well as aversion to change,

frequently support the status quo, or “business as usual,” in order to maintain production in the

13
immediate/short term, rather than changing how the system works in the longer term.

Oftentimes sensitivity to the economics of farming supports short-term decision-making.

Sustaining agriculture in places like the High Plains/Ogallala and Goulburn-Broken

regions may require a normative judgment that some other form of agriculture will be better in

the long term (combined with economic incentives to change the current system). At times, a

normative preference for business as usual or maximized profit may conflict with other values,

such as a farmer’s or rancher’s desire to leave the land in as good or better condition for future

generations. Application of specific resource policies, including economic support for

conservation activities or changes to agricultural practices, can help reshape preferences and

choices to enhance sustainability. Communications among members of a group through

governance processes also strengthens recognition of particular values related to sustainability

and may lead to decision-making that is more focused on long-term well-being. For example,

the Malpai Borderlands Group in southern Arizona and New Mexico has led to successful

approaches to range management and communications among (supposedly) different interest

groups (see, e.g., Allen 2006).

4.3 Sustainability is a ‘fuzzy concept’

There are frequent expressions of concern about the lack of clarity or absoluteness of a definition

of sustainability (see Palmer, Cooper, and van der Vorst 1997). Multiple applications of the

terms ‘sustainability’ and ‘sustainable development’ often complicate decision-making, but

benefits may exist in recognizing sustainability as a “fuzzy concept” – an idea that is variably

applied. In describing ecosystem management, More (1996, 21) noted that it is a fuzzy concept

defined through “practices, techniques, goals, and objectives that share overlapping attributes or

14
characteristics.” Although lacking in a singular definition, concepts like sustainability and

ecosystem management still are useful; their fuzziness can actually be “liberating” according to

More (1996, 22) (see also Ducey and Larson 1999). In his view, the approaches or means being

applied are less important than the goals. With sustainability (which More also recognized as a

fuzzy concept), the benefit of having a ‘fuzzy set’ of approaches means that the basic goal of

sustainability (maintaining or improving desirable conditions, and more broadly strengthening

the capacity to do so) can be pursued with more flexibility, for example by identifying the

conditions of particular concern (sustaining everything is not practical) and by identifying

options for pursuing their continuance/improvement.

Notwithstanding the potential benefits, the application of a term like sustainability runs

into difficulties when special interests attempt to apply it in ways contradictory to more widely

accepted conceptualizations. Confusion, and potentially mistrust, result from a broad range of

descriptions and applications of ‘sustainability’ and ‘sustainable development’ (Palmer, Cooper,

and van der Vorst 1997; see also Devlin and Sophocleous 2005, Aras and Crowther 2009),

particularly when used unnecessarily and without a clear (real) connection to the topic being

discussed. Rural specialists describe and apply sustainability in various situations, often

emphasizing one aspect over another (e.g., agricultural sustainability, protected areas, sustainable

tourism [see Cawley, de S.M. Bicalho, and Laurens 2013]). This can be quite appropriate:

variations do not render the term useless, but pursuit of sustainability will benefit from clear

identification of how the term is being used in a particular situation, including the associated

normative values. Ambiguous use of terminology is problematic and does not serve the purposes

of sustainability, policy-making, or management.

4.4. Scale and place matter

15
The question “of what, to what?” has been asked about resilience (Carpenter et al. 2001),

pointing out the importance of context for this sustainability-related concept. Other questions for

sustainability may be added: sustainability of what, where, and for how long? These questions

recognize the need to identify what is to be sustained (NRC 1999), temporal concerns (NRC

1999; Kates, Parris, and Leiserowitz 2005), and the geographic aspects of sustainability efforts

(Wilbanks 1994, 2006; see also Wilbanks and Kates 1999). Place, scale, and time contexts are

important to system processes, their results, and related decision-making.

Place matters with respect to all kinds of conditions and connections, as geographers well

know. “Place” can vary with spatial scale, from hamlets and neighborhoods to regions covering

large parts of continents. Both physical and social-cultural conditions differ from place to place,

and both ‘averages’ and ranges of conditions differ by location and scale of place. Possibilities

for sustainability and normative choices for sustainability and sustainable development differ

depending on place characteristics. For the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), smaller

places in the larger region have some similarities, but they also have been found to differ greatly

regarding the emphases for local sustainability, including local planning and management

(Bergstrom 2009, 2010; Bergstrom and Harrington 2011, 2012, 2013). Places differ, but there

also are variations between the GYE and its subparts when data are considered at different

scales.

Spatial scale matters to the possibilities that conditions sustainable at one scale will be

unsustainable at another, and to relationships like embeddedness and systems’ connections

(Wilbanks 1994, 2006). Pathways toward sustainability are locality-dependent, with cultural

norms and decision-making key to the possibility of sustainability transitions (though often

influenced by external forces), and with the cumulative effects of local change acting over time

16
as the determinant of a broader, global sustainability effort (Wilbanks and Kates 1999). The

regional scale can be particularly important, but Bettencourt and Kaur (2011) noted that only

about 2% of the sustainability science literature deals with regional studies. Both physical

environments and societal conditions (including economies and cultural traits) vary with place,

and descriptions of places at different scales can be highly variable. Consider, for example,

variously described ecoregions at levels I-IV developed to aid environmental management

efforts (Omernik 1987, 2004; Omernik and Griffith 2014; US EPA 2016).

Farmers often are faced with policies applied at a state or national scale that don’t fit a

local context. Sometimes modifications are made as differences become apparent: with respect

to water management, as settlers moved westward in the United States to more water-scarce

areas there was a change from the original riparian doctrine to prior appropriation. This tends to

be more state or locally-based, however: it is difficult for national policy to address spatial

differences across a country.

Although pursuit of sustainability is oriented to the long term, the length of that term for

a specific project or purpose may vary (NRC 1999; Kates, Parris, and Leiserowitz 2005). Scales

of attention can affect the outcome both for the specific sustainability-oriented action and for

other places and times. In connecting spatial and temporal scale to ecological conditions,

Wilbanks (2006, 22) noted that “in many cases shorter-term phenomena are more dominant at

local scales than at global scales” and vice-versa. The positive temporal-spatial connection also

pertains to the atmosphere (short-term phenomena, like small tornadoes, are local; longer-term

phenomena like long waves in the jet stream cover large areas) and the oceans (undertows and

rip-currents tend to be local and short-lived, ocean gyres are ongoing and very large). Individual

decisions made for the term of a lifespan are more important at the local scale, however, while

17
national scale political decisions tend to be relatively short-term (Wilbanks 2006). Hence, the

‘rule’ may be different or more variable for social systems than for environmental systems when

we consider scale and sustainability-related decision-making.

The CRP program has now been in place for 30 years, but has undergone changes during

that period. Changes in the program and to its effects are seen both temporally and spatially.

