Groundwater governance often fails not because evidence is missing, but because knowledge, authority and everyday water use decisions remain weakly connected. This is especially acute in decentralised agrarian systems where farmers effectively manage aquifers through cumulative on-farm choices yet remain marginal to formal knowledge production and policy deliberation. Drawing on co-design-informed workshops with farmers, scientists and policymakers in Punjab and Sindh, Pakistan, this study diagnoses how the science–policy–practice interface (SPPI) breaks down and why technically credible interventions often lack traction. Using credibility–relevance–legitimacy (CREL) as an evaluative lens, we show that Pakistan’s groundwater SPPI remains largely dyadic and episodic, characterised by weak translation, absent feedback loops, fragmented intermediaries and limited farmer participation. To address this structural mismatch, we reconceptualise SPPI from a science–policy dyad to a farmer-inclusive triad and extend CREL by explicitly distinguishing implementation effectiveness as the outcome of co-produced knowledge. We synthesise these insights in the TRIDENT framework (Triadic Relational Interface for Decentralised Environmental Natural-resource Transitions), which proposes theoretically informed relationships linking participation, boundary roles and multi-directional flows to credible, relevant, legitimate and implementable governance outcomes. While grounded in Pakistan’s Indus Basin, the framework offers transferable mechanisms for groundwater-dependent socio-ecological systems across the Global South.
This study examines the social-ecological implications of land-use changes in Alpine pastures of the Tesino area (Eastern Alps, Trentino Alto Adige, Italy), with a particular focus on pasture-forest transitions driven by the abandonment of traditional agro-pastoral practices. An interdisciplinary research team developed a unified theoretical framework to align objectives, concepts, methods, and terminology across natural and social science disciplines. Spatio-temporal landscape dynamics, analyzed using orthophoto series and qualitative documentation of landscape transformations, revealed a progressive encroachment of forest vegetation into semi-natural grasslands driven by socio-economic and cultural drivers. Subsequently, to investigate how pasture-forest transitions affect ecosystem functioning, a representative area was selected for field-based surveys along a gradient from extensively managed pasture to mature spruce forest, including an intermediate young forest belt. A set of complementary indicators of plant functional diversity and soil multifunctionality was assessed. These indicators collectively revealed coordinated plant–soil functional strategies and trade-offs between pasture management and forest encroachment, with relevant implications for supporting, provisioning, and regulating ecosystem services. Socio-cultural services and stakeholders’ perceptions were complementarily explored through semi-structured interviews, providing contextual insights into land-use change and management preferences. Overall, the integration of natural and social science perspectives highlighted the importance of extensive land management aimed at sustaining multifunctional landscapes composed of semi-natural grazing meadows, productive forests, and protection forests, thereby supporting the resilience of Alpine social-ecological systems.
The transformation of societies towards sustainability is increasingly recognised as an essential response to ecological and societal crises. Local governments, positioned at the interface between communities and broader governance systems, hold a strategic position for catalysing such transformation. Participatory and collaborative governance approaches are further promoted as mechanisms to mobilise diverse knowledge, strengthen legitimacy, and enhance institutional capacity. We systematically review 120 peer-reviewed articles published over the past decade to examine the role of participatory processes and collaborative governance approaches in sustainability transformation at the local government level. Given the diversity of perspectives surrounding sustainability transformation, we first synthesise existing conceptual streams to establish a working definition. We then identify key trends and examine reported levels of participatory impact, which are categorised following a five-level participation spectrum: information, consultation, collaboration, co-creation, and self-determination. The review shows a trend from consultation towards co-creation, reflecting an increasing emphasis on iterative, long-term engagement and shared responsibility. It also reveals interconnected obstacles and opportunities to sustainability transformation Methodological diversity and context-sensitive design emerge as enabling conditions, with workshops, participatory mapping, and living labs proving adaptable across diverse settings. Based on the review, we propose a heuristic tower framework that shows transformative potential to depend on interdependent elements, including trust, inclusivity, constructive friction, leadership, and institutional support, as well as foundational components of diversity, creativity, plasticity, and tailoring. While participatory approaches can expand agency and accountability, they remain vulnerable to power asymmetries, resource constraints, and political volatility.
