NON-LINEAR BEHAVIOR OF SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS
FLORINA BRAN
ABSTRACT. – Non-linear behavior of social-ecological systems. Socialecological systems are featured by a high complexity which to the non-linear dynamic, mutual feed-back cycles, lags, resilience, heterogeneity and surprises. These properties raise numerous puzzling aspects for the substantiation of decisions in ecological policies, in general, and in nature conservation, in special. From this topic, the paper addresses the non-linear behavior based on several case studies that pursue to relief the human made precursors for abrupt changes and ecosystem functioning. The practicality of information regarding social-ecological systems necessitate to acknowledge the change potential in terms of chaos or catastrophic model and to anticipate the results of system interaction with different model of changes.
Keywords: complexity, social-ecological systems, ecological thresholds, predictability
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