Juan Rocha
Biographic Data
| ID | 3587943 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Juan Rocha |
| GIVEN NAMES | Juan |
| FAMILY NAME | Rocha |
| SIGNATURE | ROCHA J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Stockholm Resilience Centre |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2322-5459 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 39 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Climate change, nature degradation, and financial stability: A review of domino-effects between finance, climate, and the biosphere
The threat associated with climate change and nature degradation poses complex financial challenges. Our systematic literature review of 88 finance-related publications published between 2015 and early 2022 revealed a gap in research on nature-related financial risks and their connections to climate change, particularly regarding ocean-related risks beyond rising sea levels. Although methods are available to assess these risks, more standardized …
Principles for guiding future research on resilience and tipping points
Principles for guiding future research on resilience and tipping points, Yi, Chuixiang, Rietkerk, Max, Anderies, John M, Chen, Deliang, Dakos, Vasilis, Ritchie, Paul D L, Rocha, Juan C, Milkoreit, Manjana, Quinn, Courtney
A review of open data for studying global groundwater in social–ecological systems
Global data have served an integral role in characterizing large-scale groundwater systems, identifying their sustainability challenges, and informing on socioeconomic and ecological dimensions of groundwater. These insights have revealed groundwater as a dynamic component of the water cycle and social–ecological systems, leading to an expansion in groundwater science that increasingly focuses on groundwater’s interactions with ecological, socioe…
Rising income inequality across half of global population and socioecological implications
Income inequality is one of the most important measures to indicate socioeconomic welfare and quality of life, and has implications for the environment. Yet, especially at the subnational level, comprehensive global data on income distribution are widely missing. Such data are essential for assessing patterns of inequality within countries and their development over time. Here we created seamless global subnational Gini coefficient and gross nati…
Challenges and opportunities when assessing exposure of financial investments to ecosystem regime shifts
Securing Nature’s Contributions to People requires at least 20%–25% (semi-)natural habitat in human-modified landscapes
The cascading effects of biodiversity decline on human well-being present a pressing challenge for sustainable development. Conservation efforts often prioritize safeguarding specific species, habitats, or intact ecosystems but overlook biodiversity’s fundamental role in providing Nature’s Contributions to People (NCP) in human-modified landscapes. Here, we systematically review 154 peer-reviewed studies to estimate the minimum levels of (semi-)n…
Earth system resilience and tipping behavior
Anthropogenic climate change, marked by unprecedented extremes, is an immediate concern. The Earth’s limited ability to adapt to abrupt changes within our societal timeframe has raised global alarm. Resilience, the capacity to withstand and recover from disturbances, diminishes as disturbances intensify. For avoiding potential catastrophic changes, it is crucial to identify tipping points, where a change in part of a system becomes self-perpetuat…
Translating Earth system boundaries for cities and businesses
Triple Bottom Line or Trilemma? Global Tradeoffs Between Prosperity, Inequality, and the Environment
A key aim of sustainable development is the joint achievement of prosperity, equality, and environmental integrity: in other words, material living standards that are high, broadly-distributed, and low-impact. This has often been called the “triple bottom line”. But instead, what if there is a “trilemma” that inhibits the simultaneous achievement of these three goals? We analysed international patterns and trends in the relationships between per-…
Safe and just Earth system boundaries
The stability and resilience of the Earth system and human well-being are inseparably linked 1–3 , yet their interdependencies are generally under-recognized; consequently, they are often treated independently 4,5 . Here, we use modelling and literature assessment to quantify safe and just Earth system boundaries (ESBs) for climate, the biosphere, water and nutrient cycles, and aerosols at global and subglobal scales. We propose ESBs for maintain…
Earth system justice needed to identify and live within Earth system boundaries
Living within the safe and just Earth system boundaries for blue water
Safe and just Earth system boundaries (ESBs) for surface water and groundwater (blue water) have been defined for sustainable water management in the Anthropocene. Here we assessed whether minimum human needs could be met with surface water from within individual river basins alone and, where this is not possible, quantified how much groundwater would be required. Approximately 2.6 billion people live in river basins where groundwater is needed b…
