Simron Jit Singh
Biographic Data
| ID | 6284479 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Simron Jit Singh |
| GIVEN NAMES | Simron Jit |
| FAMILY NAME | Singh |
| SIGNATURE | SINGH S J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Waterloo |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7012-893X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 39 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 30 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
How prepared is Fiji to climate and geopolitical risks? Insights from a socio-metabolic risk (SMR) analysis
Small Island Developing States (SIDS) contribute little to global emissions yet face disproportionate climate and market shocks. Their vulnerability is geographic and structural, driven by external resource dependence, lock-in of hazard-zone stocks, and weak circularity. The Socio-Metabolic Risk (SMR) concept addresses these drivers by linking material flows and stocks to systemic fragility. This study provides the first operationalization of SMR…
Towards an ecological metaphor for regenerative circular economies
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…
From vulnerability to viability
Small-scale fisheries (SSF) support over 90% of the 120 million people engaged in capture fisheries globally. Despite their contributions, SSF communities are often economically and politically marginalised, are highly vulnerable to change, and until recently, remained largely invisible in policy debates in most countries and internationally. This paper undertakes a situational analysis of 12 countries with significant small-scale fisheries (i.e.…
Can a small island nation build resilience? The significance of resource‐use patterns and socio‐metabolic risks in The Bahamas
Resource‐use patterns may entail systemic risks and cascade effects, which consequently inhibit the ability to deliver socioeconomic services. Identifying resource‐use patterns exhibiting systemic risks and reshaping their combinations is a potential lever in realizing the transition to a sustainable, resilient, and resource‐secure system. Using an island context to assess the quantity and composition of resource throughput enables a more compreh…
The Bahamas at risk
Recent research suggests that over 75% of resources extracted globally now go toward creating, maintaining, or operating material stocks (MS) to provide societal services like housing, transport, education, and health. However, the integrity of current and future built environments, and the capacity of the system to continue providing services, are threatened by extreme events and sea‐level rise (SLR). This is especially significant for the most …
The challenge of solid waste on Small Islands
Household energy systems based on biomass
Biomass remains the most important energy carrier of rural households in low- and middle-income countries, but its indoor combustion has grave impacts on human health and its extraction is associated with negative effects on ecosystems. Currently, robust and comprehensive data are lacking to trace biomass flows from ecosystems to consumption in households and quantify the related services. This impedes analyses of the social and environmental imp…
The priorities and coping strategies of severely food insecure households in Beira in response to Cyclone Idai
Severely food insecure households faced significant challenges before Cyclone Idai. • Following Cyclone Idai, these households prioritized housing, food and water. • Common coping strategies included re-allocating and collecting entitlements
Can the Caribbean localize its food system
Small island economies are highly dependent on food imports. Self‐sufficiency through food localization is therefore often advocated. Can a small Caribbean island nation localize its food system? To answer this question, we conducted socio‐metabolic research on four Caribbean nations: Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, and Jamaica. Derived indicators from a diachronic biomass flow accounting from 1961 to 2019 suggest a declining trend in local food pro…
The sociometabolic transition of a small Greek island
Their geomorphological characteristics make island systems special focal points for sustainability challenges. The Circular Economy (CE) Action Plan of the European Union foresees tailored solution sets for Europe's outermost regions and islands to tackle region-specific sustainability challenges. We address the question of how islands can achieve more sustainable resource use by utilizing the socioeconomic metabolism (SEM) framework to assess an…
Socio-metabolic risk and tipping points on islands
Small Island Developing States (SIDS) face enormous sustainability challenges such as heavy reliance on imports to meet basic needs, tenuous resource availability, coastal squeeze, and reduced waste absorption capacity. At the same time, the adverse effects of global environmental change such as global warming, extreme events, and outbreaks of pandemics significantly hinder SIDS’ progress towards sustainable development. This paper makes a concep…
Natural Hazards and Complex Disasters
This entry reviews key trends in disaster research over the past century, in terms of definitions, causes, impacts, and current practices in dealing with disasters. The second part uses the case of the Nicobar Islands in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami and shows how an indigenous, subsistence, island community of hunters and gatherers has been transformed into an aid‐dependent, monetary economy embedded in the regional market. The new consumer …
The weight of islands
The building stock consumes large amounts of resources for maintenance and expansion which is only exacerbated by disaster events where large‐scale reconstruction must occur quickly. Recent research has shown the potential for application of material stock (MS) accounts for informing disaster risk planning. In this research, we present a methodological approach to analyze the vulnerability of the material stock in buildings to extreme weather eve…