Farmers have contracts of 10 to 15 years; depending on economic conditions at the time of

contract expiration, a farmer may or may not pursue renewal. This, of course, affects the longer-

term effectiveness of the program locally and over the entire eligible acreage. Additionally,

Congress has reduced the maximum number of acres that can be enrolled over time: this

reduction may mean a reduction of program effectiveness over the larger scale.

Putting the scale and place key ideas into the context of rural sustainability, it should be

recognized that an individual farm may be more or less sustainable than the surrounding

agricultural region or landscape. This will depend on management, as well as on intrinsic

characteristics, connections to other places, and conditions present within the broader socio-

economic system. Disruptions to either economic conditions (e.g., a recession) or physical

conditions (e.g., drought or a disease outbreak) can affect sustainability at different spatial and

temporal scales. Depending on how farms are managed and for what products, a drought or

other negative externality that is devastating to a specific farm may have a lesser total effect on

the greater region. The opposite also could be true. Much of the variability and changes in

conditions at different places and scales relates to in- and between-systems connections.

4.5 Systems thinking is an organizing principle

18
Systems and subsystems are conceptualized as organized around stocks and fluxes or flows of

matter and energy. ‘Systems thinking’ became a focal concept for late 20th and early 21st century

science and environmental management efforts. Human, environmental, and human-

environmental systems are both connected and embedded (Costanza et al. 2013): certain sets or

types of conditions are parts of and dependent upon other spheres of influence. Systems vary

widely as to size or scale and to what people use as their defining characteristics. They can

include the entire Earth, a farm, or a rotting log, as well as ecosystems, the atmosphere, oceans,

politically-organized systems like the European Union or the United States, and systems based

on trade. Whether natural, social, or a coupled social-ecological system, concepts such as

perturbations, response times, lags, feedbacks, and surprise (the potential for dramatic

unforeseen events) have helped advance understanding of interactions and change globally and

regionally. A systems-level mandate for sustainability science efforts was noted by Bettencourt

and Kaur (2011), reflecting the need for systems thinking as people attempt to pursue greater

sustainability of desirable conditions.

To a very large extent, human systems (e.g., society/ies, economics, infrastructure) are

dependent on ecological/environmental systems – including the Earth’s now largely semi-natural

or managed systems – for the environmental goods and services that support life and social-

economic functioning. Kates (2011) observed that publications related to coupled human-

environmental systems have been dominated by those focusing on the environmental subsystem,

with less attention to the human parts. It is logical that, as the basis for life support and resource

provisioning, the environment receives a great deal of the attention. In many situations, but

particularly in rural regions, human systems are embedded in environmental systems, with

important livelihood connections to production in forests, farms and ranches (agroecosystems),

19
aquatic systems, and others. Social, economic, and environmental components are all important

to modern concerns with sustainable development and sustainability, however. Especially in

regions of the more industrialized world, rural inhabitants are economically reliant on more

urban regions due to the operations of market economies, while urban residents depend on the

production of more rural places. Connections and interdependencies/feedbacks vary based on

the nature of the economies and the levels of urbanization.

Liu et al. (2007) noted feedbacks in rural areas (the Kenyan Highlands in Africa and an

area near Altamira, Brazil), where changes due to agricultural production led to soil degradation,

reduced productivity, and additional forest conversion to agriculture. Another feedback was

described for the Northern Highland Lake District of Wisconsin, USA, where tourism activities

are attracted by the ecosystem, but tourism in turn degrades the environmental qualities that

attract people in the first place (Liu et al. 2007).

Interactions and change are highly complex, and drivers of change may be direct or

indirect (Nelson 2005, Carpenter et al. 2006). Drivers of change to system components and

entire systems include those clearly connected to identifiable changes in particular places (pulses

and longer term trends or presses6), known as direct or proximate drivers. Other causes of

change are more removed and spur the more easily ascertained direct factors. Although these

indirect or ultimate drivers are often less clear, they are nonetheless important. Direct drivers of

landscape change include local climate variation, nutrient pollution, water use rates, land

conversion, overexploitation, and invasive species and diseases, while indirect drivers include

demographic, economic, sociopolitical, scientific, technological, cultural, and religious factors

(Geist and Lambin 2002, 2004; Nelson 2005).

20
 Crop failures may be related to abnormal precipitation patterns (a direct driver), but these

patterns could be a result of global climate change indirectly driven by human activities at much

larger scales. Diversion of cropland to biofuel production directly affects production and prices

of other agricultural goods, as well as having direct and indirect effects on environmental service

provision. DeFries et al. (2010) found that deforestation trends are driven by urban population

growth and agricultural expansion. Agricultural expansion is a direct or proximate driver of

forest loss and easily observed. Population growth is an indirect factor.

An important consideration for sustainability-oriented policymaking and management is

the capacity of a system to remain productive. To the extent possible, both direct and indirect

drivers of change need to be identified and addressed. Additionally, the limits of a system – for

example, to continuing its functioning under conditions of change – are important.

4.6. Limits exist

For several decades, and far more if we consider the work of Malthus (1798), there have been

concerns about limits on the Earth and its subsystems. Apprehensions often have been

connected to human population and population growth in combination with levels of resource

consumption, with modern attention dating particularly to the late 1960s and 1970s (e.g., Ehrlich

1968; Ehrlich and Holdren 1971, 1972; Meadows et al. 1972). The key idea of limits is linked to

several concerns. First, there are worries that production of food and other provisioning

resources cannot support − at least at a desirable quality of life − the total number of people on

Earth now, and the numbers that growth trends suggest will be reached in the not-too-distant

future. In addition, the average resources consumed per person have increased globally over the

last several decades, adding to concerns about limits, population, and well-being. As the impacts

21
of people have grown with population, the capacity of Earth systems to assimilate waste

materials also has become a cause for apprehension. “Environmental footprints” (Wackernagle

et al. 1999; Meadows, Randers, and Meadows 2004; Ehrlich and Ehrlich 2009), linking usage of

ecosystem services to the Earth’s production and assimilation capacity, and “planetary

boundaries” (e.g., Rockström et al. 2009a, 2009b; Mace et al. 2014; Steffen et al. 2015a, 2015b)

regarding identification of ‘safe’ limits are newer concepts based on suggestions that some

operating limits of Earth’s systems are being neared, and others have been exceeded.

From an environmental perspective, physical limits have been seen as an important

aspect of ecosystems for a long period of time, with von Liebig’s law of the minimum and

related ideas concerning limiting factors applied to plant growth for over a century. More

recently, provisioning resources and other natural capital (MA 2005) have become particularly

important in considerations of limits. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA 2005)

identified a number of resources and ecosystem services in decline. Declines are related to

human activities, but also affect human well-being in terms of food provision, water quality and

availability, means of livelihood, and quality of life. Global limits related to chemical cycling,

biodiversity loss (for “biosphere integrity”), climate change, ozone depletion, land cover change

and other factors have most recently received attention by scientists attempting to estimate the

relative condition of the planet (Rockström et al. 2009a, 2009b; Steffen et al. 2015a, 2015b;

Wilson 2016) and sustainability. Such limits connect to system thresholds or tipping points, and

resilience theory (Gunderson and Holling 2002; Walker et al. 2004; Walker and Salt 2006;

Stallins, Mast, and Parker 2015).

