Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems: the Nexus between Water, Energy and Food
- 4.6
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Approx. 23 hours to complete
Course Summary
This course explores the interconnectedness of social and ecological systems, and how sustainability can be achieved through integrated approaches.Key Learning Points
- Understand the challenges facing social-ecological systems and how they can be addressed through sustainability
- Learn about concepts such as resilience, adaptation, and transformation in the context of sustainability
- Explore case studies from around the world to see how sustainability can be achieved in different contexts
Job Positions & Salaries of people who have taken this course might have
- USA: $71,000
- India: ₹1,300,000
- Spain: €42,000
- USA: $71,000
- India: ₹1,300,000
- Spain: €42,000
- USA: $64,000
- India: ₹1,100,000
- Spain: €38,000
- USA: $71,000
- India: ₹1,300,000
- Spain: €42,000
- USA: $64,000
- India: ₹1,100,000
- Spain: €38,000
- USA: $75,000
- India: ₹1,500,000
- Spain: €45,000
Related Topics for further study
Learning Outcomes
- Understand the importance of integrated approaches to sustainability
- Be able to analyze and evaluate social-ecological systems
- Develop solutions to sustainability challenges in different contexts
Prerequisites or good to have knowledge before taking this course
- Basic knowledge of environmental science and sustainability
- Familiarity with systems thinking
Course Difficulty Level
IntermediateCourse Format
- Online
- Self-paced
Similar Courses
- Environmental Sustainability and Health
- Sustainable Agriculture: A Systems Approach
Related Education Paths
Notable People in This Field
- Greta Thunberg
- David Attenborough
Related Books
Description
In this course you will become familiar with the ideas of the water-energy-food nexus and transdisciplinary thinking.
Outline
- Introduction
- Welcome to our course on Sustainability
- Welcome learners!
- Course organization
- Grading and logistics
- Acknowledgement
- Solving doubts and technical issues
- FAQ - General topics
- FAQ- Time management
- FAQ - Quizzes and assignment
- FAQ - Certificate
- Module 1. Introducing the basic concepts
- Introducing the nexus
- The challenges faced in nexus analysis
- Examples of “different” analyses of the nexus
- Basic concepts of metabolic analysis
- The bio-phsyical roots of metabolic patterns
- Too rich to be green
- The “intolerable” dependence on fossil fuel imports
- Circular economy, Bioeconomy and Zero-emissions
- Jevon’s paradox and the myth of resource efficiency as a solution for sustainability
- Quiz 1
- Module 2. Acknowledging the poor quality of existing quantitative analyses
- Examples of bad indicators
- The fragility of numbers
- Handling the issue of scale
- Narratives vs. Storytelling
- The identity in Complex Systems
- The Concept of Holon
- Grammars: how to keep quantitative analysis semantically open
- Mosaic Effect: integrating quantitative analysis across different hierarchical levels
- The Sudoku Effect – how to handle impredicativity in quantitative analysis
- Quiz 2
- Module 3. The challenge of food accounting
- Food accounting
- An example of an integrated quantitative analysis of food metabolism: Ecuador
- What are qualities of the produced food that cannot be considered in qualitative analysis?
- Pre-industrial metabolic pattern
- Technological lock-in of agriculture
- The post harvest sector
- Feeding the cities
- The mission impossible of agriculture in modern times
- Multifunctional agriculture
- Quiz 3
- Module 4. The challenge of energy accounting
- Problems with quantitative accounting
- Exosomatic Metabolism
- EROI a critical appraisal
- Energy grammar
- Functional and structural components
- Quality of PES
- Energy efficiency for policy targets
- The problem with agro-biofuels
- Energiewende and the problem of intermittents
- Quiz 4
- Module 5. The challenge of water accounting
- Water analysis in “nexus thinking”
- A taxonomy for water analyses
- Multi-scale grammars for water
- The case of Mauritius island
- The societal metabolism of water
- The ecosystem metabolism of water
- Incoherent water and food policies
- Food security vs. water security
- Water-energy nexus: fracking
- Water metabolism of social-ecological systems
- Quiz 5
- Module 6. The metabolic pattern of social-ecological systems across multiple scales and dimensions
- Time use and demographic structure
- Time profile and types of society
- Paid work overhead
- Metabolic pattern of rural communities
- Participatory integrated mapping of land uses
- GIS tools for diagnosis and simulation
- A general framework of analysis of the metabolic pattern of Social-Ecological Systems
- Studying viability and desirability using the concept of Bio-Economic Pressure
- Studying feasibility using the concepts of DPSIR and Environmental Impact Matrix
- Between theory and quantification
- Report of the Catalonia case study
- Quiz 6
- Module 7. Applications of MuSIASEM 2.0
- Basic Concepts of relational analysis
- The concept of processor
- The “tool-kit” to study feasibility, viability and desirability
- Framing the analysis
- Procedure for accounting
- Illustration of results
- The framing of the problem
- The procedure of accounting with data
- Illustration of the results
- Module 8. Time for "something completely different": from the Cartesian dream to quantitative story-telling via evidence based policy
- The dream, from Francis Bacon to Vanevar Bush
- The undoing of the dream
- Trust in Science and trust in quantification
- What is PNS? Is it useful? PNS and quantification
- All models are wrong, some are useful … but when?
- Sensitivity auditing
- Why frames matter; social construction of ignorance
- A field example
- Quantitative story telling
- What is science’s crisis really about?
- Post-normal institutional identities
- What is wrong with evidence based policy, and how can it be improved
- Further reading
- Quiz 8
Summary of User Reviews
Discover how sustainability can help us build resilient social-ecological systems in this highly rated course on Coursera. Users praise the course's emphasis on real-world applications and hands-on exercises.Key Aspect Users Liked About This Course
Emphasis on real-world applications and hands-on exercisesPros from User Reviews
- Engaging and informative lectures
- Excellent guidance and support from instructors
- Valuable insights into sustainable practices
- Practical exercises that help apply concepts to real-world scenarios
Cons from User Reviews
- Some users found the course content to be too basic
- Required readings were lengthy and time-consuming
- Limited interaction with other students
Mario Giampietro
4.6 Raiting
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