A transdisciplinary typology of change identifies new categories of adaptations and forms of co-adaptation in coupled human and natural systems

Abstract:

Adaptation in human and natural systems has received growing attention in sustainability scholarship. Co-adaptation, when coupled human and natural systems (CHANSs) adapt in congruence, is receiving much less attention. Not only are various forms of co-adaptation difficult to disentangle, adaptations are also conceptualized very differently by scholars of human and natural systems. One aspect of adaptation that scholars agree on, however, is that it is first and foremost a change. We offer a new transdisciplinary typology of the four most basic types of change, internally and externally driven non-structural and structural changes, that bridges perspectives in the natural and social sciences and through which we introduce new categories of adaptations and forms of co-adaptation in CHANSs. We first describe the typology’s foundations and its four types of change. We then organize forms of adaptation in human and natural systems according to the types of change they exhibit to identify new categories of adaptations and forms of co-adaptation. Finally, we illustrate the application of the new categories and forms in a real-world CHANS—the privately managed Northwoods in the Upper Midwest, USA. This new typology paves the way for robust and cross-disciplinary research on CHANSs.