How the end of armed conflicts influence forest cover and subsequently ecosystem services provision? An analysis of four case studies in biodiversity hotspots
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…
Mainstreaming Biodiversity in Development Practice
Given the intricate link between biodiversity and poverty, this article critically reflects on the role of mainstreaming biodiversity in development policy and practice. In order to better understand the operational challenges ‘on the ground’, we present some of the dominant development frameworks within which development organizations operate, all with a view to better understand how aid ‘thinks’ and ‘works’. The article then examines the concep…
Decision making in a complex world
India’s land grab deals in Ethiopia
‘Society Can’t Move So Much As a Chair!’—Systems, Structures and Actors in Social Ecology
Why Legacies Matter
Complex Disasters on the Nicobar Islands
Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) in Latin America
Long Term Socio-Ecological Research
The authors in this volume make a case for LTSER’s potential in providing insights, knowledge and experience necessary for a sustainability transition. This expertly edited selection of contributions from Europe and North America reviews the development of LTSER since its inception and assesses its current state, which has evolved to recognize the value of formulating solutions to the host of ecological threats we face. Through many case studies,…
India's biophysical economy, 1961–2008. Sustainability in a national and global context
India's economic growth in the last decade has raised several concerns in terms of its present and future resource demands for materials and energy. While per capita resource consumption is still extremely modest but on the rise, its sheer population qualifies India as a fast growing giant with material and energy throughput that is growing rapidly . If such national and local trends continue, the challenges for regional, national as well as glob…
India’s land grab deals in Ethiopia
From the Ashes into the Fire? Institutional Change in the Post-Tsunami Nicobar Islands, India
This article critically analyzes institutional change as a consequence of humanitarian intervention in the tsunami-affected Nicobar Islands in India. It shows that the state and aid agencies distributed resources on the basis of formal rules and norms different from those observed by the Nicobarese. This has created social upheaval by diminishing the stature of the joint family system and imparting greater agency to political representatives. Wri…
Social Metabolism and Labour in a Local Context
How the end of armed conflicts influence forest cover and subsequently ecosystem services provision? An analysis of four case studies in biodiversity hotspots
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…
Environmental relations and biophysical transition
To what extent is an island economy cut off from the rest of the world? Defined as a mass of land bounded by water, island societies connect and exchange with their surroundings rather intensely. Based on empirical research, this paper explores the role of a ‘remote’ island society on Trinket in generating or sheltering itself from the process of globalisation in which con‐textually given borders are transgressed and displaced. To this end, we ap…
The challenge of solid waste on Small Islands
Household energy systems based on biomass
Biomass remains the most important energy carrier of rural households in low- and middle-income countries, but its indoor combustion has grave impacts on human health and its extraction is associated with negative effects on ecosystems. Currently, robust and comprehensive data are lacking to trace biomass flows from ecosystems to consumption in households and quantify the related services. This impedes analyses of the social and environmental imp…
Social Metabolism and Labour in a Local Context
Environmental relations and biophysical transition
To what extent is an island economy cut off from the rest of the world? Defined as a mass of land bounded by water, island societies connect and exchange with their surroundings rather intensely. Based on empirical research, this paper explores the role of a ‘remote’ island society on Trinket in generating or sheltering itself from the process of globalisation in which con‐textually given borders are transgressed and displaced. To this end, we ap…
Towards an integrated model of socioeconomic biodiversity drivers, pressures and impacts. A feasibility study based on three European long-term socio-ecological research platforms
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 …
India's biophysical economy, 1961–2008. Sustainability in a national and global context
India's economic growth in the last decade has raised several concerns in terms of its present and future resource demands for materials and energy. While per capita resource consumption is still extremely modest but on the rise, its sheer population qualifies India as a fast growing giant with material and energy throughput that is growing rapidly . If such national and local trends continue, the challenges for regional, national as well as glob…
From the Ashes into the Fire? Institutional Change in the Post-Tsunami Nicobar Islands, India
This article critically analyzes institutional change as a consequence of humanitarian intervention in the tsunami-affected Nicobar Islands in India. It shows that the state and aid agencies distributed resources on the basis of formal rules and norms different from those observed by the Nicobarese. This has created social upheaval by diminishing the stature of the joint family system and imparting greater agency to political representatives. Wri…