Sustaining local commons in the face of uncertain ecological thresholds: Evidence from a framed field experiment with Colombian small-scale fishers
Due to climate change abrupt and persistent changes in ecosystems, impacting millions of livelihoods, are likely but hard to predict. How people respond to such uncertain 'regime shifts' is poorly understood. Here, we assess the potential for local collective action to avert uncertain, yet catastrophic, regime shifts using behavioural economic experiments with 256 small-scale fishers from the Colombian Caribbean coast. With a framed, dynamic comm…
Equity and Justice should underpin the discourse on Tipping Points
Radical and quick transformations towards sustainability have winners and losers, with equity and justice embedded to a greater or a lesser extent. According to research, only the wealthiest 1-4 % of the global population will radically need to change their consumption, behaviours, societal values and beliefs in order to make space for an equitable and sustainable future for nature and people. However, narratives around many 'positive' tipping po…
A regional Pecs node built from place-based social-ecological sustainability research in Latin America and the Caribbean
Sustainability requires a combination of meaningful co-production of locally relevant solutions, synthesis of insights gained across regions, and increased cooperation between science, policy and practice. The Programme for Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS) has been coordinating Place-Based Social-Ecological Sustainability Research (PBSESR) across the globe and emphasizes the need for regional scientific nodes from diverse biocultural regions t…
Achieving a nature- and people-positive future
Despite decades of increasing investment in conservation, we have not succeeded in ''bending the curve'' of biodiversity decline. Efforts to meet new targets and goals for the next three decades risk repeating this outcome due to three factors: neglect of increasing drivers of decline; unrealistic expectations and time frames of biodiversity recovery; and insufficient attention to justice within and between generations and across countries. Our E…
Resilience-based steps for adaptive co-management of Arctic small-scale fisheries
Arctic small-scale fisheries are essential for the livelihoods, cultures, nutrition, economy, and food security of Indigenous communities. Their sustainable management in the rapidly changing Arctic is thus a key priority. Fisheries management in complex systems such as the Arctic would benefit from integrative approaches that explicitly seek to build resilience. Yet, resilience is rarely articulated as an explicit goal of Arctic fisheries manage…
Ecosystems are showing symptoms of resilience loss
Ecosystems around the world are at risk of critical transitions due to increasing anthropogenic pressures and climate change. Yet it is unclear where the risks are higher or where in the world ecosystems are more vulnerable. Here I measure resilience of primary productivity proxies for marine and terrestrial ecosystems globally. Up to 29% of global terrestrial ecosystem, and 24% marine ones, show symptoms of resilience loss. These symptoms are sh…
Inequalities in the adaptive cycle: Reorganizing After Disasters in an Unequal World
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…
Panarchy: Ripples of a Boundary Concept
How do social-ecological systems change over time? In 2002 C. S. Holling and colleagues proposed the concept of panarchy, which presented social-ecological systems as an interacting set of adaptive cycles, each produced by the dynamic tensions between novelty and efficiency at multiple scales. Initially introduced as a conceptual framework and set of metaphors, panarchy has gained the attention of scholars across many disciplines, and its ideas c…
Identifying a Safe and Just Corridor for People and the Planet
Keeping the Earth system in a stable and resilient state, to safeguard Earth's life support systems while ensuring that Earth's benefits, risks, and related responsibilities are equitably shared, constitutes the grand challenge for human development in the Anthropocene. Here, we describe a framework that the recently formed Earth Commission will use to define and quantify target ranges for a “safe and just corridor” that meets these goals. Althou…
Upscaling the resilience assessment through comparative analysis
Resilience is the capacity of any system to maintain its function, structure and identity despite disturbances. Assessing resilience has been elusive due to high levels of abstraction that are difficult to empirically test, or the lack of high quality data required once appropriate proxies are identified. Most resilience assessments are limited to specific situation arenas, making comparision one of the unresolved challenges. Here we show how lev…