Views of limits in the economic system have shifted over time, but have come closer to

ecological concepts of limits. Neoclassical economists − particularly economists practicing prior

22
to the latter part of the 20th century − rarely, if ever, considered limits to resources (Daly 1987).

Today, more economists accept that there are limits, and focus efforts on considering economics

from a qualitative view of human well-being rather than continually growing economies (e.g.,

Daly 1987, Jackson 2009) or from the perspective of ecological economics (e.g., Costanza et al.

1997, 2013), a hybrid between economics and ecology which focuses on matter-energy stocks

and fluxes.

Limits to a variety of system types (ecological, social-ecological, economic, rural, urban,

etc.) vary by scale, and of course vary by system components and connections. Although limits

and footprints often are described globally or nationally, at the local scale important constraints

appear regarding waste assimilation and soil and vegetation conditions. Salinization related to

irrigation has long been known in rural areas; more recently awareness of the build-up of

chemicals via both fertilization and pesticide usage has become a concern for rural soil and water

resources. Damage has been done to the US Everglades system due to phosphorous releases

from agricultural areas, a situation that has led to reduced resiliency and perhaps the crossing of

a threshold to an alternate state based on disturbance and nutrient limits with a build-up of soil

phosphorous (Gunderson 2001, Walker and Salt 2006). With respect to resource availability,

irrigated agriculture in the Ogallala region of Kansas has run into local limits, crossing a

threshold and shifting to dryland agriculture locally (Kettle, Harrington, and Harrington 2007).

4.7. Interconnected concepts are important

Sustainability, resilience, vulnerability, and adaptive capacity are interconnected concepts

“related to the ability of systems to adjust and maintain themselves in the face of change”

(Harrington 2005, 169; see Folke et al. 2002; Smit and Wandel 2006). Sustainability practice

23
benefits from awareness of these related concepts. Resilience has sometimes been characterized

as the ‘ability to bounce back’ following a disruption (Mileti 1999, e.g.), but more recent systems

thinking characterizations focus on resilience as the capacity to absorb a disturbance while

retaining the system’s structure and function – to not cross a threshold to new system makeup

and functioning (Walker et al. 2004). Vulnerability refers to susceptibility to harm from a

change or disruption (Adger 2006, Eakin and Luers 2006). Adaptability, or adaptive capacity

when applied to social or social-ecological systems, refers to the ability to alter processes and, if

needed, to convert structural elements in response to actual or expected changes in the

environment in order to minimize harm/maximize benefits (see, e.g, Brooks, Adger, and Kelly

2005; Pahl-Wostl 2009). Clearly, sustainability is increasingly questionable when resilience or

adaptive capacity decreases or when vulnerability increases.

Just as choices that may support one part of a system may be incompatible with the

sustainability of other system components or processes, mitigation of one problem may produce

greater vulnerability to another, and perhaps reduce sustainability (e.g., Harrington 2005,

Harrington and Harrington 2005, O’Brien et al. 2012). One of the differences between much of

attention to sustainability and to vulnerability is the time frame of concern: sustainability efforts

tend to focus on conditions promoting longer term well-being while vulnerability studies often

focus on hazards and risks that are felt most acutely in the short term. Vulnerability can be

approached from a longer term perspective, however, and can be associated with environmental

or societal stressors that are likely to be concerns of sustainability efforts as well as hazards

work. Vulnerability research connected to climate change stresses as well as hazard events has

become important.

24
 A highly vulnerable or sensitive system generally would not exist in conditions of long

term sustainability because perturbations to which the system is sensitive will lead to changes in

system structure and function. Ghost towns are evidence of specific instances of vulnerability

and a lack of resiliency or sustainability: they were not able to survive under conditions of

changing resource, economy, or transportation status. Desertification in overgrazed areas,

particularly where precipitation is marginal, also indicates that a system boundary has been

crossed. It can be exceedingly difficult to cross back.

Normatively, societal desires are for both increased sustainability of natural/biophysical

and socio-economic systems and decreased vulnerability to hazards and the effects of

environmental and social changes (Harrington 2005). Although change should be expected, a

certain level of stability tends to be desirable, at least when conditions are both beneficial and

understood. Under complex adaptive systems/panarchy and resilience theories (Gunderson and

Holling 2002, Walker and Salt 2006), stability may be considered as dynamic maintenance of

system conditions without approaching thresholds or tipping points. Conditions within the

system shift over time, but may throw the system or region into completely different operating

conditions and create a ‘new’ system if boundaries are reached. In this sense, relative (dynamic)

stability under beneficial conditions is desirable, but should not be equated with a lack of

change. The traditional U.S. ‘cornbelt’ SES centered on Illinois and Iowa has been fairly stable

for some time, with some shifts in ownership patterns, crop emphases, and farming practices

(Laingen 2012, Auch et al. 2013). A shift from commonly plowing fields to no-till practices has

helped to retain soil, for example, increasing sustainability. Attention to the use of agrichemicals

within safe limits, as well as efforts to conserve soil resources, will help system

25
stability/sustainability, although regional climate change attributes may constitute another push

toward limits.

4.8. Change happens

Fluctuations and changes are natural, but vary in magnitude and cause. Global climate change

and other forms of change with anthropogenic origins motivate concern with sustainability of

individual resources and systems’ health, and is a consideration as actions are taken. Although

climate change received minimal mention in the seminal Brundtland report (WCED 1987) on

sustainable development, it has become a central concern relevant to ideas about sustainability in

recent years. Other global changes connected to climate change (ocean acidification, glacial

melt, sea level rise) or those based on population growth or increasingly tightly-connected

economies and social shifts (“globalization”) also are of concern. With respect to climate

change, considerations relate to all spheres of sustainability: environmental/ecological, social,

and economic. Economy and society drive anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, for

example, changing atmospheric chemistry, which feeds back to affect human activities and

place-based vulnerabilities. Attention to climate change in rural contexts has for some time

focused on agricultural effects, carbon sequestration, perceptions, and adaption (e.g., Chiotti and

Johnston 1995, Bryant et al. 2000, Post and Kwon 2000, Eakin 2005, Smith et al. 2007,

Raymond and Robinson 2013).

Trends in human impacts on the environment include increases in the number of types

and combinations of ways people affect the environment; the scale of impacts; the complexity,

magnitude, and frequency of impacts; and per capita resource consumption rates and impacts

(Ehrlich and Holdren 1972, Turner et al. 1990b, Kates et al. 2001, Goudie 2013). Global scale

26
changes are both systemic and cumulative (Turner et al. 1990a, 1990b). Global climate change

through greenhouse gas emissions is systemic – greenhouse gases are emitted directly into the

atmospheric system and spread around the Earth. Global change also occurs cumulatively from

shifts that occur locally, but are widespread and affect much of the earth: deforestation has

occurred in a variety of locations, resulting in forest loss at the global scale of accounting.

