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Full text release has been delayed at the author's request until August 04, 2026

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Navigating complexity in social-ecological systems: How interdependence shapes collaboration and issue management in the context of climate change adaptation governance.

Fried, Harrison Samuel
http://orcid.org/0009-0000-9032-8074
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1721142147659096

Abstract Details

2024, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Environment and Natural Resources.
Departing from literature on social-ecological fitness and social-ecological network analysis, this dissertation explores the degree to which social-ecological theory reflects underlying social processes of issue engagement and partnership evaluation and identifies pathways for future research to engage practitioners with social-ecological network data. In total, the research presented in this dissertation shows that social-ecological network analysis and theory can both be strengthened by participant engagement and qualitative analyses and can be translated into actionable information that practitioners can use to inform their management decisions. This research – which includes three consecutive empirical studies (chapters 2 through 4) – presents one of the first comprehensive accounts of confirming social-ecological network theory with participant populations. Each of the three chapters seeks to determine how practitioners navigate social-ecological interdependence by assessing whether practitioners’ strategies align with social-ecological motifs that are commonly used in empirical network analyses (i.e., small-scale network structures that impart theoretically important processes). Further, all three empirical chapters analyze separate components of a dataset pertaining to climate change adaptation governance in Columbus, Ohio, which is a system comprised of over one hundred unique stakeholder organizations, 19 climate adaptation-related issues, and their interconnections. In the first chapter, I explore how community-engaged network tools can help to overcome fragmentation in environmental governance systems. I helped to develop a network tool that offers personalized partnership recommendations to practitioners that would close “collaborative gaps,” which are instances where two actors who manage the same issue(s) fail to collaborate with one another. Results from focus group conversations with practitioners suggest that engaged network tools can be 1) hampered by the complexity of network visualizations (i.e., data interpretability), 2) irrelevant if researcher-created networks fail to match practitioners’ network perceptions (i.e., data relevancy), and 3) restricted by missing data (i.e., data validity). I conclude Chapter 2 by identifying design principles for future network tools. In Chapter 3, I explore how stakeholders navigate potential partnerships in complex social-ecological systems and evaluate the degree to which (1) collaborative gaps (i.e., instances where stakeholders manage the same issue(s) but do not directly collaborate), (2) mutual partners, and (3) the potential to access social, financial, and human capital guide stakeholders’ evaluations of potential partners. Based on the results from a partnership rating activity where climate change adaptation stakeholders, interacted with potential partners and privately rated the importance of their potential partnership, I found that participants were more likely to rate other stakeholders as important partners when they worked on more overlapping issues (i.e., have more collaborative gaps). Then, in Chapter 4, I explore the range of strategies that environmental stakeholders utilize as they navigate ecological interdependence, which is an omni-present feature of complex social-ecological systems. Based on interviews with 72 participants from the Columbus, Ohio climate adaptation dataset, the results demonstrate that interdependence navigation can take many forms and that stakeholders can selectively adopt strategies based on current needs, like selecting the appropriate tool from a toolbox. Stakeholders in the study system approach ecological interdependence by considering spillover effects related to one central issue, by expanding internal access to information and resources, by deliberately selecting projects that deliver ecological “win-wins” for multiple interrelated issues, and by coordinating with other stakeholders who manage interdependent issues. Across each chapter, I argue the need for qualitative and participant-engaged social-ecological motif research as a pathway to strengthen the validity of social-ecological network analyses and to translate complex network science into actionable information that can improve resilience. Overall, all three studies show the potential for qualitative methods to allow researchers to better reflect the strategies that stakeholders employ as they navigate complex social-ecological systems, which are rarely uniform.
Ramiro Berardo (Advisor)
Matthew Hamilton (Advisor)
Alia Dietsch (Committee Member)
Cynthia Tyson (Committee Member)
130 p.
Climate Change; Conservation; Environmental Management; Environmental Studies; Natural Resource Management; Public Administration
Social-ecological networks; social-ecological systems; social-ecological fitness; collaborative gaps; integrative gaps; climate change adaptation; Columbus, Ohio; qualitative analysis; network analysis; environmental governance; multi-stakeholder collaboration; issue engagement; institutional fitness

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Fried, H. S. (2024). Navigating complexity in social-ecological systems: How interdependence shapes collaboration and issue management in the context of climate change adaptation governance. [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1721142147659096

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Fried, Harrison. Navigating complexity in social-ecological systems: How interdependence shapes collaboration and issue management in the context of climate change adaptation governance. 2024. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1721142147659096.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Fried, Harrison. "Navigating complexity in social-ecological systems: How interdependence shapes collaboration and issue management in the context of climate change adaptation governance." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2024. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1721142147659096

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1721142147659096
© 2024, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.