Commentary: Resilience and Social-Ecological Systems: A Handful of Frontiers
Seeking sustainable pathways for land use in Latin America
Mapping social-ecological systems archetypes
Achieving sustainable development goals requires targeting and monitoring sustainable solutions tailored to different social and ecological contexts. A social-ecological systems (SESs) framework was developed to help diagnose problems, identify complex interactions, and solutions tailored to each SES. Here we develop a data-driven method for upscaling the SES framework and apply it to a context where data is scarce, but also where solutions towar…
Earth system justice needed to identify and live within Earth system boundaries
The Regime Shifts Database: A Framework for Analyzing Regime Shifts in Social-Ecological Systems
Biggs, R., G. D. Peterson, and J. C. Rocha. 2018. The Regime Shifts Database: a framework for analyzing regime shifts in social-ecological systems. Ecology and Society 23(3):9. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-10264-230309
Upscaling the resilience assessment through comparative analysis
Resilience is the capacity of any system to maintain its function, structure and identity despite disturbances. Assessing resilience has been elusive due to high levels of abstraction that are difficult to empirically test, or the lack of high quality data required once appropriate proxies are identified. Most resilience assessments are limited to specific situation arenas, making comparision one of the unresolved challenges. Here we show how lev…
Commentary: Resilience and Social-Ecological Systems: A Handful of Frontiers
Translating Earth system boundaries for cities and businesses
Triple Bottom Line or Trilemma? Global Tradeoffs Between Prosperity, Inequality, and the Environment
A key aim of sustainable development is the joint achievement of prosperity, equality, and environmental integrity: in other words, material living standards that are high, broadly-distributed, and low-impact. This has often been called the “triple bottom line”. But instead, what if there is a “trilemma” that inhibits the simultaneous achievement of these three goals? We analysed international patterns and trends in the relationships between per-…
Sustaining local commons in the face of uncertain ecological thresholds: Evidence from a framed field experiment with Colombian small-scale fishers
Due to climate change abrupt and persistent changes in ecosystems, impacting millions of livelihoods, are likely but hard to predict. How people respond to such uncertain 'regime shifts' is poorly understood. Here, we assess the potential for local collective action to avert uncertain, yet catastrophic, regime shifts using behavioural economic experiments with 256 small-scale fishers from the Colombian Caribbean coast. With a framed, dynamic comm…
Panarchy: Ripples of a Boundary Concept
How do social-ecological systems change over time? In 2002 C. S. Holling and colleagues proposed the concept of panarchy, which presented social-ecological systems as an interacting set of adaptive cycles, each produced by the dynamic tensions between novelty and efficiency at multiple scales. Initially introduced as a conceptual framework and set of metaphors, panarchy has gained the attention of scholars across many disciplines, and its ideas c…
Living within the safe and just Earth system boundaries for blue water
Safe and just Earth system boundaries (ESBs) for surface water and groundwater (blue water) have been defined for sustainable water management in the Anthropocene. Here we assessed whether minimum human needs could be met with surface water from within individual river basins alone and, where this is not possible, quantified how much groundwater would be required. Approximately 2.6 billion people live in river basins where groundwater is needed b…
Inequalities in the adaptive cycle: Reorganizing After Disasters in an Unequal World
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…
Toward understanding the dynamics of land change in Latin America: Potential Utility of a Resilience Approach for Building Archetypes of Land-Systems Change
Rocha, J. C., M. Baraibar, L. Deutsch, A. de Bremond, J. Oestreicher, F. Rositano, and C. Gelabert. 2019. Toward understanding the dynamics of land change in Latin America: potential utility of a resilience approach for building archetypes of land-systems change. Ecology and Society 24(1):17. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-10349-240117
Cascading regime shifts within and across scales
Cascading effects of regime shifts The potential for regime shifts and critical transitions in ecological and Earth systems, particularly in a changing climate, has received considerable attention. However, the possibility of interactions between such shifts is poorly understood. Rocha et al. used network analysis to explore whether critical transitions in ecosystems can be coupled with each other, even when far apart (see the Perspective by Sche…
