Socio-ecological system change, vulnerability, and the future of a tropical city

Background/Question/Methods

The San Juan ULTRA-Ex was developed to address the exacerbating social and environmental risks that this 500 year old city residents face - reduction of forest cover, diminishing stream quality, vulnerability to flooding and pollution risks, among others- as a result of pervasive urban development and susceptibility to potential perturbations of the global oil market and climate change. Our main objective is to analyze the socio-ecological system (SES) interactions and changes for the city’s main watershed, the Rio Piedras River Watershed (RPRW). Our main question is: How do biophysical, socio-economic, and institutional factors influence the vulnerability of natural and human dominated ecosystems within the RPRW SES, and how have they changed spatially and temporally over the past 70 years?  To what degree have these vulnerability factors influenced the city’s potential for sustainability? We also seek to analyze future development scenarios for the city as envisioned by different stakeholders and the organizational networks and capacities that support them. To address these objectives, our interdisciplinary team developed an integrated conceptual framework that combines (a) social science vulnerability theory, (b) physical laws such as conservation of mass and thermodynamics and their relation to development and economic activity, and (c) the ecological focus that explains the biodiversity of the city and the functioning of ecosystems to its inhabitants. 

Results/Conclusions

Preliminary results from this exploratory project include: (1) an integrated watershed sampling approach to analyze socio-ecological system interactions at multiple spatial scales; (2) a synthesis model that serves as a tool to achieve consensus on the most important external forces, system components and interactions that drive the socio-ecological subsystems of the Río Piedras River Watershed; (3) participatory mapping forums to identify areas in the city to protect from development and model watershed impacts from varying degrees of land uses; and (4) a knowledge network ‘map’ that identifies stakeholder organizations crucial to the flow of knowledge regarding green areas in the city.  The proposal and the implementation of the research have been carried out through a collaborative approach in which local stakeholders have participated in various parts of the research process. In this way,we have promoted links between science and policy since the beginning stages of the project.