Karina Benessaiah
Biographic Data
| ID | 230706 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Karina Benessaiah |
| GIVEN NAMES | Karina |
| FAMILY NAME | Benessaiah |
| SIGNATURE | BENESSAIAH K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Arizona State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9959-554X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 66 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Mapping the impact of food system initiatives on advancing Sustainable Development Goals
Non-technical summary This study explores how community-led initiatives known as ‘seeds’ are transforming Ghana’s food systems. These 80 diverse projects tackle challenges such as hunger, poor nutrition, climate change, and poverty. From promoting sustainable farming and fisheries to creating healthier diets and supporting local economies, the seeds show how local innovation can help achieve global goals, such as the Sustainable Development Goals…
Actions and actors driving transformative change for global sustainability
The costs of subsidies and externalities of economic activities driving nature decline
Economic sectors that drive nature decline are heavily subsidized and produce large environmental externalities. Calls are increasing to reform or eliminate subsidies and internalize the environmental costs of these sectors. We compile data on subsidies and externalities across six sectors driving biodiversity loss—agriculture, fossil fuels, forestry, infrastructure, fisheries and aquaculture, and mining. The most updated estimates suggest that s…
Pathways to transformation
Around the world, cities and their residents are experimenting with innovations for social and ecological sustainability, sowing the seeds of good Anthropocenes. Although such seed initiatives tend to operate at society’s margins, some successfully embed their innovations into new or existing regimes. This process, which is called institutionalization, is deemed crucial for accelerating transformations and ensuring the persistence of change, yet …
Transforming the economic landscape for global sustainability
The economic system’s interdependent relationship with nature is fraught with contradictions. While over half of global GDP moderately or highly depends on nature and subsidies to sectors driving nature’s decline, e.g., agriculture, fossil fuels, forestry, amount to trillions of dollars annually, funding for biodiversity conservation and restoration remains woefully inadequate. Bridging the biodiversity funding gap is crucial but alone does not e…
Transformative foresight for diverse futures
Why reconnect to nature in times of crisis? Ecosystem contributions to the resilience and well‐being of people going back to the land in Greece
Multiple crises, including climate change, ecosystem degradation, economic, political and social upheavals, severely impact people's well‐being. Ecosystem services (or nature's contributions to people) play a key role during crisis that needs to be further elucidated. Most research focusses on the material benefits that ecosystems provide in times of crisis, paying less attention to intertwined intangible, nonmaterial dimensions. Yet, these intan…
Resilience in the times of Covid
Berbés-Blázquez, M., M. Schoon, K. Benessaiah, E. M. Bennett, G. D. Peterson, and R. Ghimire. 2022. Resilience in the times of COVID: what the response to the COVID pandemic teaches us about resilience principles. Ecology and Society 27(2):16. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-13223-270216
Fourteen propositions for resilience, fourteen years later
In 2006, Walker et al. published an article titled, “A Handful of Heuristics and Some Propositions for Understanding Resilience in Social-ecological Systems.” The article was incorporated into the Ecology and Society special feature, Exploring Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems. Walker et al. identified five heuristics and posed 14 propositions for understanding resilience in social-ecological systems. At the time, the authors hoped the pape…
Inequalities in the adaptive cycle
Natural hazards can trigger disasters that lead to the collapse and reorganization of social-ecological systems. This reorganization can involve systems transitioning to more positive trajectories. The Panarchy framework, which conceptualizes social-ecological systems as dynamic interrelated adaptive cycles, is a common conceptual framework for understanding system reorganization. However, it is unclear how inequalities, social mechanisms known t…
Implications of Panarchy for ecosystem service research
Panarchy illustrates the dynamic nature of social-ecological systems and their nestedness and interconnectedness through time and space. Although there have been great advances in ecosystem service (ES) research, it has only rarely integrated dynamic interaction of components in social-ecological systems (SES). We explore how Panarchy theory, and especially its detailed reflections on change and system dynamics, could help ES research to better c…
Crisis, transformation, and agency
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11625-021-01043-5
Reconnecting to nature amidst crisis
Narco-degradation
Illicit Drivers of Land Use Change
The impacts of cocaine-trafficking on conservation governance in Central America
Defining tipping points for social-ecological systems scholarship—an interdisciplinary literature review
The term tipping point has experienced explosive popularity across multiple disciplines over the last decade. Research on social-ecological systems (SES) has contributed to the growth and diversity of the term’s use. The diverse uses of the term obscure potential differences between tipping behavior in natural and social systems, and issues of causality across natural and social system components in SES. This paper aims to create the foundation f…
A spatio-temporal analysis of forest loss related to cocaine trafficking in Central America
A growing body of evidence suggests that criminal activities associated with drug trafficking networks are a progressively important driver of forest loss in Central America. However, the scale at which drug trafficking represents a driver of forest loss is not presently known. We estimated the degree to which narcotics trafficking may contribute to forest loss using an unsupervised spatial clustering of 15 spatial and temporal forest loss patch …
Tourism and transitions toward sustainability
Why protect nature? Rethinking values and the environment
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans the biological, physical, and social sciences.