Long Term Socio-Ecological Research
The authors in this volume make a case for LTSER’s potential in providing insights, knowledge and experience necessary for a sustainability transition. This expertly edited selection of contributions from Europe and North America reviews the development of LTSER since its inception and assesses its current state, which has evolved to recognize the value of formulating solutions to the host of ecological threats we face. Through many case studies,…
‘Society Can’t Move So Much As a Chair!’—Systems, Structures and Actors in Social Ecology
Why Legacies Matter
Complex Disasters on the Nicobar Islands
Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) in Latin America
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…
Mainstreaming Biodiversity in Development Practice
Given the intricate link between biodiversity and poverty, this article critically reflects on the role of mainstreaming biodiversity in development policy and practice. In order to better understand the operational challenges ‘on the ground’, we present some of the dominant development frameworks within which development organizations operate, all with a view to better understand how aid ‘thinks’ and ‘works’. The article then examines the concep…
Decision making in a complex world
India’s land grab deals in Ethiopia
Reaching a socio-ecological tipping point
How the end of armed conflicts influence forest cover and subsequently ecosystem services provision? An analysis of four case studies in biodiversity hotspots
The weight of islands
The building stock consumes large amounts of resources for maintenance and expansion which is only exacerbated by disaster events where large‐scale reconstruction must occur quickly. Recent research has shown the potential for application of material stock (MS) accounts for informing disaster risk planning. In this research, we present a methodological approach to analyze the vulnerability of the material stock in buildings to extreme weather eve…
Natural Hazards and Complex Disasters
This entry reviews key trends in disaster research over the past century, in terms of definitions, causes, impacts, and current practices in dealing with disasters. The second part uses the case of the Nicobar Islands in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami and shows how an indigenous, subsistence, island community of hunters and gatherers has been transformed into an aid‐dependent, monetary economy embedded in the regional market. The new consumer …
The priorities and coping strategies of severely food insecure households in Beira in response to Cyclone Idai
Severely food insecure households faced significant challenges before Cyclone Idai. • Following Cyclone Idai, these households prioritized housing, food and water. • Common coping strategies included re-allocating and collecting entitlements
Can the Caribbean localize its food system
Small island economies are highly dependent on food imports. Self‐sufficiency through food localization is therefore often advocated. Can a small Caribbean island nation localize its food system? To answer this question, we conducted socio‐metabolic research on four Caribbean nations: Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, and Jamaica. Derived indicators from a diachronic biomass flow accounting from 1961 to 2019 suggest a declining trend in local food pro…
The sociometabolic transition of a small Greek island
Their geomorphological characteristics make island systems special focal points for sustainability challenges. The Circular Economy (CE) Action Plan of the European Union foresees tailored solution sets for Europe's outermost regions and islands to tackle region-specific sustainability challenges. We address the question of how islands can achieve more sustainable resource use by utilizing the socioeconomic metabolism (SEM) framework to assess an…
Socio-metabolic risk and tipping points on islands
Small Island Developing States (SIDS) face enormous sustainability challenges such as heavy reliance on imports to meet basic needs, tenuous resource availability, coastal squeeze, and reduced waste absorption capacity. At the same time, the adverse effects of global environmental change such as global warming, extreme events, and outbreaks of pandemics significantly hinder SIDS’ progress towards sustainable development. This paper makes a concep…
From vulnerability to viability
Small-scale fisheries (SSF) support over 90% of the 120 million people engaged in capture fisheries globally. Despite their contributions, SSF communities are often economically and politically marginalised, are highly vulnerable to change, and until recently, remained largely invisible in policy debates in most countries and internationally. This paper undertakes a situational analysis of 12 countries with significant small-scale fisheries (i.e.…
Can a small island nation build resilience? The significance of resource‐use patterns and socio‐metabolic risks in The Bahamas
Resource‐use patterns may entail systemic risks and cascade effects, which consequently inhibit the ability to deliver socioeconomic services. Identifying resource‐use patterns exhibiting systemic risks and reshaping their combinations is a potential lever in realizing the transition to a sustainable, resilient, and resource‐secure system. Using an island context to assess the quantity and composition of resource throughput enables a more compreh…
Geography (26 works) · Economics (22 works) · Ecology (19 works) · Environmental resource management (18 works) · Business (15 works) · Environmental planning (11 works) · Sustainability (11 works) · Biology (10 works) · Environmental Science (10 works) · Natural resource economics (10 works)