This volume integrates a conceptual framework with participatory methodologies to understand the complexities of dryland socio-ecological systems, and to address challenges and opportunities for stewardship of future drylands and climate change in the global south. Through several case studies, the book offers a transdisciplinary and participatory approach to understand the complexity of socio-ecological systems, to co-produce accurate resource management plans for sustained stewardship, and to drive social learning and polycentric governance. This systemic framework permits the study of human-nature interrelationships through time and in particular contexts, with a focus on achieving progress in accordance with the 2030 United Nations Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The book is divided into four main sections: 1) drylands and socio-ecological systems, 2) transdisciplinarity in drylands, 3) interculturality in drylands, and 4) the governance of drylands. Expert contributors address topics such as pastoralism and the characteristics of successful agricultural lands, the sustainable development goals and drylands, dryland modernization, and arid land governance with a focus on Mexico. The volume will be of interest to dryland researchers, sustainable development practitioners and policymakers.
Dr. Simone Lucatello is a Professor-Researcher at the Research Institute Dr. José María Luis Mora (CONACYT) in Mexico City. He is a graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in International Relations (MSc), and holds a PhD in Analysis and Governance of Sustainable Development from the International University of Venice, Italy. His research interests cover climate change, disaster risk management, environmental security and humanitarian aid. He collaborates with the California Global Energy Initiative, Water & Infrastructure Innovation Initiative at Stanford University, and is a visiting Professor at the School of Global Governance at the University of the Americas in Puebla. He is an associate researcher of the Climate Change Research Program (PINCC) of the UNAM, of several Mexican international programs and participates in academic networks on issues of international cooperation, security and sustainable development. He has collaborated with various programs of the United Nations (UNEP, UNODC, UNIDO, ECLAC), of the European Union (Europe Aid) in the Balkans, Central America and Mexico, and has been a visiting researcher at the Research Center in North America of the UNAM (CISAN-UNAM).
Dr. Elisabeth Huber-Sannwald is a Research Professor in the Division of Environmental Sciences at the Instituto Potosino de Investigación Cientifica y Tecnológica (IPICYT), San Luis Potosi, Mexico. She did her masters in Biology/Botany at the Botanical Institute of the University of Innsbruck, Austria and her PhD in Range Ecology at Utah State University, Utah, U.S. As postdoc at the Institute of Ecology, University of Buenos Aires she served as Scientific Officer of Focus 4 of the Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems (IGBP-GCTE) program. She is an expert in dryland ecosystem ecology with a focus on diversity and functioning of plant species, plant functional groupsand biocrusts and their role in ecohydrological and biogeochemical processes considering the influence of global and social changes, in particular, livestock grazing, land use change and land degradation. Her work focuses on the integrity of socio-ecological systems considering ecosystem services as fundamental characteristics and basis of the resilience of dryland socio-ecological systems and the sustainable development of rural livelihoods.
Dr. Ileana Espejel is a Teacher-Researcher at the School of Sciences, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California (UABC). She is leader of the academic group Manejo de Recursos Costeros y Terrestres, which in 2011 received the award of Ecology and Society and an honorable mention by Semarnat-Ecological Award in 2014. She is co-founder of three postgraduate programs, and has 35 years of professional experience in interdisciplinary research and teaching on arid and coastal environments. Her research projects mainly involve inter- and transdisciplinary research seeking to achieve the sustainable development of arid and coastal communities in Mexico.
Dr. Natalia Martínez Tagüeña started her career as an anthropologist, specializing in archaeology, getting a degree from the Universidad de las Américas, Puebla. Since then her work has focused on dryland regions. Her first studies reconstructed a past that is relevant for the future, looking for an understanding of subsistence practices and climate change in the following topics: transitions from hunter-gathers to agriculture, agave cultivation, coastal adaptations in dryland regions and human impact in ancient environments. She continued her graduate studies at The University of Arizona where she started teaching and participated in several interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary projects. During her graduate work she transition from an ethnoarchaeological and ethnoarchaeological approach to a participatory and community-based research. Since 2009, she established a long-term commitment with the Comcaac Indigenous Community to develop in collaboration the documentation of their cultural landscape, through archaeology, ethnography, oral history and oral tradition.