Low-lying coastal areas may be subject to groundwater rise (GWR) phenomena, which can lead to significant flooding. These phenomena, linked to precipitation, land use, and the subsurface environment, are characteristic of the critical zone and are therefore particularly sensitive to human development and climate change. GWRs often remain invisible but can cause social, economic, and environmental damage. To minimize the impacts of GWRs, coordinated management must be conducted among different fields: researchers, local actors from the affected sites, and environmental institutions. The Rivages Normands 2100 program has established connections among these stakeholders to initiate the co-construction of adaptation scenarios for GWR in several territories of Normandy coastline. We show that the evolution of impacts on buildings, buried networks, and agricultural plots are 13
Building on calls for deep human–nature reconnection and growing recognition of contemplative pathways for inner–outer transformations toward sustainability, this study addresses a current gap in empirical research on contemplative interventions designed to cultivate a deeper sense of connection with the more-than-human world. This study (1) develops an approach to the Buddhist practice of loving-kindness (LK) that encompasses the more-than-human world and (2) empirically examines experiences of such practices. The analysis of participant journals from a course on the inner dimensions of personal sustainability transformations finds that participants draw on subtle forms of discernment when directing loving-kindness towards animals. Animals that disturb, evoke disgust, or elicit fear tend to be excluded from the circle of kindness, whereas those perceived as beautiful or endearing are more readily included. Based on the loving kindness meditations (LKM) directed toward nature, the analysis also identifies three qualitatively different modes of experiencing connection to nature—instrumental appreciation, embodied interconnectedness, and transcendental experience. Lastly, the article concludes that contemplative pathways to nature connectedness can enable forms of personal sustainability transformation that move beyond cognitive and affective shifts, fostering embodied, experiential, and spiritual senses of interconnection and belonging beyond the individual self.
This review systematically maps biomimicry’s educational landscape to illustrate its evolution, conceptual foundations, and integration. Drawing on a dataset of 352 peer-reviewed publications, the bibliometric analysis traces the field’s interdisciplinary trajectory, highlighting its disciplinary roots and its shift toward sustainability science. The analysis reveals a fragmented network, characterized by parallel technical and sustainability streams, which limits biomimicry’s ecological integration. The review critically examines biomimicry’s educational contexts, including epistemological, methodological and learning outcomes perspectives while exposing persistent gaps in transdisciplinary and regenerative endeavors. Strategic opportunities are discussed for bridging disciplinary silos and regenerative streams through transdisciplinary models. By positioning biomimicry as a catalyst for sustainability and regenerative literacy, this review advances the field’s development, offering actionable insights for educators, researchers, and policymakers seeking to operationalize sustainability and regenerative science.
Efforts toward sustainability transformations increasingly rely on effective collaboration among diverse actors. Yet such collaborative processes are frequently undermined by recurring interaction patterns that impede shared responsibility, learning, and effective problem-solving. Drawing on the Drama Triangle from transactional analysis, this article conceptualizes these patterns as a Sustainability Drama, characterized by relational roles of Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer that stabilize blame, dependency, and over-responsibility in sustainability-related discourse and practice. While existing scholarship has either focused on diagnosing such dysfunctional dynamics or on promoting empowerment-oriented models of collaboration, less attention has been paid to how these dynamics coexist and are navigated in real-world sustainability contexts. In response, this article introduces Transformative Response-Ability (TRA) as a relational and processual capacity that enables individuals and groups to remain constructively engaged in the presence of Drama dynamics without reproducing them or suppressing conflict. Transformative Response-Ability is conceptualized not as an individual mindset or skill, but as a relational field quality that recalibrates responsibility and power toward shared, situated agency. Rather than depicting a linear transition from Drama to empowerment, the article emphasizes the ongoing tension between these dynamics and articulates how TRA supports collective orientation toward more empowering patterns of interaction under conditions of uncertainty, urgency, and moral pressure. By integrating psychodynamic insights with sustainability science, this conceptual contribution advances understanding of why collaborative sustainability efforts so often become stuck and how transformative spaces can support response-able engagement without denying the persistence of conflict. It offers a theoretically grounded framework for rethinking collaboration, facilitation, and collective agency in sustainability transformations.
