Applying Systems Thinking to Enhance Ecosystem Services

Dear Colleagues,

Ecosystem goods and services–those provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural products and processes that sustain all life on Earth–are increasingly perturbed, distorted, or degraded as growth in human society continues to push against ecological limits. Unless the management of these processes is crafted in such a way that they are conserved and preserved with future generations in mind, the cascading effects of persistent disturbances threaten both human and ecological health long-term. Traditional “best management practices” in one domain consistency fall short of their goals due to compensating feedback (often unrecognized) which arise out of the underlying complex structures that cross-cut domains. Unfortunately, prevailing mental models of decision makers still overwhelmingly fail to account for such complexity. One of the essential distinctions that separates the systems thinking perspective from these prevailing mental models throughout society is that human societies and economies are subsystems of the global ecosystem (rather than the contrary). As a discipline, systems thinking can help policy makers, regulators, and managers improve natural resource decision making by recognizing, describing, communicating, and testing system structures and feedback that were previously ignored.

This Special Issue of Systems invites contributions from scientists and practitioners from all backgrounds and experiences whose work is aimed at improving the health, quality, resiliency, and management of ecosystem goods and services. We are interested in submissions utilizing a variety of methodological perspectives (from both systems thinking and system dynamics modeling) and welcome both original research and review articles. Of secondary interest are systems thinking applications to enhance teaching and learning about ecosystem goods and services in educational contexts (in both primary or higher education, either natural or social science disciplines).

Potential systems thinking application areas may include (but are not limited to) the following topics, how they impact (and are in turn impacted by) provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural ecosystem services, their conservation and management:

• Soil and watershed resources;
• Soil nutrient cycling and management;
• Water supply provisioning;
• Water quality regulation;
• Climate regulation;
• Flora, fauna, and fungi biological services;
• Flora, fauna, and fungi conservation and management;
• Agroecosystem processes and their goods and services;
• Management and public policy pertaining to soil, water, biodiversity, or agroecosystem goods and services;
• Systems thinking archetype case studies or applications;
• Systems thinking pedagogy for ecosystem education.

Dr. Benjamin L. Turner
Dr. Erica Rieder
Dr. Hector Menendez
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Systems is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• systems thinking
• system dynamics
• ecosystem services
• environmental stewardship
• ecological conservation
• ecosystem management
• teaching and learning about ecosystem dynamics