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In a world in need of profound change, the importance of transformative education is increasingly recognized. However, barriers abound in our Higher Education Institutions, including that educators often have little notion of how to make their teaching more transformative in practice. This paper builds on our experience of developing a transformative learning intervention in the context of our sustainability education at Utrecht University. For this project, we designed a learning cycle consisting of seven steps, summarized as excavate, absorb, experience, observe, deepen, exchange, and consolidate. We tested this seven-step learning journey in two Bachelor courses, using qualitative student evaluations (n = 305), and then substantiated it by drawing on the learning sciences literature. We conclude this cycle can help educators structure their teaching; include reflective, experiential, and interactive learning methodologies; and invite learners to systematically reflect on their change in meaning making, thereby supporting (transformative) education design in different contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arctic food systems are increasingly challenged by rapid climate change, loss of food security and subsequent weakening of food sovereignty, and destabilization of Indigenous practices. Despite growing scientific knowledge on Arctic food systems, Indigenous communities continue to struggle with a plethora of sustainability challenges. To develop a systemic understanding of these challenges, we performed a systematic review of 526 articles published between 1998 and 2021 on Arctic Indigenous food systems. We used the leverage points framework to structure our analysis to understand to what extent the existing Western scientific body of literature provides the necessary knowledge to understand the food system characteristics that give rise to the current sustainability challenges. We combined deductive qualitative and inductive quantitative approaches to identify gaps in the systemic understanding of Arctic Indigenous food systems. We characterized existing research across the four levels of systemic depth—parameters, feedbacks, design, intent—and identified promising directions for future research. Our analyses show that research on food systems is clustered within six main domains, we term environmental contaminants, diet and health, food security, food culture and economy, changing socio-ecological systems and marine and coast. Based on our analysis, we identify three directions for future research that we believe to be of particular importance to enable sustainability transformations of Arctic Indigenous food systems: (i) the decolonization of research practices, (ii) acknowledging the significance of systemic interdependencies across shallow and deep leverage points, and (iii) transdisciplinary action-oriented research collaborations directing transformative system interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Future climate change will impose increased variability on food production and food trading networks. However, the effect of climate variability and sudden shocks on resource availability through trade and its subsequent effect on population growth is largely unknown. Here we study the effect of resource variability and network topology on access to resources and population growth, using a model of population growth limited by resource availability in a trading network. Resources are redistributed in the network based on supply and the distance between nodes (i.e. cities or countries). Resources at nodes vary over time with wave parameters that mimic changes in biomass production arising from known climate variability. Random perturbations to resources are applied to study resilience of individual nodes and the system as a whole. The model demonstrates that redistribution of resources increases the maximum population that can be supported (carrying capacity) by the network. Fluctuations in carrying capacity depend on the amplitude and frequency of resource variability: fluctuations become larger for increasing amplitude and decreasing frequency. Our study shows that topology is the key factor determining the carrying capacity of a node. In larger networks the carrying capacity increases and the distribution of resources in the network becomes more equal. The most central nodes achieve a higher carrying capacity than nodes with a lower centrality. Moreover, central nodes are less susceptible to long-term resource variability and shocks. These insights can be used to understand how worldwide equitable access to resources can be maintained under increasing climate variability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of climate change on the development and disintegration of Maya civilisation has long been debated. The lack of agreement among existing palaeoclimatic records from the region has prevented a detailed understanding of regional-scale climatic variability, its climatic forcing mechanisms and its impact on the ancient Maya. We present two new palaeo-precipitation records for the central Maya lowlands, spanning the Pre-Classic period (1800 BCE-250 CE), a key epoch in the development of Maya civilisation. A beach ridge elevation record from world's largest late Holocene beach ridge plain provides a regional picture, while Lake Tuspan's diatom record is indicative of precipitation changes at a local scale. We identify centennial-scale variability in palaeo-precipitation that significantly correlates with the North Atlantic δ14C atmospheric record, with a comparable periodicity of approximately 500 years, indicating an important role of North Atlantic atmospheric-oceanic forcing on precipitation in the central Maya lowlands. Our results show that the Early Pre-Classic period was characterised by relatively dry conditions, shifting to wetter conditions during the Middle Pre-Classic period, around the well-known 850 BCE (2.8 ka) event. We propose that this wet period may have been unfavourable for agricultural intensification in the central Maya lowlands, explaining the relatively delayed development of Maya civilisation in this area. A return to relatively drier conditions during the Late Pre-Classic period coincides with rapid agricultural intensification in the region and the establishment of major cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a new framework for modelling the complexities of food and water security under globalisation. The framework sets out a method to capture regional and sectoral interdependencies and cross-scale feedbacks within the global food system that contribute to emergent water use patterns. The framework integrates aspects of existing models and approaches in the fields of hydrology and integrated assessment modelling. The core of the framework is a multi-agent network of city agents connected by infrastructural trade networks. Agents receive socio-economic and environmental constraint information from integrated assessment models and hydrological models respectively and simulate complex, socio-environmental dynamics that operate within those constraints. The emergent changes in food and water resources are aggregated and fed back to the original models with minimal modification of the structure of those models. It is our conviction that the framework presented can form the basis for a new wave of decision tools that capture complex socio-environmental change within our globalised world. In doing so they will contribute to illuminating pathways towards a sustainable future for humans, ecosystems and the water they share. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evolutionary pathway to obligate scavenging in Gyps vultures remains unclear. We propose that communal roosting plays a central role in setting up the information transfer network critical for obligate scavengers in ephemeral environments and that the formation of a flotilla-like foraging group is a likely strategy for foraging Gyps vultures. Using a spatial, individual-based, optimisation model we find that the communal roost is critical for establishing the information network that enables information transfer owing to the spatial-concentration of foragers close to the roost. There is also strong selection pressure for grouping behaviour owing to the importance of maintaining network integrity and hence information transfer during foraging. We present a simple mechanism for grouping, common in many animal species, which has the added implication that it negates the requirement for roost-centric information transfer. The formation of a flotillalike foraging group also improves foraging efficiency through the reduction of overlapping search paths. Finally, we highlight the importance of consideration of information transfer mechanisms in order to maximise the success of vulture reintroduction programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We convened a workshop to enable scientists who study water systems from both social science and physical science perspectives to develop a shared language. This shared language is necessary to bridge a divide between these disciplines' different conceptual frameworks. As a result of this workshop, we argue that we should view socio-hydrological systems as structurally coconstituted of social, engineered, and natural elements and study the "characteristic management challenges" that emerge from this structure and reoccur across time, space, and socioeconomic contexts. This approach is in contrast to theories that view these systems as separately conceptualized natural and social domains connected by bi-directional feedbacks, as is prevalent in much of the water systems research arising from the physical sciences. A focus on emergent characteristic management challenges encourages us to go beyond searching for evidence of feedbacks and instead ask questions such as: What types of innovations have successfully been used to address these challenges? What structural components of the system affect its resilience to hydrological events and through what mechanisms? Are there differences between successful and unsuccessful strategies to solve one of the characteristic management challenges? If so, how are these differences affected by institutional structure and ecological and economic contexts? To answer these questions, social processes must now take center stage in the study and practice of water management. We also argue that water systems are an important class of coupled systems with relevance for sustainability science because they are particularly amenable to the kinds of systematic comparisons that allow knowledge to accumulate. Indeed, the characteristic management challenges we identify are few in number and recur over most of human history and in most geographical locations. This recurrence should allow us to accumulate knowledge to answer the above questions by studying the long historical record of institutional innovations to manage water systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]