Similarly, population trends vary regionally, but the cumulative effect has been continued global

population growth. All sorts of change, whether occurring locally or globally, whether primarily

in the realm of the physical environment or the social and economic sphere(s), and whether

occurring as systemic or cumulative change, represent SES stresses and have implications for

sustainability at a variety of scales. Of particular concern are changes that happen suddenly and

without (much) expectation, including tipping-point related surprises. These may be exemplified

‒ perhaps somewhat less suddenly ‒ by situations in the Everglades and Gouburn-Broken

Catchment as described above, as well as the potentials for sudden changes in the atmospheric-

climate system (see Schneider, Turner, and Garriga 1998; Alley et al. 2003).

Several of the examples described above illustrate change in rural situations as well as

other key concepts (e.g., Goulburn-Broken Catchment, Everglades region, Ogallala/High Plains).

In southern New Mexico, it is thought that overgrazing by cattle led to a change from grasslands

to shrublands. This change, considered a form of desertification, is not easily reversed; it

appears to be an instance of the system crossing a threshold to an alternate state (Valone et al.

2002). In the Amazon, climatic conditions/the hydrologic cycle appear to have changed due to

deforestation brought about by clearing for agriculture, and “large-scale forest loss tends to

reduce rainfall” (Malhi et al. 2008, 169). There have been suggestions of a number of feedbacks

among global and local climate conditions, greenhouse gas emissions, and land cover (e.g.,

27
Malhi et al. 2008; Bagley et al. 2014; Swann et al. 2015), so change can beget further change

(and surprise). The existence of change and surprise in systems leads to recommendations for an

adaptive pathway (NRC 1999) or adaptive management (Walker and Salt 2006), with constant

monitoring of a system so that appropriate adjustments in management may be made in response

to change.

5. Conclusions

The concepts of sustainability and sustainable development, and the approaches of sustainability

science, are growing in importance. Emphasis on sustainability is driven in part by the many

economic, social, and environmental stresses being felt in the world today and an orientation

toward understanding human-environment relations and social-ecological systems. Practitioners

hope to apply better understanding to improve human well-being, sustain life support systems,

and redirect global trajectories. Pursuit of greater understanding via sustainability research

draws on a number of current core scientific topics. Key ideas, presented here, help form the

backbone of theory development for sustainability studies and sustainability science. Many of

these concepts relate to applied geography’s long history of connecting humans with their

environment(s), and some are easily accepted as clearly appropriate by geographers and other

disciplinary specialists. It should be reiterated that there are considerable overlaps among the

suggested key ideas for sustainability efforts. Examples from rural contexts given above

illustrate the overlapping nature of key concepts.

Although pursuit of sustainability is a normative (and sometimes fuzzy) process, science

provides policy-relevant information about what ‘is’ and what ‘could be’ to help guide decision-

making toward normative goals (what ‘should be’). Utilitarian and human values are focal

28
concerns of sustainable development, but sole attention to these could cause irredeemable losses,

such as extinction of species not seen as critical to human survival. Focus on high-yield

industrial crop varieties may benefit the global need for food, but we may lose genetic attributes

of wild, landrace, and heritage varieties that could be beneficial should we run up against a

system threshold. Governance activities must consider both normative concerns and scientific

information.

People have pursued their interests with insufficient attention to – or understanding of –

environmental conditions and processes through much of our history, leading to high levels of

negative environmental change. Earth system science can help decision-makers understand

patterns and processes, including how to work with natural processes and how our actions may

disrupt them. Social scientific work can help us to understand human priorities and decision-

making with respect to sustainability, helping to identify shared values and needs for increased

well-being.

The concepts presented here are theory-focused, but connect to applied geography and

related applications particularly through the need for planning, policy development, decision-

making, and stake-holder communications to be well-informed and mindful of the complexity of

systems in order to maximize sustainability. The well-being of humankind, natural systems,

social-ecological systems, and Earth as a whole is connected to sustainability considerations,

including scales of consideration, linkages within and among systems, and conditions like

adaptive capacity and resilience.

In spite of a history of scientific ideals oriented toward – or at least presented as – pursuit

of fact without application of values, those who work in sustainability recognize that it is a

normative endeavor, involving preferences, judgments, and choice. The quest for sustainability

29
involves connecting what is known through scientific study to applications in pursuit of what

people want for the future.

Notes

1. Although humans may prefer the idea of stability, it has long been recognized in ecology that

systems are more apt to display “dynamic” stability, with patchiness and various disturbances

and change occurring in a system. A relatively stable condition over a broad area might be

maintained for some time, although it’s very likely that parts of the area/system are constantly

changing. Resilience theory has embraced the idea of constant change, maintaining relative

stability (for a time) in operations to maintain system conditions in adaptive cycles, or within

a ‘basin of attraction’ unless or until a threshold is reached (Gunderson and Holling 2002;

Walker et al. 2004; Walker and Salt 2006; Stallins, Mast, and Parker 2015).

2. There have been few exceptions to this generalization, including Wilbanks’ (1994)

suggestions for the beginnings of sustainable development theory. Cumming (2011) has

worked toward tying together “SES theory” and resilience.

3. Broadly speaking, the rural developed world (‘Global North’) and the developing or less-

developed ‘Global South’ have differing characteristics and have been approached by

geographers and policymakers in different ways (Harrington 2017). For the purposes of this

paper focus on the developed world was judged to be appropriate, although key concepts

would apply to any situation.

4. In the United States, and commonly across countries, ‘rural’ is defined by exclusion: urban or

metropolitan areas are specifically defined, and rural is all area left over (Cromartie and

Bucholtz 2008; see also Cloke 1985). Although some researchers differentiate ‘rural’ from

30
 wildlands or wilderness, others include the breadth of environments beyond city boundaries

(see Bell 2006). This might depend on one’s identification of domination by “extensive land

uses” (Cloke 2006) as a defining factor of rurality. In this paper, the focus is on areas that are

not considered wilderness, but are often used for production of food and fiber (and possibly

fuels).

5. Crops and other materials produced or extracted from the Earth (before undergoing extensive

processing) may be considered part of the broad category of natural resources used for various

human purposes, in spite of the fact that there has been modification of crops and livestock

through long human involvement in their development from wild progenitors. Likewise, soils

– often greatly modified through human activity – continue to be considered natural resources.

Other natural resources include (but are not limited to) timber, fuel and nonfuel mineral

resources, fish, shellfish, and fibers like wool and cotton.

6. Bender 1984 described press and pulse as types of ecological perturbations; event-based

disturbances (Dornelas 2010) also are direct drivers.

Acknowledgments

My thanks to John A. Harrington, Jr., and anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on

the manuscript. I would also like to acknowledge others who have inspired and affected my

thinking on sustainability concepts over the years, including especially Tom Wilbanks and Bob

Kates, but also Walter Dodds and Matt Sanderson.

