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Social–ecological systems (SES) research underlines the tremendous impact of human behaviour on planet Earth. To enable a sustainable course of humanity, the integration of human cognition in SES research is crucial for better understanding the processes leading to and involved in human behaviour. However, this integration is proving a challenge, not only in terms of diverging ontological and epistemological perspectives, but also—and this has received little attention in SES research—in terms of (lacking) precision of communication regarding cognition. SES scholars often implicitly disagree on the meaning of this broad concept due to unexpressed underlying assumptions and perspectives. This paper raises awareness for the need to communicate clearly and mindfully about human cognition by exemplifying common communication pitfalls and ways of preventing them. We focus on the concept of cognition itself and provide aspects of cognition that need to be communicated explicitly, i.e. different objects of investigation and levels of description. Lastly, we illustrate means of overcoming communication pitfalls by the example of rationality.

Underpinned by systemic thinking, social-ecological systems (SES) research has emerged as a critical field for addressing the challenges of the Anthropocene, marked by a cross-scale focus, inter- and transdisciplinary approaches, and a strong emphasis on place-based work. Thanks to the efforts of many networks and institutes, the field has advanced new theoretical and methodological approaches, fostered dedicated journals, and spurred educational programs. It has also significantly influenced sustainability initiatives and policy from local to global scales, and has richly informed place-based efforts. Despite this progress, SES research faces persistent challenges, including conceptual and methodological fragmentation, difficulty in scaling localized insights to global frameworks (and vice versa), and capturing cross-scale connections and processes while retaining contextual relevance. Inclusivity also remains a critical issue, with regional, Indigenous, and local contributions often underrepresented, as there is still a reliance on short-term, inequitably distributed grant funding for much of the research in the field. This paper introduces the Society for Social-Ecological Systems (SocSES), a global platform designed to build on and connect to the rich legacy of SES networks. SocSES aims to advance and support SES–based research, practice, and action toward a just and sustainable future. We outline how SocSES will provide a home for SES institutes, networks, researchers, and practitioners working at the science-practice-policy interface to connect and amplify existing efforts through thematic streams, regional hubs, an institutional hub, an early-career professionals hub, and synthesis groups. The society will provide a stable infrastructure to foster interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaboration, enhance the generalizability and policy relevance of SES research, bolster education, research, and knowledge co-production, and support the next generation of SES professionals. By addressing the persistent challenges facing the field and fostering transformative spaces and communities for innovation and action, SocSES aspires to support and leverage SES knowledge as a cornerstone of global sustainability science.In line with the society’s commitment to linguistic diversity and equitable access, this abstract has been translated into 12 languages by authors of this paper and additional contributors. These translations are available in Appendix 2 and at https://socses.org/about/paper.

“Action situations”—events, venues, or physically interdependent instances of decision-making—have become a central unit of analysis in the social–environmental sciences, particularly among scholars interested in bridging the social with the biophysical or ecological side of interdependent decisions. A growing body of empirical studies in social–ecological systems research has recently used case and comparative studies to analyse multiple interdependent action situations, structured into networks. In this article, we take stock of this body of empirical research, synthesize the diverse approaches that scholars have taken to assess “networks of action situations”, and identify fruitful paths forward. We conduct a systematic review of the empirical literature in the field, reviewing and summarizing the key characteristics of the empirical studies, including network features, topologies, methods, and data sources used in each case. We summarize and discuss the conceptualizations, methods, diagnostic procedures, and conclusions used in this body of work in a narrative framework synthesis. The review indicates that an increasingly coherent approach is taking shape, but a systematic, protocol-driven, or formalized approach is only partly emerging. We derive future research needs that could help accumulate knowledge from empirical research.

