This working group aims to explore the linkages between ecosystem services and human well-being, using a social ecological systems approach, and focusing on the development of tools and methods to measure, model and map ecosystem services and human well-being in the southern African region.
The “New Paradigm” project is a collaborative research programme of the above organisations which recognises and takes account of the inherent complexity of water related systems. This work is underpinned by the key concepts of complex socio-ecological systems (SES), trans-disciplinarity, resilience and strategic adaptive management. The project will be organised through research teams, case studies, specific eutrophication, microbial pollution, and resource protection focus areas, an integrated community-based response process, and a process of testing principles derived from project case studies in additional regions.
The project supported 12 related studies (mainly postgraduate research projects) that have helped to build a very intricate and detailed picture of livelihoods, vulnerability and change in the communal areas of the Eastern Cape in two different contexts. The research has been undertaken in two sites in the rural Eastern Cape, South Africa; Lesseyton outside of Queenstown and Gatyana near Willowvale. The peri-urban nature of Lesseyton and the more isolated rural setting of Gatyana have resulted in some interesting and important contrasts in the findings.
This collaborative research project commenced in April 2013 and is funded by the Water Research Commission. The project aims to influence the way natural resource managers and policy makers think about, value and make decisions about ecological infrastructure. The case study area is the Touws River Catchment in the Garden Route and participatory action research will be used to promote meaningful change.
RESILIM (Resilience in the Limpopo Basin) is a five year USAID-funded program running until the end of 2017, aiming to enhance resilience in catchment communities to climate and environmental change and to improve biodiversity outcomes, with a special emphasis on building capacity. An important focus within RESILIM is trans-boundary governance, in the broadest sense of the word ‘boundary’.
The Theory Development Working Group is focused on exploring and expanding the theory and theoretical frameworks that are relevant to SAPECS and either are or will be important for its future progress.
During this early phase of SAPECS our main strategy for being vibrant is to be a community of practice ourselves, i.e. to learn as a group about something while practicing it. As scientists, our learning involves publishing and our practicing takes place through case studies.
The Students Working Group is a platform for students and other early-career scientists engaged in the SAPECS network to exchange ideas, seek advice, form professional connections and help shape the education and training activities offered by SAPECS researchers.
This research programme focuses on the concept of spatial resilience. This body of theory recognizes that spatial variation (e.g., context, gradients, connectivity, network membership, and spatial feedbacks) changes how complex systems adapt, maintain or return to a desired state, and ultimately persist. My students and I combine tools from complexity theory and other disciplines to explore the spatial resilience of social-ecological systems (SESs).
This research programme falls under a broad global environmental change and ecosystem services ACCESS-funded project. The project will set out to articulate the diversity of values, benefits and trade-offs derived from water-related ecosystem services in Table Mountain National Park by residents living in the City of Cape Town. The research aims to answer the following questions: 1) What are the cultural ecosystem service values and benefits derived from a national park by communities residing in a metropolitan setting?
