Marina Fischer-Kowalski
Biographic Data
| ID | 1413707 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Marina Fischer-Kowalski |
| GIVEN NAMES | Marina |
| FAMILY NAME | Fischer-Kowalski |
| SIGNATURE | FISCHER-KOWALSKI M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Klagenfurt |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3345-4538 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 48 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 312 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 46 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Resource use and resource efficiency in the Asia–Pacific region revisited
Global material flows and resource productivity
Accurate assessments of global primary material extraction, trade of primary materials and products, material use, waste, and emissions support the development of policies that facilitate the decoupling of economic activity, natural resource use, and related environmental impacts. Here, we quantify all crucial aspects of global and country‐by‐country material requirements needed to fuel economic activities, covering both territorial‐ and demand‐b…
Insights into 15 years of transdisciplinary research on a small Greek island
Small islands offer unique conditions for studying human-nature relations. Our study uses the real-world laboratory concept to reflect on a long-term transdisciplinary research process that aimed to facilitate a sustainability transition for an entire island.This article introduces a long-term transdisciplinary research process on the Greek island of Samothraki, aiming at sustainability solutions that are not only scientifically sound, but also c…
Great transformations
Over the past 500 years, the transition to fossil fuels has been accompanied by sociopolitical upheaval, revolution, and counterrevolution in countries around the world. Previous research found that social revolutions occurred during energy transitions in a limited sample of 38 countries. This research expanded the investigation to examine the relationship between shifts in the energy base of societies and transformative sociopolitical change in …
Contributions of sociometabolic research to sustainability science
Global Material Flows and Resource Productivity
The international industrial ecology (IE) research community and United Nations (UN) Environment have, for the first time, agreed on an authoritative and comprehensive data set for global material extraction and trade covering 40 years of global economic activity and natural resource use. This new data set is becoming the standard information source for decision making at the UN in the context of the post‐2015 development agenda, which acknowledg…
Bridging barriers to advance global sustainability
Reaching a socio-ecological tipping point
The role of science in sustainability transitions
We highlight the importance of island research that aims to achieve sustainability transitions. All too often, developmental priorities are largely defined by economic policy imperatives, and island research either ignores or masks such normative connotations. This article reports on ten years of transdisciplinary socioecological research on the Greek island of Samothraki. We sequentially: (i) introduce socioecological thinking and the conceptual…
Core Concepts and Heuristics
Toward a Socioecological Concept of Human Labor
Long-Term Trends in Global Material and Energy Use
The Archipelago of Social Ecology and the Island of the Vienna School
Island Sustainability
Social Ecology
Social Ecology
A sociometabolic reading of the Anthropocene
We search for a valid and quantifiable description of how and when humans acquired the ability to dominate major features of the Earth System. While common approaches seek to quantify the human impact upon the carbon cycle by identifying the area of land cleared by humans, our point of departure is different human modes of subsistence, and we base our analysis on their social metabolism, in particular their energy metabolism. As a starting point,…
The Anthropocene Review
Human activities now play a major, integral and ever-increasing role in the functioning of the Earth System. This fact lies at the heart of the notion of the Anthropocene. Documenting, understanding and responding to the present and future challenges posed by the recent, dramatic changes in the relationship between humans and their environment thus becomes an imperative for human society. This editorial presents the rationale for engaging with th…
Greening Growing Giants
Social Metabolism and Hybrid Structures
Transforming the Greek Island of Samothraki into a Unesco Biosphere Reserve. An Experience in Transdisciplinarity
This research explored the feasibility of transforming the island of Samothraki, Greece, into a UNESCO biosphere reserve. The goal was to assess whether this would help to foster a sustainable socio-economic development and to preserve the unique natural and cultural heritage of the island. In recent years the number of seasonal residents and tourists on the island has been growing substantially, and so, too, have the demands upon facilities and …
Analyzing sustainability transitions as a shift between socio-metabolic regimes
Energy in Nature and Society
How to Conceptualise the Collapse of Civilisations – A Plea for a Social-Ecological Theory of Society Den Zusammenbruch von Zivilisationen konzeptualisieren – Plädoyer für eine sozialökologische Gesel…
Growth in global materials use, GDP and population during the 20th century
Society's Metabolism
In this article, we inquire into the intellectual history ofthe application of the biological concept of metabolism to social systems-not as a metaphor; but as a material and energetic process within the economy and society vis-A-vis various natural systems. The paper reviews several scientific traditions that may contribute to such a view, including biology and ecology, social theory, cultural anthropology, and social geography It assembles wide…