In the twenty-first century, the world´s demand for natural resources is more pressing and deeply interconnected than ever before. The Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus has gained growing interest as a promising concept for complex resource management challenges. However, knowledge about the root causes of cross-sectoral coordination problems and how they can be shifted towards sustainability is still lacking. This paper fills this gap by conceptualising a WEF nexus case with the Networks of Action Situations approach combined with systems thinking. This approach allows a deep analysis of the root causes of coordination gaps, facilitates a joint understanding of the system dynamics to identify leverage points for shifting the WEF nexus towards sustainability, and to envision the impact of potential interventions on the network of action situations and their outcome. The value and the reciprocal benefits of the combined approach introduced are illustrated for a case in Switzerland, Europe. The results show a coordination gap between the different sectors and that not all sectors were considered equally. This leads to a prioritization of energy production over water-bound biodiversity and food production. The root causes for this outcome are a focus to mitigate climate change and awareness of biodiversity but much less awareness of the impacts of climate change on Swiss water bodies. The study identifies five deep leverage points for interventions, which are expected to ensure a shared systemic problem understanding and more balanced coordination between different sectors resulting in the sustainable and equitable provision and utilization of WEF resources.

To enable sustainability pathways, we need to understand how social–ecological systems (SES) respond to different governance configurations, considering their historical, institutional, political, and power conditions. We advance a robust methodological approach for the integrated analysis of those conditions in SES traps. Our advancement consists of a novel combination of the networks of action situations approach with an agency-based polycentric power typology and the concept of discursive power. We test the approach by building on previous research on the Doñana estuary–delta SES (Guadalquivir estuary), which is characterized by a rigidity trap in the context of ecosystem and water governance. Specifically, we focus on a recent hydraulic megaproject involving deep dredging in the Guadalquivir estuary, finally canceled due to its broad negative socioeconomic and environmental repercussions. According to our analysis, certain governance, institutional, and informational mechanisms currently prevent further SES degradation in Doñana. However, key governance actors are caught in a lasting coordination failure prone to mutual defection strategies owing to power dynamics and discursive-institutional inertia. Although seemingly stable due to counteractive mechanisms among actors, this situation is at continuous risk of being unbalanced by powerful actors promoting large SES interventions such as deep dredging. Such interventions bear the systemic risk of strong suppression of SES functions, and a regime shift to a lock-in trap. This overall undesirable situation might be escaped through transformative policy designs that take into account meso-level mechanisms, such as discursive power and its role in non-decision-making, pragmatic inaction, and inefficient investment and infrastructure.

Overcoming complex environmental challenges demands different forms of stakeholder participation and collective action. While informative and relevant for participatory interventions, the literatures on collective action and participatory governance have largely remained disconnected. We illustrate how the institutional analysis and development (IAD), network of (adjacent) action situation (NAS) and social–ecological system (SES) frameworks can be combined to provide a coherent approach that integrates these literatures, applies their insights and bridges this disconnect. We compare two similar participatory interventions, one in Colombia and one in Peru, whose design and implementation we supported. Transdisciplinary in nature, both sought to foster collective action for watershed management. The frameworks allow us to demarcate, characterise and reflect upon the action situations (ASs) for the collective choice, coordination and knowledge generation that constituted each participatory intervention (i.e. the constituent NAS) and other relevant operational and institutional ASs that lay outside the boundaries of the participatory interventions. These other ASs may not be linked to one another or to the intervention’s constituent NAS, but they influence the outcomes of interest nevertheless, thereby shaping the potential of the participatory interventions for collective action and sustainable natural resource management. The framework then suggests, and our comparative analysis illustrates, that organisers and researchers of participatory interventions, such as multi-actor deliberative platforms and transdisciplinary research projects, should carefully consider, reflect upon and address the constellation of relevant actors, ASs and contexts co-determining the outcomes of interest. Our study demonstrates how the IAD, SES and NAS frameworks can support that endeavour.