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…
The Regime Shifts Database: A Framework for Analyzing Regime Shifts in Social-Ecological Systems
Biggs, R., G. D. Peterson, and J. C. Rocha. 2018. The Regime Shifts Database: a framework for analyzing regime shifts in social-ecological systems. Ecology and Society 23(3):9. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-10264-230309
Mapping social-ecological systems archetypes
Achieving sustainable development goals requires targeting and monitoring sustainable solutions tailored to different social and ecological contexts. A social-ecological systems (SESs) framework was developed to help diagnose problems, identify complex interactions, and solutions tailored to each SES. Here we develop a data-driven method for upscaling the SES framework and apply it to a context where data is scarce, but also where solutions towar…
Toward understanding the dynamics of land change in Latin America: Potential Utility of a Resilience Approach for Building Archetypes of Land-Systems Change
Rocha, J. C., M. Baraibar, L. Deutsch, A. de Bremond, J. Oestreicher, F. Rositano, and C. Gelabert. 2019. Toward understanding the dynamics of land change in Latin America: potential utility of a resilience approach for building archetypes of land-systems change. Ecology and Society 24(1):17. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-10349-240117
Seeking sustainable pathways for land use in Latin America
Identifying a Safe and Just Corridor for People and the Planet
Keeping the Earth system in a stable and resilient state, to safeguard Earth's life support systems while ensuring that Earth's benefits, risks, and related responsibilities are equitably shared, constitutes the grand challenge for human development in the Anthropocene. Here, we describe a framework that the recently formed Earth Commission will use to define and quantify target ranges for a “safe and just corridor” that meets these goals. Althou…
Upscaling the resilience assessment through comparative analysis
Resilience is the capacity of any system to maintain its function, structure and identity despite disturbances. Assessing resilience has been elusive due to high levels of abstraction that are difficult to empirically test, or the lack of high quality data required once appropriate proxies are identified. Most resilience assessments are limited to specific situation arenas, making comparision one of the unresolved challenges. Here we show how lev…
Commentary: Resilience and Social-Ecological Systems: A Handful of Frontiers
A regional Pecs node built from place-based social-ecological sustainability research in Latin America and the Caribbean
Sustainability requires a combination of meaningful co-production of locally relevant solutions, synthesis of insights gained across regions, and increased cooperation between science, policy and practice. The Programme for Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS) has been coordinating Place-Based Social-Ecological Sustainability Research (PBSESR) across the globe and emphasizes the need for regional scientific nodes from diverse biocultural regions t…
Achieving a nature- and people-positive future
Despite decades of increasing investment in conservation, we have not succeeded in ''bending the curve'' of biodiversity decline. Efforts to meet new targets and goals for the next three decades risk repeating this outcome due to three factors: neglect of increasing drivers of decline; unrealistic expectations and time frames of biodiversity recovery; and insufficient attention to justice within and between generations and across countries. Our E…
Resilience-based steps for adaptive co-management of Arctic small-scale fisheries
Arctic small-scale fisheries are essential for the livelihoods, cultures, nutrition, economy, and food security of Indigenous communities. Their sustainable management in the rapidly changing Arctic is thus a key priority. Fisheries management in complex systems such as the Arctic would benefit from integrative approaches that explicitly seek to build resilience. Yet, resilience is rarely articulated as an explicit goal of Arctic fisheries manage…
Ecosystems are showing symptoms of resilience loss
Ecosystems around the world are at risk of critical transitions due to increasing anthropogenic pressures and climate change. Yet it is unclear where the risks are higher or where in the world ecosystems are more vulnerable. Here I measure resilience of primary productivity proxies for marine and terrestrial ecosystems globally. Up to 29% of global terrestrial ecosystem, and 24% marine ones, show symptoms of resilience loss. These symptoms are sh…
Inequalities in the adaptive cycle: Reorganizing After Disasters in an Unequal World
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…
Panarchy: Ripples of a Boundary Concept