Ecosystem Services and Beyond
Ecosystem services research has been focused on the ways that humans directly benefit from goods and services, and economic valuation techniques have been used to measure those benefits. We argue that, although it is appropriate in some cases, this focus on direct use and economic quantification is often limiting and can detract from environmental research and effective management, in part by crowding out other understandings of human–environment…
Carbon and livelihoods in Post-Kyoto
Gregory Button
Untangling the Environmentalist's Paradox
Environmentalists have argued that ecological degradation will lead to declines in the well-being of people dependent on ecosystem services. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment paradoxically found that human well-being has increased despite large global declines in most ecosystem services. We assess four explanations of these divergent trends: (1) We have measured well-being incorrectly; (2) well-being is dependent on food services, which are inc…
Avoiding deforestation in Panamanian protected areas
Narco-degradation
Avoiding deforestation in Panamanian protected areas
Illicit Drivers of Land Use Change
Crisis, transformation, and agency
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11625-021-01043-5
Reconnecting to nature amidst crisis
The impacts of cocaine-trafficking on conservation governance in Central America
Tourism and transitions toward sustainability
Implications of Panarchy for ecosystem service research
Panarchy illustrates the dynamic nature of social-ecological systems and their nestedness and interconnectedness through time and space. Although there have been great advances in ecosystem service (ES) research, it has only rarely integrated dynamic interaction of components in social-ecological systems (SES). We explore how Panarchy theory, and especially its detailed reflections on change and system dynamics, could help ES research to better c…
Inequalities in the adaptive cycle
Natural hazards can trigger disasters that lead to the collapse and reorganization of social-ecological systems. This reorganization can involve systems transitioning to more positive trajectories. The Panarchy framework, which conceptualizes social-ecological systems as dynamic interrelated adaptive cycles, is a common conceptual framework for understanding system reorganization. However, it is unclear how inequalities, social mechanisms known t…
Avoiding deforestation in Panamanian protected areas
Untangling the Environmentalist's Paradox
Environmentalists have argued that ecological degradation will lead to declines in the well-being of people dependent on ecosystem services. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment paradoxically found that human well-being has increased despite large global declines in most ecosystem services. We assess four explanations of these divergent trends: (1) We have measured well-being incorrectly; (2) well-being is dependent on food services, which are inc…
Carbon and livelihoods in Post-Kyoto
Gregory Button
Ecosystem Services and Beyond
Ecosystem services research has been focused on the ways that humans directly benefit from goods and services, and economic valuation techniques have been used to measure those benefits. We argue that, although it is appropriate in some cases, this focus on direct use and economic quantification is often limiting and can detract from environmental research and effective management, in part by crowding out other understandings of human–environment…
Why protect nature? Rethinking values and the environment
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans the biological, physical, and social sciences.