High-Andean peatlands (bofedales) are part of a social-ecological system managed and used by pastoralists as forage for their livestock and a water source during the dry season. Maintaining healthy bofedales is important for pastoralist communities as well as critical zone function (watershed management, including water flow regulation and soil carbon sequestration). In our study region, bofedales are found near the headwaters of the Vilcanota-Urubamba River, which eventually flows into the Amazon River, influencing millions of people and ecosystems. The scientific data needed to develop predictive, process-based ecohydrological models of bofedales remain sparse. In contrast, local pastoralists have a narrative of changing environmental conditions effect on those ecosystems and a deep understanding of bofedal functioning. We performed semi-structured interviews in four local communities on the north and south sides of the Cordillera Vilcanota, Peru. Interview results are intended to inform the development of a bofedal ecohydrological model and develop model outputs that may be of use for local communities. The most frequently discussed topics were the effects of drought on bofedal health and associated need for bofedal maintenance through irrigation suggesting human management of critical zone processes. We note that irrigation — despite its omnipresence across the study region — is seldom mentioned in ecohydrological studies of bofedales. Our study begins to address this knowledge gap; we present a landscape-scale bofedal conceptual model that emphasizes hydrological complexity and includes irrigation. By integrating local knowledge into a process-based model, we provide outputs that may be socially meaningful and trusted by local management actors.
Water governance has grown more sophisticated over the past half-century, yet many water systems remain under severe stress. Aquifers continue to decline, rivers and wetlands continue to degrade, and irrigation and urban water systems face growing pressure from competing demands, pollution and climate variability. This article argues that the paradox reflects a structural imbalance. Contemporary governance is highly developed in instruments of external control, such as licensing, pricing, monitoring and enforcement, but comparatively weak in cultivating the internalised sense of duty, restraint and stewardship that sustains responsible water use when external pressure is absent. As a conceptual and perspective contribution, the article develops a responsibility-centred framework for closing the gap between compliance and stewardship. It draws on four principles from the Bhagavad Gita, read analytically as moral philosophy rather than religious teaching: Dharma as ecological and intergenerational duty; Karma Yoga as collective service and co-responsibility; Sattva as restraint and sufficiency; and Jnana as reflective wisdom and adaptive ethical judgement. Each principle is translated into a concrete institutional design feature: ecological obligation encoded in law, participatory monitoring with formal standing, sufficiency-based extraction thresholds, and professional cultures oriented toward stewardship. Drawing on participatory groundwater management in India, with supporting examples from Bali, the Whanganui settlement in New Zealand, and the johad revival in Rajasthan, the article illustrates that this logic already operates in diverse cultural and legal settings, while making clear that these cases are illustrative rather than causal proof. Groundwater provides the main worked example, but the framework is intended for wider application across community-managed, state-operated and transboundary water systems. It is presented as a complement to, not a substitute for, regulation, incentives and enforcement, and its effectiveness depends on institutional context and enabling conditions. Its central proposal is that the deliberate cultivation of internalised responsibility can be treated as a structural feature of governance and policy design rather than left to individual character.
Contemporary societal planning is increasingly confronted with urgent and interdependent challenges such as sustainable development, climate change, segregation, and organized crime. These issues are frequently described as wicked problems—a concept used to capture the multifaceted, multilayered, and often resistant nature of complex societal challenges. This paper aims to deepen understanding of the dilemmas that arise within collaborative arenas—here conceptualized as boundary spaces—where multiple actors collaborate to address such problems. Our contribution proceeds in two steps. First, through a literature review, we argue that the defining feature of wicked problems is their spatial and temporal boundlessness. The tension between this boundlessness and the inherently bounded realities of organizations and practices provides the basis of our analytical approach. Second, we use this conceptualization to analyze five boundary spaces in Sweden engaged in addressing different wicked societal problems as part of a transdisciplinary research project. In this project, we developed a spatially and temporally situated framework identifying core dilemmas encountered in practice. We then examine if and how our refined understanding of wicked problems helps clarify the underlying causes of these dilemmas. The analysis leads to three main conclusions that include the importance of making temporal issues explicit, and the need to address both persistent organizational barriers and the challenges that arise for the involved individuals. Overall, analyzing wicked problems from their core feature of spatial and temporal unboundedness increases our ability to better understand and manage the consequences and challenges they have on solving complex societal problems in practice.