How do social-ecological systems change over time? In 2002 C. S. Holling and colleagues proposed the concept of panarchy, which presented social-ecological systems as an interacting set of adaptive cycles, each produced by the dynamic tensions between novelty and efficiency at multiple scales. Initially introduced as a conceptual framework and set of metaphors, panarchy has gained the attention of scholars across many disciplines, and its ideas c…
Safe and just Earth system boundaries
The stability and resilience of the Earth system and human well-being are inseparably linked 1–3 , yet their interdependencies are generally under-recognized; consequently, they are often treated independently 4,5 . Here, we use modelling and literature assessment to quantify safe and just Earth system boundaries (ESBs) for climate, the biosphere, water and nutrient cycles, and aerosols at global and subglobal scales. We propose ESBs for maintain…
Earth system justice needed to identify and live within Earth system boundaries
Living within the safe and just Earth system boundaries for blue water
Safe and just Earth system boundaries (ESBs) for surface water and groundwater (blue water) have been defined for sustainable water management in the Anthropocene. Here we assessed whether minimum human needs could be met with surface water from within individual river basins alone and, where this is not possible, quantified how much groundwater would be required. Approximately 2.6 billion people live in river basins where groundwater is needed b…
Sustaining local commons in the face of uncertain ecological thresholds: Evidence from a framed field experiment with Colombian small-scale fishers
Due to climate change abrupt and persistent changes in ecosystems, impacting millions of livelihoods, are likely but hard to predict. How people respond to such uncertain 'regime shifts' is poorly understood. Here, we assess the potential for local collective action to avert uncertain, yet catastrophic, regime shifts using behavioural economic experiments with 256 small-scale fishers from the Colombian Caribbean coast. With a framed, dynamic comm…
Equity and Justice should underpin the discourse on Tipping Points
Radical and quick transformations towards sustainability have winners and losers, with equity and justice embedded to a greater or a lesser extent. According to research, only the wealthiest 1-4 % of the global population will radically need to change their consumption, behaviours, societal values and beliefs in order to make space for an equitable and sustainable future for nature and people. However, narratives around many 'positive' tipping po…
Securing Nature’s Contributions to People requires at least 20%–25% (semi-)natural habitat in human-modified landscapes
The cascading effects of biodiversity decline on human well-being present a pressing challenge for sustainable development. Conservation efforts often prioritize safeguarding specific species, habitats, or intact ecosystems but overlook biodiversity’s fundamental role in providing Nature’s Contributions to People (NCP) in human-modified landscapes. Here, we systematically review 154 peer-reviewed studies to estimate the minimum levels of (semi-)n…
Earth system resilience and tipping behavior
Anthropogenic climate change, marked by unprecedented extremes, is an immediate concern. The Earth’s limited ability to adapt to abrupt changes within our societal timeframe has raised global alarm. Resilience, the capacity to withstand and recover from disturbances, diminishes as disturbances intensify. For avoiding potential catastrophic changes, it is crucial to identify tipping points, where a change in part of a system becomes self-perpetuat…
Translating Earth system boundaries for cities and businesses
Triple Bottom Line or Trilemma? Global Tradeoffs Between Prosperity, Inequality, and the Environment
A key aim of sustainable development is the joint achievement of prosperity, equality, and environmental integrity: in other words, material living standards that are high, broadly-distributed, and low-impact. This has often been called the “triple bottom line”. But instead, what if there is a “trilemma” that inhibits the simultaneous achievement of these three goals? We analysed international patterns and trends in the relationships between per-…
Climate change, nature degradation, and financial stability: A review of domino-effects between finance, climate, and the biosphere
The threat associated with climate change and nature degradation poses complex financial challenges. Our systematic literature review of 88 finance-related publications published between 2015 and early 2022 revealed a gap in research on nature-related financial risks and their connections to climate change, particularly regarding ocean-related risks beyond rising sea levels. Although methods are available to assess these risks, more standardized …
Ecology (19 works) · Environmental resource management (18 works) · Biology (13 works) · Economics (13 works) · Environmental Science (13 works) · Geography (13 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Ecosystem dynamics and resilience (8 works) · Environmental planning (8 works) · Political science (7 works)