A spatio-temporal analysis of forest loss related to cocaine trafficking in Central America
A growing body of evidence suggests that criminal activities associated with drug trafficking networks are a progressively important driver of forest loss in Central America. However, the scale at which drug trafficking represents a driver of forest loss is not presently known. We estimated the degree to which narcotics trafficking may contribute to forest loss using an unsupervised spatial clustering of 15 spatial and temporal forest loss patch …
Tourism and transitions toward sustainability
Defining tipping points for social-ecological systems scholarship—an interdisciplinary literature review
The term tipping point has experienced explosive popularity across multiple disciplines over the last decade. Research on social-ecological systems (SES) has contributed to the growth and diversity of the term’s use. The diverse uses of the term obscure potential differences between tipping behavior in natural and social systems, and issues of causality across natural and social system components in SES. This paper aims to create the foundation f…
Illicit Drivers of Land Use Change
The impacts of cocaine-trafficking on conservation governance in Central America
Crisis, transformation, and agency
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11625-021-01043-5
Reconnecting to nature amidst crisis
Narco-degradation
Resilience in the times of Covid
Berbés-Blázquez, M., M. Schoon, K. Benessaiah, E. M. Bennett, G. D. Peterson, and R. Ghimire. 2022. Resilience in the times of COVID: what the response to the COVID pandemic teaches us about resilience principles. Ecology and Society 27(2):16. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-13223-270216
Fourteen propositions for resilience, fourteen years later
In 2006, Walker et al. published an article titled, “A Handful of Heuristics and Some Propositions for Understanding Resilience in Social-ecological Systems.” The article was incorporated into the Ecology and Society special feature, Exploring Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems. Walker et al. identified five heuristics and posed 14 propositions for understanding resilience in social-ecological systems. At the time, the authors hoped the pape…
Inequalities in the adaptive cycle
Natural hazards can trigger disasters that lead to the collapse and reorganization of social-ecological systems. This reorganization can involve systems transitioning to more positive trajectories. The Panarchy framework, which conceptualizes social-ecological systems as dynamic interrelated adaptive cycles, is a common conceptual framework for understanding system reorganization. However, it is unclear how inequalities, social mechanisms known t…
Implications of Panarchy for ecosystem service research
Panarchy illustrates the dynamic nature of social-ecological systems and their nestedness and interconnectedness through time and space. Although there have been great advances in ecosystem service (ES) research, it has only rarely integrated dynamic interaction of components in social-ecological systems (SES). We explore how Panarchy theory, and especially its detailed reflections on change and system dynamics, could help ES research to better c…
Why reconnect to nature in times of crisis? Ecosystem contributions to the resilience and well‐being of people going back to the land in Greece
Multiple crises, including climate change, ecosystem degradation, economic, political and social upheavals, severely impact people's well‐being. Ecosystem services (or nature's contributions to people) play a key role during crisis that needs to be further elucidated. Most research focusses on the material benefits that ecosystems provide in times of crisis, paying less attention to intertwined intangible, nonmaterial dimensions. Yet, these intan…
Transformative foresight for diverse futures
The costs of subsidies and externalities of economic activities driving nature decline
Economic sectors that drive nature decline are heavily subsidized and produce large environmental externalities. Calls are increasing to reform or eliminate subsidies and internalize the environmental costs of these sectors. We compile data on subsidies and externalities across six sectors driving biodiversity loss—agriculture, fossil fuels, forestry, infrastructure, fisheries and aquaculture, and mining. The most updated estimates suggest that s…
Pathways to transformation
Around the world, cities and their residents are experimenting with innovations for social and ecological sustainability, sowing the seeds of good Anthropocenes. Although such seed initiatives tend to operate at society’s margins, some successfully embed their innovations into new or existing regimes. This process, which is called institutionalization, is deemed crucial for accelerating transformations and ensuring the persistence of change, yet …
Transforming the economic landscape for global sustainability
The economic system’s interdependent relationship with nature is fraught with contradictions. While over half of global GDP moderately or highly depends on nature and subsidies to sectors driving nature’s decline, e.g., agriculture, fossil fuels, forestry, amount to trillions of dollars annually, funding for biodiversity conservation and restoration remains woefully inadequate. Bridging the biodiversity funding gap is crucial but alone does not e…
Mapping the impact of food system initiatives on advancing Sustainable Development Goals
Non-technical summary This study explores how community-led initiatives known as ‘seeds’ are transforming Ghana’s food systems. These 80 diverse projects tackle challenges such as hunger, poor nutrition, climate change, and poverty. From promoting sustainable farming and fisheries to creating healthier diets and supporting local economies, the seeds show how local innovation can help achieve global goals, such as the Sustainable Development Goals…
Actions and actors driving transformative change for global sustainability
Economics (15 works) · Ecology (13 works) · Geography (13 works) · Business (11 works) · Environmental resource management (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Biology (7 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management (6 works)