Nature contributes to our quality of life through a wide range of non-material Nature’s Contributions to People (NCP), including aesthetic enjoyment, restorative experiences and recreational opportunities. However, quantifying and managing the supply of non-material NCP requires a mechanistic understanding of how they are associated with the entities of nature that support them across different ecological contexts. We characterized such associations using network path theory, which allowed us to distinguish between specialized and generalized NCP. For this, we leveraged social media data from tourists to construct networks between perceived non-material NCP and associated entities of nature across six habitats on Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, and compared patterns at local (habitat networks) and regional (entire mountain network) scales. Our findings reveal that specialized NCP (e.g., learning) are more frequently linked to specific species or abiotic features, confined to certain habitats, whereas generalized NCP (e.g., recreation) are primarily associated with landscape and habitat features, occurring throughout all habitats. Some NCP (e.g., aesthetic experiences) were generalized at the regional scale, but relied on particular entities in certain habitats (i.e., specialized). With this analysis, we propose a new way to quantify non-material NCP and their relationships to nature, which can aid vulnerability assessments and long-term monitoring of non-material NCP, and inform decision-making.
Global biodiversity scenarios have long struggled to capture the diversity of ways people value and relate to nature, favoring instrumental, growth-oriented framings over relational and intrinsic perspectives. The Nature Futures Framework (NFF) was developed to address this gap, offering a pluralistic, target-seeking approach to imagining nature-positive futures. This Special Feature brings together contributions that advance the operationalization of the NFF across methods, geographies, and thematic domains—from visioning, narrative development and participatory co-creation to quantitative modeling and governance design. Drawing on these papers, we identify three cross-cutting lessons: the NFF functions best as a boundary object for negotiating plural values rather than a fixed typology; its operationalization depends on combining narratives, indicators, models, deliberation, and institutional design rather than any single method; and its next frontier lies in implementation, linking NFF-based scenarios to the policy instruments and governance institutions such as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. We highlight the NFF’s strengths in fostering value pluralism, expanding the scope of possible futures, and identifying trade-offs and synergies among competing priorities. However, we also acknowledge the following persistent challenges: translating qualitative, place-based values into quantitative models, preventing the standardization of relational values, and navigating the normative and political tensions involved in defining “desirable” futures. In closing, we outline a research agenda centered on developing pluralistic indicators, strengthening integrated social-ecological modeling, exploring alternative economic paradigms, and deepening inclusive co-production. As global biodiversity governance shifts toward implementation, we argue that the NFF is now well positioned to move from concept to practice.
The circular economy (abbreviation: CE) has become a dominant policy and research paradigm in recent years, emphasizing sustainability through waste minimization, repair, reuse, and the extension of product lifecycles. While the technical and systemic dimensions of CE have been extensively studied, its social and cultural implications, particularly regarding labour, heritage, and intergenerational knowledge, remain underexplored. This narrative literature review investigates how the transition to a CE creates renewed relevance for traditional crafts and the role of older generations in knowledge preservation and economic participation. Drawing on interdisciplinary scholarship across sustainability studies, economic geography, gerontology, and cultural heritage research, the review identifies three converging dynamics: (i) the resurgence of manual, repair-oriented professions aligned with circular principles; (ii) the reintegration of older craftspeople as active contributors to local economies and knowledge ecosystems; and (iii) emerging models of intergenerational learning that facilitate the transfer of tacit, experience-based knowledge. The findings suggest that traditional craft skills constitute a critical but undervalued resource in CE strategies and that older workers and craftspeople could serve as a bridge between historical sustainability practices and contemporary innovation. However, the review also identifies significant institutional, educational, and economic barriers to realizing this potential. Overall, the paper contributes to the conceptual expansion of CE by framing it not only as a material and technological transition, but also as a socio-cultural transformation rooted in knowledge continuity, vocational reinvention, and intergenerational learning.
