TY - JOUR

T1 - Social-Ecological Functional Types

T2 - Connecting People and Ecosystems in the Argentine Chaco

AU - Vallejos, M.

AU - Aguiar, Renato S.

AU - Baldi, G.

AU - Mastrángelo, M. E.

AU - Gallego, Sandra F.

AU - Pacheco-Romero, M.

AU - Alcaraz-Segura, D.

AU - Paruelo, J. M.

N1 - Funding Information: This research was supported by Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cient?ficas y T?cnicas (Argentina), Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina). This work was carried out with the aid of a grant from the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) CRN III 3095, which is supported by the US National Science Foundation (Grant GEO-1128040), and an associated complementary project financed by CONICET. The project CGL2014-61610-EXP, which is supported by Direcci?n General de Investigaci?n Cient?fica y T?cnica, Ministerio de Econom?a y Competitividad (Spain) also provided fundings for the research. We would also like to thank anonymous referees and the editors, who have made valuable comments to a previous version of the manuscript, and to Dr. Ignacio Gasparri who also made useful comments. Funding Information: This research was supported by Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (Argentina), Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina). This work was carried out with the aid of a grant from the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) CRN III 3095, which is supported by the US National Science Foundation (Grant GEO-1128040), and an associated complementary project financed by CONICET. The project CGL2014-61610-EXP, which is supported by Dirección General de Investigación Científica y Técnica, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Spain) also provided fundings for the research. We would also like to thank anonymous referees and the editors, who have made valuable comments to a previous version of the manuscript, and to Dr. Ignacio Gasparri who also made useful comments. Publisher Copyright: © 2019, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

PY - 2020/4/1

Y1 - 2020/4/1

N2 - Sustainability science recognizes the importance of the integrated assessment of the ecological and social systems in land-use planning. However, most studies so far have been conceptual rather than empirical. We developed a framework to characterize the social-ecological systems heterogeneity according to its functioning through the identification of social–ecological functional types (SEFT). The SEFT framework builds on the plant, ecosystem and agent functional type approaches, taking a step forward to integrate the dimensions of social–ecological systems into an operational product to characterize administrative units in a hierarchical way. To illustrate this novel framework, we described the heterogeneity of SEFT in the Argentine Chaco by clustering administrative entities. This area is a global deforestation hotspot and has diverse social actors that harness ecosystem services in multiple, and sometimes contrasting and conflictive, ways which determines an urgent need for land-use planning. We combined data from national census and remote sensing to identify SEFT by clustering census tracts based on 17 input variables that integrate key human, ecological and interaction processes across landscapes. We identified three classes and eight subclasses of SEFT. Ecological variables defined the first level of heterogeneity (classes), while human variables and the variables of interactions between the human and ecological components defined a second level of heterogeneity (subclasses). The degree of anthropization and mean annual productivity were important variables to explain the first two axes in the ordination (32% of the total variance). This framework offers a conceptually novel and comprehensive approach to understand the spatial heterogeneity of social–ecological systems functioning, which could play a pivotal role to support conservation or land-use planning in rural areas.

AB - Sustainability science recognizes the importance of the integrated assessment of the ecological and social systems in land-use planning. However, most studies so far have been conceptual rather than empirical. We developed a framework to characterize the social-ecological systems heterogeneity according to its functioning through the identification of social–ecological functional types (SEFT). The SEFT framework builds on the plant, ecosystem and agent functional type approaches, taking a step forward to integrate the dimensions of social–ecological systems into an operational product to characterize administrative units in a hierarchical way. To illustrate this novel framework, we described the heterogeneity of SEFT in the Argentine Chaco by clustering administrative entities. This area is a global deforestation hotspot and has diverse social actors that harness ecosystem services in multiple, and sometimes contrasting and conflictive, ways which determines an urgent need for land-use planning. We combined data from national census and remote sensing to identify SEFT by clustering census tracts based on 17 input variables that integrate key human, ecological and interaction processes across landscapes. We identified three classes and eight subclasses of SEFT. Ecological variables defined the first level of heterogeneity (classes), while human variables and the variables of interactions between the human and ecological components defined a second level of heterogeneity (subclasses). The degree of anthropization and mean annual productivity were important variables to explain the first two axes in the ordination (32% of the total variance). This framework offers a conceptually novel and comprehensive approach to understand the spatial heterogeneity of social–ecological systems functioning, which could play a pivotal role to support conservation or land-use planning in rural areas.

KW - functional types

KW - hierarchical analysis

KW - land-use planning

KW - remote sensing

KW - social–ecological systems

KW - Environmental planning

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85068877890&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s10021-019-00415-4

DO - 10.1007/s10021-019-00415-4

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85068877890

VL - 23

SP - 471

EP - 484

JO - Ecosystems

JF - Ecosystems

SN - 1432-9840

IS - 3

ER -