In Azraq in Eastern Jordan, farmers, domestic users, and a wetland ecosystem compete for and overexploit limited groundwater resources. Current studies explain parts of the problem, but do not take a comprehensive social–ecological systems perspective and tend to miss underlying hidden factors. To explain decision-making in this complex social–ecological system, we combine the concept of networks of action situations (NAS) with the political economy concept of the social contract. While the NAS allows a systematic exploration of the system, the concept of the social contract allows a deeper understanding of how informal institutions and power influence the system. Besides a comprehensive literature review, we draw on social network mapping and 67 semi-structured interviews with relevant stakeholders. We find that the main conflict arises between a heterogeneous group of farmers, who use groundwater for irrigation agriculture supported by a strong political lobby, and the water authorities, which rely on the aquifer for domestic water supply at national level. The original wetland with its diverse ecosystem services has largely disappeared and its remainder is maintained artificially. Our analysis reveals that a diversity of action situations, including water, agricultural, environmental, energy, and land governance, but also the monarchy’s underlying social contract and the informal concept of wasta, influence outcomes on the ground. We show that no panacea exists, but that systems thinking may help identify a range of intervention points, some more sensitive than others, that could support a social–ecological transformation towards sustainability.

The social–ecological systems (SES) framework (Ostrom 2009, Science. 325(5939):419–22) typologically decomposes SES characteristics into nested, tiered constituent variables. Yet, aligning the framework’s concepts of resource system (RS) and resource unit (RU) with realities of individual case studies poses challenges if the underlying SES is not a single RS, but a mid to large-scale nested RS (NRS). Using a diagnostic approach, we describe NRSs—and the activities and networks of adjacent action situations (NAAS) containing them. An NRS includes the larger RS and multiple interlinked semi-autonomous subsidiary RSs, each of which support simultaneous, differently managed appropriation of individual RUs. We further identify NAASs operating within NRSs in two diverse empirical cases—networks of lake systems in Bengaluru, India and German wheat breeding systems—representing a lever towards understanding transformation of SESs into sustainable futures. This paper contributes towards unpacking and diagnosing complexities within mid to large-scale RSs and their governance. It provides a generalizable, rigorous approach to SES case study analyses, thereby advancing methods for synthesis in sustainability science.

Infrastructure and technology investments that increase water-use efficiency (also called modernization investments) have become one of the most preferred solutions to cope with water scarcity in the context of climate change, increase productivity to satisfy growing demand, and save water to maintain ecosystems. In many cases, however, the higher efficiencies have led to more, instead of less, water consumption. This is generally known as the efficiency paradox or rebound effect. Understanding the processes behind the efficiency paradox remains a difficult task, given the variety of variables that either directly or indirectly factor into farmers’ water-use decisions and the strategic nature of many of those. This is even more the case when water is managed collectively by water-user associations, as in many irrigation systems worldwide. In order to better understand this complexity, our study applies the Networks of Action Situations approach to 37 studies of irrigation modernization investments in collectively managed irrigation systems. Through a systematic case review method, we identify 12 different action situations and 192 institutional, physical, and informational linkages that connect them. Although some studies report linkages between the modernization-investment and water-saving decision situations, many others relate them to situations typically associated with the collective management of irrigation systems (like the water application or infrastructure maintenance situations). A number of these situations, also including the water-saving situation, involve collective action problems that need to be integrated in current analyses. The solution towards more water saving may indeed benefit from a more active involvement of irrigation associations, given their proven capacity to promote collective action among farmers vis-à-vis other irrigation management situations.

“Action situations”—instances of decision-making and agency—have become central to studying social–ecological systems. This special feature collects research using the network of action situations (NAS) approach to structure the way these action situations are embedded into broader interdependent instances of decision-making in different policy or discursive realms, spatial and jurisdictional context, or at different institutional levels. In this editorial, we summarize the key themes that emerged throughout the collection of the 17 articles included in this special feature. The editorial emphasizes the value of NAS in appropriately and sensitively reconstructing relations while pursuing consistency in modes of analysis. It highlights as key themes the complementarity of and disconnects between situations, temporality of NAS, and how NAS can structure the analysis of power in SES. Going further, we suggest expanding on the relational turn, developing NAS archetypes, and studying polycentric governance theories and hypotheses using the NAS approach.