31
References

Adger, W. N. 2006. Vulnerability. Global Environmental Change 16: 268-281.

Allen, L. S. 2006. Collaboration in the Borderlands: the Malpai Borderlands Group.

Rangelands 28(3): 17-21.

Alley, R. B., J. Marotzke, W. D. Nordhaus, J. T. Overpeck, D. M. Peteet, R. A. Pielke Jr., R. T.

Pierrehumbert, P. B. Rhines, T. F. Stocker, L. D. Talley, and J. M. Wallace. Abrupt

climate change. Science 299: 2005-2010.

Anderies, J.M. 2005. Minimal models and agroecological policy at the regional scale: An

application to salinity problems in southeastern Australia. Regional Environmental

Change 5: 1-17.

Anderies, J. M., C. Folke, B. Walker, and E. Ostrom. 2013. Aligning key concepts for global

change policy: robustness, resilience, and sustainability. Ecology and Society 18(2): 8

(online; [Link]/10.5751/ES-05178-180208)

Anderies, J.M., P. Ryan, and B.H. Walker. 2006. Loss of resilience, crisis, and institutional

change: Lessons from an intensive agricultural system in southeastern Australia.

Ecosystems 9(6): 865-878.

Aras, G., and D. Crowther. 2009. Corporate sustainability reporting: A study in disingenuity?

Journal of Business Ethics 87: 279-288.

Auch, R. F., C. Laingen, M. A. Drummond, K. L. Sayler, R. R. Reker, M. A. Bouchard, and J. J.

Danielson. 2013. Land-use and land-cover change in three Corn Belt ecoregions:

similarities and differences. Focus on Geography Winter: 135-143.

32
Bagley, J. E., A. R. Desai, K. J. Harding, P. K. Snyder, and J. A. Foley. 2014. Drought and

deforestation: has land cover change influenced recent precipitation extremes in the

Amazon? Journal of Climate 27(1): 345-361.

Bell, D. 2006. Variations on the rural idyll. In Handbook of Rural Studies, 149-158. P. Cloke,

T. Marsden, and P. Mooney, eds. London: Sage.

Bender, E. A. 1984. Perturbation experiments in community ecology: theory and practice.

Ecology 65(1): 1-13.

Bergstrom, R. D. 2010. Conceptualizing sustainable community development within West

Yellowstone, Montana, between 2000 and 2010. Papers of the Applied Geography

Conference 33:373-382.

Bergstrom, R. D. 2009. Perceptions of sustainable community development and natural

resource management: A case study of two Montana amenity towns. Papers of the

Applied Geography Conference 32: 86-95.

Bergstrom, R., and L. M. B. Harrington. 2013. Balancing economies, communities, and the

environment in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. Journal of Rural and Community

Development 8(3): 228-241.

———. 2011. Perceptions of sustainable development in Red Lodge, Montana. Papers of the

Applied Geography Conferences 34: 19-28.

———. 2012. Sustainable community development in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem: A

case study of Jackson, Wyoming. Papers of the Applied Geography Conferences 35:

133-142.

Bettencourt, L. M. A., and J. Kaur. 2011. Evolution and structure of sustainability science.

PNAS 108(49): 19540-19545.

33
Brooks, N., W. N. Adger, and P. M. Kelly. 2005. The determinants of vulnerability and

adaptive capacity at the national level and the implications for adaptation. Global

Environmental Change 15: 151-163.

Bryant, C. R., B. Smit, M. Brklacich, T. R. Johnston, J. Smithers, Q. Chiottie, and B. Singth.

2000. Adaptation in Canadian agriculture to climatic variability and change. Climatic

Change 45: 181-201.

Carpenter, S. R., R. DeFries, T. Dietz, H. A. Mooney, S. Polasky, W. V. Reid, and R. J. Scholes.

2006. Millennium ecosystem assessment: research needs. Science 314: 257-258.

Carpenter, S., B. Walker, J. M. Anderies, and N. Abel. 2001. From metaphor to measurement:

Resilience of what to what? Ecosystems 4(8): 765-781.

Cawley, M., A. M. de S M Bicalho, and L. Laurens, eds. 2013. The Sustainability of Rural

Systems: Global and Local Challenges and Opportunities. Galway: IGU CSRS and

Whitaker Institute.

Chiotti, Q. P., and T. Johnston. 1995. Extending the boundaries of climate change research: a

discussion on agriculture. Journal of Rural Studies 11(3): 335-350.

Clark, W. C. 2007. Sustainability science: A room of its own. PNAS 104(6): 1737–1738.

Cloke, P. 2006. Conceptualizing rurality. In Handbook of Rural Studies, 18-28. P. Cloke, T.

Marsden, and P. Mooney, eds. London: Sage.

Cloke, P. 1985. Whither rural studies? Journal of Rural Studies 1(1): 1-9.

Costanza, R., J. Cumberland, H. Daly, R. Goodland, and R. Norgaard. 1997. An Introduction to

Ecological Economics. Boca Raton: St. Lucie Press.

Costanza, R., G. Alperovitz, H. Daly, J. Farley, C. Franco, T. Jackson, I. Kubiszewski, J. Schor,

and P. Victor. 2013. Building a sustainable and desirable economy-in-society-in-nature.

34
 In State of the World 2013: Is Sustainability Still Possible? : E. Assadourian and T.

Prugh, project directors, 126-142. Washington: Island Press.

Cromartie, J., and S. Bucholtz. 2008. Defining the “rural” in rural America. Amber Waves 6(3):

28-34.

Cumming, G. S. 2011. Spatial Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems. Dordrecht: Springer.

Daly, H. 1987. The economic growth debate: What some economists have learned but many

have not. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 14(4): 323-336.

DeFries, R. S., T. Rudel, M. Uriarte, and M. Hansen. 2010. Deforestation driven by urban

population growth and agricultural trade in the twenty-first century. Nature Geoscience

3: 178-181.

Devlin, J.F., and M. Sophocleous. 2005. The persistence of the water budget myth and its

relationship to sustainability Hydrogeology Journal 13: 549–554.

Dietz, T., A. Fitzgerald, and R. Shwom. 2005. Environmental values. Annual Review of

Environmental Resources 30: 335-72.

Dornelas, M. 2010. Disturbance and change in biodiversity. Philosophical Transactions of the

Royal Society B 365: 3719-3727.

Ducey, M. J., and B. C. Larson. 1999. A fuzzy set approach to the problem of sustainability.

Forest Ecology and Management 111: 29-40.

Dunlap, R. E. 2008. The New Environmental Paradigm scale: From marginality to worldwide

use. The Journal of Environmental Education 40(1): 3-18.

Dunlap, R. E., K. D. Van Liere, A. G. Mertig, and R. E. Jones. 2000. Measuring endorsement

of the New Ecological Paradigm: A revised NEP scale. Journal of Social Issues 56(3):

425-442.

35
Eakin, H. 2005. Institutional Change, Climate Risk, and Rural Vulnerability: Cases from

Central Mexico. World Development 33(11): 1923-1938.