Sustainability is not a fact to be read off from ecosystems, but an evaluative framework shaped by human judgements about what should be sustained, for whom, and at what cost. Posthuman and more-than-human approaches, which seek to decentre the human by foregrounding ecological interdependence and the agency of nonhuman actors, offer an important corrective to crude anthropocentrism, but they risk obscuring human normative agency when decentring the human is treated as sustainability’s self-evident direction. This commentary argues that sustainability cannot and should not escape its human normative centre, and proposes ecologically informed humanism, a position that keeps this centre explicit while holding it ethically, politically, and ecologically accountable. Implications follow for sustainability research, governance, and education.
The unsustainability of the EU food system calls for a shift toward more sustainable and healthy consumption patterns. However, the system’s complexity—marked by multiple loosely coupled subsystems and interacting drivers—poses a major challenge to identifying effective interventions. To locate leverage points for policy action, we develop a high-level systems map that captures the core dynamics of the EU food system using a soft systems methodology. The analysis unfolds in three steps: (1) identifying and analysing key trends within the EU food system, (2) validating a stylized systems map through expert interviews, and (3) conducting focus groups to identify leverage points and systemic solutions. The resulting system pattern reveals that short-term economic motivations are a dominant force shaping food system outcomes. From the focus groups, five promising solution areas emerged: true cost accounting, financial incentives to promote ecosystem services, broad societal revaluation of food, alternative proteins, and community-based initiatives targeting socio-economic and environmental challenges. Each of these solutions is linked to specific leverage points and highlights the importance of embedding social equity considerations in any policy strategy. Achieving deep, structural transformation of the EU food system will require normative change, cross-sectoral coordination, and long-term commitment. Methodologically, the study highlights a central tension in systems analysis: the need to embrace complexity while maintaining practical relevance for policy and governance. This approach offers a foundational step toward more coherent and effective food system reform in the EU.
Positive future visions for cities are fundamental to transformative change in times of social polarisation against the backdrop of deep-rooted social-ecological crises. Our study examines the views and underlying values regarding desirable futures held by local planners working for the public administration in Dresden (Germany). We employed the Urban Nature Futures Framework as a heuristic to engage in pluralistic valuation of nature. Using the Q-method, we explored the subjective perspectives of 20 planners and identified three archetypes on desirable urban nature futures: the pragmatic advocate of nature’s benefits, the responsible steward of nature’s inherent worth, and the strategic navigator of nature’s diverse benefits. The identified archetypes highlight that, from the planners’ point of view, desirable urban futures are tied to a multi-layered and nuanced network of instrumental, intrinsic, and relational values. Nevertheless, our findings show that utilitarian and anthropocentric ethics continue to play a major role within a Western cultural context when valuing urban nature. Our study expands knowledge about individual inner experience of sustainable futures from a first-person perspective and demonstrates how subjective viewpoints can be used to derive collective archetypes of desirable futures. Moving forward, we outline ways to strengthen non-anthropocentric and relational approaches, such as through closer dialogue with the Global South, in order to broaden the scope of nature’s valuation and values, particularly within Western planning cultures.
Incorporating diverse values of nature into decision-making is essential for achieving sustainability, particularly in contested policy arenas. Decision-making about forests is highly contested in Australia due to historical legacies, ongoing discourses and emerging challenges. We investigate values that participants from diverse stakeholder groups nationally have of forests in Australia through semi-structured interviews, guided by the Nature Futures Framework (NFF). Results reveal a plurality of values for forests in Australia—the three values most commonly identified were biodiversity and wildlife habitat, cultural and spiritual connections, and wood production, representing one of each of the three NFF value perspectives—respectively, Forests for Nature (FN), Forests as Culture (FC), and Forests for Society (FS). Overlapping values, embodying more than one value perspective, were also evident. First Nations Australians participants expressed predominantly the relational FC value perspective, while others expressed primarily the instrumental FS and intrinsic FN value perspectives. Contestations about the value of wood production remain apparent, but our results challenge the binary narratives that are commonly used to characterise ‘forestry’ and ‘conservation’ interests. Our study demonstrates the potential of using the NFF to guide the exploration of values held by individuals of forests and advances the use of the NFF to facilitate decision-making about forest policy and management. The insights from this paper enhance understanding of the values of forests in Australia and reveal commonalities and differences that can inform more inclusive decision processes about Australian forests. Our results suggest that it is important that these processes incorporate diverse stakeholder voices and embrace a multiplicity of values, including recognising non-Western ways of valuing nature, to facilitate transformative change for sustainability.