A socio‐metabolic transition towards sustainability? Challenges for another Great Transformation
Over the last two million years, humans have colonized almost the entire biosphere on Earth, thereby creating socio‐ecological systems in which fundamental patterns and processes are co‐regulated by socio‐economic and ecological processes. We postulate that the evolution of coupled socio‐ecological systems can be characterized by a sequence of relatively stable configurations, here denoted as ‘socio‐metabolic regimes’, and comparatively rapid tra…
Analyzing sustainability transitions as a shift between socio-metabolic regimes
Tons, joules, and money
This article seeks to describe sustainable development in operational terms for three different modes of production. It provides two theoretical concepts to characterize each society's relationship with nature: societal metabolism and colonization. Metabolism is the mode in which societies organize the exchange of matter and energy with their natural environment. Colonization refers to the strategies employed to transform parts of the natural env…
Contributions of sociometabolic research to sustainability science
From LTER to LTSER
Haberl, H., V. Winiwarter, K. Andersson, R. U. Ayres, C. Boone, A. Castillo, G. Cunfer, M. Fischer-Kowalski, W. R. Freudenburg, E. Furman, R. Kaufmann, F. Krausmann, E. Langthaler, H. Lotze-Campen, M. Mirtl, C. L. Redman, A. Reenberg, A. Wardell, B. Warr, and H. Zechmeister 2006. From LTER to LTSER: conceptualizing the socioeconomic dimension of long-term socioecological research. Ecology and Society 11(2): 13. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-01786-11…
Progress towards sustainability? What the conceptual framework of material and energy flow accounting (Mefa) can offer
Conceptualizing, Observing, and Influencing Social-Ecological Transitions
This article creates a meeting ground between two distinct and fairly elaborate research traditions dealing with social "transitions": the Dutch societal transitions management approach, and the Viennese sociometabolic transitions approach. Sharing a similar understanding of sustainability transitions -namely as major transformational changes of system characteristics-and a background epistemology of complex systems, autopoeisis, and evolutionary…
A sociometabolic reading of the Anthropocene
We search for a valid and quantifiable description of how and when humans acquired the ability to dominate major features of the Earth System. While common approaches seek to quantify the human impact upon the carbon cycle by identifying the area of land cleared by humans, our point of departure is different human modes of subsistence, and we base our analysis on their social metabolism, in particular their energy metabolism. As a starting point,…
Sustainable development
The Anthropocene Review
Human activities now play a major, integral and ever-increasing role in the functioning of the Earth System. This fact lies at the heart of the notion of the Anthropocene. Documenting, understanding and responding to the present and future challenges posed by the recent, dramatic changes in the relationship between humans and their environment thus becomes an imperative for human society. This editorial presents the rationale for engaging with th…
Beyond Ipat and Kuznets Curves
Bridging barriers to advance global sustainability
Metabolism and colonization. Modes of production and the physical exchange between societies and nature
Written by a sociologist and a biologist, this paper attempts an interdisciplinary approach to describing the basic exchange relations between human societies and their natural environments. One type of exchange relation is termed ‘metabolism’ and related to the biological metabolism member organisms of societies require. A historical overview (part 1) demonstrates this exchange relation in terms of mass throughput per inhabitant to have grown in…
Reaching a socio-ecological tipping point
The role of science in sustainability transitions
We highlight the importance of island research that aims to achieve sustainability transitions. All too often, developmental priorities are largely defined by economic policy imperatives, and island research either ignores or masks such normative connotations. This article reports on ten years of transdisciplinary socioecological research on the Greek island of Samothraki. We sequentially: (i) introduce socioecological thinking and the conceptual…
Global Environmental Change and Historical Transitions
What do transition processes in rural areas in Thailand, biomass consumption in nineteenth-century Austria and the ecology of hunter-gatherers have to do with the appropriation of plant production and global environmental change? More than one might think of in the first place. They are part of a scholarly discourse on our changing relations with the environment. We argue that global change can be analysed in terms of transitions between major mo…
Metabolism and colonization. Modes of production and the physical exchange between societies and nature
Written by a sociologist and a biologist, this paper attempts an interdisciplinary approach to describing the basic exchange relations between human societies and their natural environments. One type of exchange relation is termed ‘metabolism’ and related to the biological metabolism member organisms of societies require. A historical overview (part 1) demonstrates this exchange relation in terms of mass throughput per inhabitant to have grown in…
Society's metabolism
Tons, joules, and money