Eakin, H., and A. L. Luers. 2006. Assessing the vulnerability of social-environmental systems.

Annual Review of Environmental Resources 31: 365-94.

Ehrlich, P. 1968. The Population Bomb. New York: Ballantine Books.

Ehrlich, P. R., and A. H. Ehrlich. 2009. The Population Bomb revisited. The Electronic

Journal of Sustainable Development 1: 63-71.

[Link] (last accessed 5 Aug.

2014)

Ehrlich, P. R., and J. P. Holdren. 1971. Impact of population growth. Science 171: 1212-1217.

———. 1972. One dimensional ecology (critique of The Closing Circle). Bulletin of the

Atomic Scientists 28: 16, 18-27.

Elsevier and [Link]. 2015. Sustainability Science in a Global Landscape. Report. 92 pp.

[Link]

[Link] (last accessed 29 May 2016).

Essex, S. J., A. W. Gilg, R. Yarwood, J. Smithers, and R. Wilson, eds. 2005. Rural Change and

Sustainability: Agriculture, the Environment and Communities. Wallingford: CABI.

Foley, J. A., R. DeFries, G. P. Asner, C. Barford, G. Bonan, S. R. Carpenter, F. S. Chapin, M. T.

Coe, G. C. Daily, H. K. Gibbs, J. H. Helkowski, T. Holloway, E. A. Howard, C. J.

Kucharik, C. Monfreda, J. A. Patz, I. C. Prentice, N. Ramankutty, and P. K. Snyder.

2005. Global consequences of land use. Science 309: 570-574.

Foley, J., N. Ramankutty, K. A. Brauman, E. S. Cassidy, J. S. Gerber, M. Johnston, N. D.

Mueller, C. O’Connell, D. K. Ray, P. C. West, C. Balzer, E. M. Bennett, S. R. Carpenter,

36
 J. Hill, C. Monfreda, S. Polasky, J. Rockström, J. Sheehan, S. Siebert, D. Tilman, and D.

P. M. Zaks. 2011. Solutions for a cultivated planet. Nature 478: 337-342.

Folke, C., S. Carpenter, T. Elmqvist, L. Gunderson, C. S. Holling, and B. Walker. 2002.

Resilience and sustainable development: Building adaptive capacity in a world of

transformations. Ambio 31(5): 437-440.

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. 2016. AQUASTAT: Water

Uses. [Link] (last accessed 7 Sept

2016).

Geist, H. J., and E. F. Lambin. 2004. Dynamic causal patterns of desertification. BioScience

54(9): 817-829.

———. 2002. Proximate causes and underlying driving forces of tropical deforestation

BioScience 52(2): 143-150.

Goudie, A. 2013. The Human Impact on the Natural Environment, 7th ed. Chichester, UK:

Wiley-Blackwell.

Grimm, N. B., S. H. Faeth, N. E. Golubiewski, C. L. Redman, J. Wu, X. Bai, and J. M. Briggs.

2008. Global change and the ecology of cities. Science 319: 756-760.

Gunderson, L. 2001. Managing surprising ecosystems in southern Florida. Ecological

Economics 37: 371-378.

Gunderson, L. H., and C. S. Holling. 2002. Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in

Human and Natural Systems. Washington, DC: Island Press.

Harrington, L. M. B. 2017. Rural society (in the Global North). In The International

Encyclopedia of Geography, ed. D. Richardson et al. Wiley. Forthcoming.

37
———. 2005. Vulnerability and sustainability concerns for the U.S. High Plains. In Rural

Change and Sustainability: Agriculture, the Environment and Communities, ed. A. Gilg

et al., 169-184. Wallingford: CABI.

Harrington, L. M. B., and J. A. Harrington Jr. 2005. When winning is losing: Arkansas river

interstate water management issues. Papers of the Applied Geography Conferences 28:

46-51.

Harrington, L. M. B., M. Lu, and J. A. Harrington Jr. 2009. Fossil water and agriculture in

southwestern Kansas. In Sustainable Communities on a Sustainable Planet: The Human-

Environment Regional Observatory Project, ed. B. Yarnal, C. Polsky, and J. O'Brien,

269-291. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hawcroft, L. J., and T. L. Milfont. 2010. The use (and abuse) of the New Environmental

Paradigm scale over the last 30 years: A meta-analysis. Journal of Environmental

Psychology 30: 143-158.

Hoekstra, A. Y., M. M. Mekonnen, A. K. Chapagain, R. E. Mathews, and B. D. Richter. 2012.

Global water scarcity: Blue water footprints versus blue water availability. PLoS ONE

7(2): e32688. doi:10.1371/[Link].0032688.

Jackson, T. 2009. Prosperity without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet. London:

Earthscan.

Kareiva, P., S. Watts, R. McDonald, and T. Boucher. 2007. Domesticated nature: shaping

landscapes and ecosystems for human welfare. Science 316: 1866-1869.

Kates, R. W., W. C. Clark, R. Corell, J. M. Hall, C. C. Jaeger, I. Lowe, J. J. McCarthy, H. J.

Schellnhuber, B. Bolin, N. M. Dickson, S. Faucheux, G. C. Gallopin, A. Gruebler, B.

Huntley, J. Jäger, N. S. Jodha, R. E. Kasperson, A. Mabogunje, P. Matson, H. Mooney,

38
 B. Moore III, T. O’Riordan, and U. Svedin. 2001. Sustainability Science. Science 292:

641-642.

Kates, R. W., and T. M. Parris. 2003. Long-term trends and a sustainability transition. PNAS

100: 8062-8067.

Kates R. W., T. M. Parris, and A. A. Leiserowitz. 2005. What is sustainable development?

Goals, indicators, values, and practice. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable

Development 47(3): 8–21.

Kates, R. W., W. R. Travis, and T. J. Wilbanks. 2012. Transformational adaptation when

incremental adaptations to climate change are insufficient. PNAS 109(19): 7156–7161.

Kennedy, C., J. Cuddihy, and J. Engel-Yan. 2007. The changing metabolism of cities. Journal

of Industrial Ecology 11(2): 43-59.

Kenny, J. F., N. L. Barber, S. S. Hutson, K. S. Linsey, J. K. Lovelace, and M. A. Maupin. 2009.

Estimated Use of Water in the United States in 2005. Circular 1344. Reston, VA: US

Geological Survey.

Kettle N., L. M. B. Harrington, and J. A. Harrington Jr. 2007. Groundwater depletion and

agricultural land use change in the High Plains: a case study from Wichita County,

Kansas. The Professional Geographer 59(2): 221-235.

Krannich, R.S., and A.E. Luloff. 1991. Problems of resource dependency in US rural

communities. Progress in Rural Policy and Planning (United Kingdom) 1: 5-18.

Kromm, D. E., and S. E. White, eds. 1992. Groundwater Exploitation in the High Plains.

Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press.

Laingen, C. 2012. Delineating the 2007 Corn Belt Region. Papers of the Applied Geography

Conferences 35: 173-181.