This special feature brings into dialogue debates that have evolved mainly separately: scholarship on infrastructural heterogeneity in Southern cities and research on distributed and decentralized energy transitions in the North. Drawing on empirical cases from Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Europe, Australia, and North America, the contributions show that heterogeneity is no longer an exception but a defining feature of contemporary urban energy landscapes, characterized by varied technological configurations and diverse forms of (co-)provision and energy use. While acknowledging the fundamental differences between these contexts, urban energy landscapes reveal striking commonalities from which we draw key lessons: the contributions to this special feature show how heterogeneous energy systems emerge from diverse context-specific drivers, create new governance and spatial planning challenges, and are increasingly accompanied by processes of digital re-homogenization and coordination. The papers also demonstrate that heterogeneous energy systems yield uneven sustainability outcomes, raising critical questions about equity, accountability, and the distribution of costs and benefits. By moving beyond simplistic North–South binaries, this special issue advances a comparative and cross-contextual perspective on the governance of heterogeneous energy systems. Ultimately, we argue that heterogeneous energy systems have become a shared global condition whose governance requires comparative, context-sensitive approaches that explicitly confront coordination challenges, power asymmetries, and sustainability trade-offs across diverse urban settings.
Collaboration across the ‘siloes’ of government is key to unlocking a transformative paradigm shift in climate change adaptation (CCA), yet such ‘mainstreaming’ efforts have been unsuccessful to date. This paper argues that these shortcomings are rooted primarily in the mainstreaming literature’s neglect of people’s worldviews as an integral component of successful collaboration. For an individual’s internal dimensions to be recognized alongside disciplinary knowledge requires inclusiveness and expansiveness in both organizational spaces and in people. This paper presents a novel framework aiming to facilitate inclusiveness and expansiveness in both areas: the CCA Worldview Map. The CCA Worldview Map unpacks the idea of transformation into five dimensions, each with three levels of complexity, which represent distinct phases of the public planning process: When and What, relating to the input; Who, relating to the process; How, relating to the output; and Why, relating to the outcomes and impact. Using interview data from sixteen managers and practitioners at the local government level across Norway, I show how the CCA Worldview Map can be used to map understandings of CCA, unearthing a plurality of worldviews within Norwegian public administration. I discuss the framework’s utility along three lines: as a vocabulary for articulating differing interpretations of CCA and their relationships, thus identifying complementarity instead of conflict; as a tool that consolidates a breadth of ideas from the CCA literature into a single framework; and as an aid in uncovering cognitive dissonance and expanding personal transformative awareness.
Nature-based Solutions (NbS) offer significant potential to address socio-ecological challenges, yet their implementation is often constrained by planning approaches that fail to integrate biophysical suitability with stakeholder knowledge and values. This study presents a Spatial Multi-Criteria Analysis (SMCA) framework for NbS opportunity mapping in the Yala Basin, Western Kenya, which systematically integrates multiple knowledge systems. The SMCA consists of four steps: (1) biophysical suitability mapping using geospatial parameters; (2) integration of ecosystem services weighted by stakeholder priorities; (3) participatory mapping workshops with spatial extrapolation; and (4) urgency indices combining current pressures and future threats. In addition, we conducted a poverty and infrastructure analysis to identify Naturebased Enterprise (NbE) opportunities that align ecological potential with socioeconomic needs. We assessed six NbS types – agroforestry, terraces, riparian buffers, wetland restoration, cover crops, and afforestation. Results show limited overlap between stakeholder-identified priorities and biophysically optimal areas, underscoring the importance of incorporating local knowledge into spatial planning. Integrating stakeholder perspectives substantially modified purely biophysical assessments: marginally suitable areas expanded from <0.05