This article seeks to describe sustainable development in operational terms for three different modes of production. It provides two theoretical concepts to characterize each society's relationship with nature: societal metabolism and colonization. Metabolism is the mode in which societies organize the exchange of matter and energy with their natural environment. Colonization refers to the strategies employed to transform parts of the natural env…
Society's Metabolism
“Societal metabolism” provides the appropriate conceptual basis for the rapidly growing development and analylical and policy interest in materials flow analysis (MFA). Following the review of the earlier intellectual background of societal metabolism in the first installment of this two‐part article, this paper focuses on the current state of the art by examining more recent research referring t o societal metabolism in terms of material and sub…
Society's Metabolism
In this article, we inquire into the intellectual history ofthe application of the biological concept of metabolism to social systems-not as a metaphor; but as a material and energetic process within the economy and society vis-A-vis various natural systems. The paper reviews several scientific traditions that may contribute to such a view, including biology and ecology, social theory, cultural anthropology, and social geography It assembles wide…
Sustainable development
Books
Linking Society to Nature, Past to Future
Linking Society to Nature, Past to Future." Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, 14(2), pp. 101–102
Global Environmental Change and Historical Transitions
What do transition processes in rural areas in Thailand, biomass consumption in nineteenth-century Austria and the ecology of hunter-gatherers have to do with the appropriation of plant production and global environmental change? More than one might think of in the first place. They are part of a scholarly discourse on our changing relations with the environment. We argue that global change can be analysed in terms of transitions between major mo…
Beyond Ipat and Kuznets Curves
Gesellschaftlicher Metabolismus, Territorium und Nachhaltigkeit
Progress towards sustainability? What the conceptual framework of material and energy flow accounting (Mefa) can offer
The physical economy of the European Union
From LTER to LTSER
Haberl, H., V. Winiwarter, K. Andersson, R. U. Ayres, C. Boone, A. Castillo, G. Cunfer, M. Fischer-Kowalski, W. R. Freudenburg, E. Furman, R. Kaufmann, F. Krausmann, E. Langthaler, H. Lotze-Campen, M. Mirtl, C. L. Redman, A. Reenberg, A. Wardell, B. Warr, and H. Zechmeister 2006. From LTER to LTSER: conceptualizing the socioeconomic dimension of long-term socioecological research. Ecology and Society 11(2): 13. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-01786-11…
Quantifying and mapping the human appropriation of net primary production in earth's terrestrial ecosystems
Human appropriation of net primary production (HANPP), the aggregate impact of land use on biomass available each year in ecosystems, is a prominent measure of the human domination of the biosphere. We present a comprehensive assessment of global HANPP based on vegetation modeling, agricultural and forestry statistics, and geographical information systems data on land use, land cover, and soil degradation that localizes human impact on ecosystems…
Socioecological Transitions and Global Change
Conceptualizing, Observing and Comparing Socioecological Transitions
Mefaspace
The Energetic Metabolism of the European Union and the United States
The Global Sociometabolic Transition
We present the concept of sociometabolic regimes and use it to analyze patterns of change in global social metabolism. Sociometabolic regimes represent dynamic equilibria of society–nature interactions and are characterized by typical patterns of material and energy flows (metabolic profiles). From this perspective, industrialization appears as a process of transition from the agrarian to the industrial regime. This article presents a global data…
How to Conceptualise the Collapse of Civilisations – A Plea for a Social-Ecological Theory of Society Den Zusammenbruch von Zivilisationen konzeptualisieren – Plädoyer für eine sozialökologische Gesel…
Growth in global materials use, GDP and population during the 20th century
Analyzing the global human appropriation of net primary production — processes, trajectories, implications. An introduction
A socio‐metabolic transition towards sustainability? Challenges for another Great Transformation
Over the last two million years, humans have colonized almost the entire biosphere on Earth, thereby creating socio‐ecological systems in which fundamental patterns and processes are co‐regulated by socio‐economic and ecological processes. We postulate that the evolution of coupled socio‐ecological systems can be characterized by a sequence of relatively stable configurations, here denoted as ‘socio‐metabolic regimes’, and comparatively rapid tra…
Conceptualizing, Observing, and Influencing Social-Ecological Transitions
This article creates a meeting ground between two distinct and fairly elaborate research traditions dealing with social "transitions": the Dutch societal transitions management approach, and the Viennese sociometabolic transitions approach. Sharing a similar understanding of sustainability transitions -namely as major transformational changes of system characteristics-and a background epistemology of complex systems, autopoeisis, and evolutionary…
Sociology (28 works) · Ecology (23 works) · Economics (22 works) · Biology (21 works) · Geography (21 works) · Sustainability and Ecological Systems Analysis (21 works) · Environmental Impact and Sustainability (19 works) · Political science (19 works) · Global Energy and Sustainability Research (15 works) · Computer Science (14 works)