39
Lawrie, M., M. Tonts, and P. Plummer. 2011. Boomtowns, resource dependence and socio-

economic well-being. Australian Geographer 42(2): 139-164.

Leathers, N., and L.M.B. Harrington. 2000. Effectiveness of conservation reserves: ‘Slippage’

in Southwestern Kansas. The Professional Geographer 52(1):83-93.

Liu, J., T. Dietz, S. R. Carpenter, M. Alberti, C. Folke, E. Moran, A. N. Pell, P. Deadman, T.

Kratz, J. Lubchenco, E. Ostrom, Z. Ouyang, W. Provencher, C. L. Redman, S. H.

Schneider, and W. W. Taylor. 2007. Complexity of coupled human and natural systems.

Science 317: 1513-1516.

Mace, G. M., B. Reyers, R. Alkemade, R. Biggs, F. S. Chapin III, S. E. Cornell, S. Díaz, S.

Jennings, P. Leadley, P. J. Mumby, A. Purvis, R. J. Scholes, A. W. R. Seddon, M. Solan,

W. Steffen, and G. Woodward. 2014. Approaches to defining a planetary boundary for

biodiversity. Global Environmental Change 28: 289-297.

Malhi, Y., J. T. Roberts, R. A. Betts, T. J. Killeen, W. Li, and C. A. Nobre. 2008. Climate

change, deforestation, and the fate of the Amazon. Science 319(5860): 169-172.

Malthus, T. 1798. An Essay on the Principle of Population.

[Link] (last accessed 14 May

2015).

Marsden, T. 2003. The Condition of Rural Sustainability. Assen, The Netherlands: Royal Van

Gorcum.

Marshall, N.A., D.M. Fenton, P.A. Marshall, and S.G. Sutton. 2007. How resource dependency

can influence social resilience within a primary industry. Rural Sociology 72(3):359-390.

40
McManus, P., J. Walmsley, N. Argent, S. Baum, L. Bourke, J. Martin, B. Pritchard, and T.

Sorensen. 2012. Rural community and rural resilience: What is important to farmers in

keeping their country towns alive? Journal of Rural Studies 28(1): 20-29.

Meadows, D. H., D. L. Meadows, J. Randers, and W. W. Behrens III. 1972. The Limits to

Growth. New York: Universe.

Meadows, D., J. Randers, and D. Meadows. 2004. Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update.

White River Junction, Vermont: Chelsea Green.

Meyer, W. B., and B. L. Turner II, eds. 1994. Changes in Land Use and Land Cover: A Global

Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mileti, D. S. 1999. Disaster by Design: A Reassessment of Natural Hazards in the United

States. Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry Press.

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA). 2005. Ecosystems and Human Well-being:

Synthesis. Washington, DC: Island Press.

Moore, J. M. Kissinger, and W. E. Rees. 2013. An urban metabolism and ecological footprint

assessment of Metro Vancouver. Journal of Environmental Management 124: 51-61.

More, T. A. 1996. Forestry’s fuzzy concepts: An examination of ecosystem management.

Journal of Forestry 94(8): 19-23.

National Research Council, Board on Sustainable Development (NRC). 1999. Our Common

Journey: A Transition toward Sustainability. Washington: National Academy Press.

Nelson, G.C. 2005. Drivers of ecosystem change: summary chapter. In Ecosystems and Human

Well-being: Current State and Trends, Volume 1, ed. R. Hassan, R. Scholes, and N. Ash,

73-76. Washington: Island Press.

41
O’Brien, K., M. Pelling, A. Patwardhan, S. Hallegatte, A. Maskrey, T. Oki, U. Oswald-Spring,

T. Wilbanks, and P. Z. Yanda. 2012. Toward a sustainable and resilient future. In

Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change

Adaptation, ed. C. B. Field et al., 437-486. Special report of Working Groups I and II of

the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press. [Link]

All_FINAL.pdf (last accessed 23 July 2014)

Omernik, J. M. 1987. Ecoregions of the conterminous United States. Annals of the Association

of American Geographers 77(1): 118-125.

———. 2004. Perspectives on the nature and definition of ecological regions. Environmental

Management 34(Suppl. 1): S27–S38.

Omernik, J. M., and G. E. Griffith. 2014. Ecoregions of the conterminous United States:

Evolution of a hierarchical spatial framework. Environmental Management 54:1249-

1266.

Pahl-Wostl, C. 2009. A conceptual framework for analysing adaptive capacity and multi-level

learning processes in resource governance regimes. Global Environmental Change 19:

354-365.

Palmer, J., I. Cooper, and R. van der Vorst. 1997. Mapping out fuzzy buzzwords − who sits

where on sustainability and sustainable development. Sustainable Development 5: 87-93.

Parris, T. M., and R. W. Kates. 2003. Characterizing a sustainability transition: Goals, targets,

trends, and driving forces. PNAS 100: 8068-8073.

Post, W. M., and K. C. Kwon. 2000. Soil carbon sequestration and land-use change: processes

and potential. Global Change Biology 6: 317–328.

42
Randall, J.E., and R.G. Ironside. 1996. Communities on the edge: An economic geography of

resource-dependent communities in Canada. The Canadian Geographer 40(1):17-35.

Raymond, C. M., and G. M. Robinson. 2013. Factors affecting rural landholders’ adaptation to

climate change: insights from formal institutions and communities of practice. Global

Environmental Change 23: 103-114.

Reid, W. V., D. Chen, L. Goldfarb, H. Hackmann, Y. T. Lee, K. Mokhele, E. Ostrom, K. Raivio,

J. Rockström, H. J. Schellnhuber, and A. Whyte. 2010. Earth system science for global

sustainability: grand challenges. Science 330: 916-917.

Robinson, G. M., ed. 2008. Sustainable Rural Systems: Sustainable Agriculture and Rural

Communities. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.

Rockström, J., W. Steffen, K. Noone, Å. Persson, F. S. Chapin, E. F. Lambin, T. M. Lenton, M.

Scheffer, C. Folke, H. J. Schellnhuber, B. Nykvist, C. de Wit, T. Hughes, S. van der

Leeuw, H. Rodhe, S. Sörlin, P. K. Snyder, R. Costanza, U. Svedin, M. Falkenmark, L.

Karlberg, R. W. Corell, V. J. Fabry, J. Hansen, B. Walker, D. Liverman, K. Richardson,

P. Crutzen, and J. A. Foley. 2009a. A safe operating space for humanity. Nature 461:

472-475.

———. 2009b. Planetary boundaries: exploring the safe operating space for humanity. Ecology

and Society 14(2): 32 (online; [Link]

Schneider, S. H., B. L. Turner II, and H. M. Garriga. 1998. Imaginable surprise in global

change science. Journal of Risk Research 1(2): 165-185.

Schulz, P. W., V. V. Gouveia, L. D. Cameron, G. Tankha, P. Schmuck, and M. Franĕk. 2005.

Values and their relationship to environmental concern and conservation behavior.

Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 36(4): 457-475.

43
Schulz, P. W., C. Shriver, J. J. Tabanico, and A. M. Khazian. 2004. Implicit connections with

nature. Journal of Environmental Psychology 24: 31–42.

Simonovic, S. P. 2002. World water dynamics: Global modelling of water resources. Journal

of Environmental Management 66(3): 249-267.

Smit, B., and J. Wandel. 2006. Adaptation, adaptive capacity and vulnerability. Global

Environmental Change 16: 282-292.

Smith, P., D. Martino, Z. Cai, D. Gwary, H. Janzen, P. Kumar, B. McCarl, S. Ogle, F. O’Mara,

C. Rice, B. Scholes, O. Sirotenko, M. Howden, T. McAllister, G. Pan, V. Romanenkov,

U. Schneider, and S. Towprayoon. 2007. Policy and technological constraints to

implementation of greenhouse gas mitigation options in agriculture. Agriculture,

Ecosystems and Environment 118: 6-28.

Stallins, J. A., J. N. Mast, and A. J. Parker. 2015. Resilience theory and Thomas Vale's Plants

and People: A partial consilience of ecological and geographic concepts of succession.

The Professional Geographer 67:1, 28-40.

Stedman, R. C., J. R. Parkins, and T. M. Beckman. 2004. Resource dependence and community

well-being in rural Canada. Rural Sociology 69(2): 213-234.

Steffen, W., P. J. Crutzen, and J. R. McNeill. 2007. The Anthropocene: Are humans now

overwhelming the great forces of nature? Ambio 36(8): 614-621.

Steffen, W., W. Broadgate, L. Deutsch, O. Gaffney, and C. Ludwig. 2015a. The trajectory of

the Anthropocene: The great acceleration. The Anthropocene Review (May 1): 1-8.

———. 2015b. Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet.

Science 347(6223): (online; DOI 10.1126/science.1259855).

44
Stern, P.C. 2000. Toward a coherent theory of environmentally significant behavior. Journal of

Social Issues 56(3): 407–424.

Stern, P. C., and T. Dietz. 1994. The value basis of environmental concern. Journal of Social

Issues 50(3): 65-84.

Steward, D. R. , P. J. Bruss, X. Yang, S. A. Staggenborg, S. M. Welch, and M. D. Apley. 2013.

Tapping unsustainable groundwater stores for agricultural production in the High Plains

Aquifer of Kansas, projections to 2110. PNAS 110(37): E3477–E3486.

Swann, A. L. S., M. Longo, R. G. Knox, E. Lee, and P. R. Moorcroft. 2015. Future

deforestation in the Amazon and consequences for South American climate. Agricultural

and Forest Meteorology 214: 12-24.

Turner II, B. L., W. C. Clark, R. W. Kates, J. F. Richards, J. T. Mathews, and W. B. Meyer, eds.

1990a. The Earth as Transformed by Human Action: Global and Regional Changes in

the Biosphere over the Past 300 Years. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Turner II, B. L., R. E. Kasperson, W. B. Meyer, K. M. Dow, D. Golding, J. X. Kasperson, R. C.

Mitchel, and S. J. Ratick. 1990b. Two types of global environmental change:

Definitional and spatial-scale issues in their human dimensions. Global Environmental

Change (Dec): 14-22.

Turner II, B. L., R. E. Kasperson, P. A. Matson, J. J. McCarthy, R. W. Corell, L. Christensen, N.

Eckley, J. X. Kasperson, A. Luers, M. L. Martello, C. Polsky, A. Pulsipher, and A.

Schiller. 2003. A framework for vulnerability analysis in sustainability science. PNAS

100: 8074–8079.

45
United Nations World Water Assessment Programme (UN WWAP). 2015. The United Nations

World Water Development Report 2015: Water for a Sustainable World. Paris:

UNESCO.

United States Department of Agriculture Farm Services Agency (USDA FSA). 2016.

Conservation Reserve Program monthly summary – May 2016.

United State Environmental Protection agency (US EPA). 2016. Ecoregions.

[Link] Last updated 22 March 2016.

Valone, T. J., M. Meyer, J. H. Brown, and R. M. Chew. 2002. Timescale of perennial grass

recovery in desertified arid grasslands following livestock removal. Conservation

Biology 16: 995-1002.

Villarroel Walker, R., and M. B. Beck. 2012. Understanding the metabolism of urban-rural

ecosystems. Urban Ecosystems 15: 809-848.

Vitousek, P. M., H. A. Mooney, J. Lubchenco, and J. M. Melillo. 1997. Human domination of

Earth’s ecosystems. Science 277: 494-499.

Waas, T., J. Hugé, A. Verbruggen, and T. Wright. 2011. Sustainable development: A bird’s eye

view. Sustainability 3: 1637-1661.

Wackernagel, M., L. Onisto, P. Bello, A. Callejas Linares, I. S. López Falfón, J. Méndez García,

A. I. Suárez Guerrero, and M. G. Suárez Guerrero. 1999. National natural capital

accounting with the ecological footprint concept. Ecological Economics 29: 375–390.

Walker, B. H., N. Abel, J. M. Anderies, and P. Ryan. 2009. Resilience, adaptability, and

transformability in the Goulburn-Broken Catchment, Australia. Ecology and Society

14(1): 12 (online; [Link]

46
Walker, B., C. S. Holling, S. R. Carpenter, and A. Kinzig. 2004. Resilience, adaptability and

transformability in social-ecological systems. Ecology and Society 9(2): 5 (online;

[Link]

Walker, B., and D. Salt. 2006. Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a

Changing World. Washington, DC: Island Press.

Wilbanks, T. J. 1994. Presidential address: “Sustainable development” in geographic

perspective. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 84(4): 541-556.

———. 2006. How scale matters: Some concepts and findings. In Bridging Scales and

Knowledge Systems: Concepts and Applications in Ecosystem Assessment , ed. W. V.

Reid et al., 21-35. Washington: Island Press.

Wilbanks, T. J., and R. W. Kates. 1999. Global change in local places: How scale matters.

Climatic Change 43: 601-628.

———. 2010. Beyond adapting to climate change: embedding adaptation to responses to

multiple threats and stresses. Annals of the Association of American Geographers

100(4): 719-728.

Wilson, E. O. 2016. Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life. New York: Liveright.

Wilson, G. 2010. Multifunctional ‘quality’ and rural community resilience. Transactions of the

Institute of British Geographers 35: 364–381.

World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED). 1987. Our Common Future.

New York: Oxford University Press.

Woods, M. 2012. New directions in rural studies? Journal of Rural Studies 28(1): 1-4.

Zhang, Y. 2013. Urban metabolism: A review of research methodologies. Environmental

Pollution 178: 463-473.

47
 Zucaro, A., M. Ripa, S. Mellino, M. Ascione, and S. Ulgiati. 2014. Urban resource use and

environmental performance indicators. An application of decomposition analysis.

Ecological Indicators 47: 16-25.

48

View publication stats