Marta Berbés‐Blázquez
Biographic Data
| ID | 6719149 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Marta Berbés‐Blázquez |
| GIVEN NAMES | Marta |
| FAMILY NAME | Berbés‐Blázquez |
| SIGNATURE | BLÁZQUEZ M B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Waterloo |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2685-873X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 66 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Enabling "barrio" innovation
Sustainability transformations are most meaningful when communities take ownership of their collective futures and guide transformative processes that are rooted in their local traditions and value systems. Yet, researcher–community collaborations aimed at facilitating meaningful transformations can fall short of their objectives if they do not explicitly recognize bottom-up transformative processes that already exist in the community that enable…
Welcome home! Introducing SocSES
Underpinned by systemic thinking, social-ecological systems (SES) research has emerged as a critical field for addressing the challenges of the Anthropocene, marked by a cross-scale focus, inter- and transdisciplinary approaches, and a strong emphasis on place-based work. Thanks to the efforts of many networks and institutes, the field has advanced new theoretical and methodological approaches, fostered dedicated journals, and spurred educational…
Beyond Academia
Gray literature is increasingly considered to complement evidence and knowledge from peer-reviewed literature for science-policy processes and applied research. On the one hand, science-policy assessments need to consider a diversity of worldviews, knowledge types and values from a variety of sectors and actor groups, and synthesize policy-relevant findings that are salient, legitimate and credible. On the other hand, practitioners and scholars c…
Biosphere Futures
Biosphere Futures (https://biospherefutures.net/) is a new online database to collect and discover scenario studies from across the world, with a specific focus on scenarios that explicitly incorporate interdependencies between humans and their supporting ecosystems. It provides access to a globally diverse collection of case studies that includes most ecosystems and regions, enabling exploration of the multifaceted ways in which the future might…
Relating social, ecological, and technological vulnerability to future flood exposure at two spatial scales in four U.S. cities
Science on ecosystems and people to support the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework
In December 2022, members of the Convention on Biological Diversity adopted the new Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) (https://www.cbd.int/gbf/targets/) to guide international biodiversity conservation efforts until 2030 in order to be able to live ‘in harmony with nature’ by 2050. This framework addresses the implementation gap left after the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, which were the previous global instrument for mainstreami…
The role of values in future scenarios
Values have been recognized as critical leverage points for sustainability transformations. However, there is limited evidence unpacking which types of values are associated with specific types of sustainable and unsustainable futures, as described by future scenarios and other types of futures-related works. This paper builds on a review of 460 future scenarios, visions, and other types of futures-related works in the Intergovernmental Science-P…
Assessing resilience, equity, and sustainability of future visions across two urban scales
Cities need to take swift action to deal with the impacts of extreme climate events. The co-production of positive visions offers the potential to not only imagine but also intervene in guiding change toward more desirable urban futures. While participatory visioning continues to be used as a tool for urban planning, there needs to be a way of comparing and evaluating future visions so that they can inform decision-making. Traditional tools for c…
Shifting from binaries to pluralism
An environmental justice perspective on ecosystem services
Mainstreaming of ecosystem service approaches has been proposed as one path toward sustainable development. Meanwhile, critics of ecosystem services question if the approach can account for the multiple values of ecosystems to diverse groups of people, or for aspects of inter- and intra-generational justice. In particular, an ecosystem service approach often overlooks power dimensions and capabilities that are core to environmental justice. This …
A social-ecological-technological systems framework for urban ecosystem services
What do we mean by justice in sustainability pathways? Commitments, dilemmas, and translations from theory to practice in nature-based solutions
Justice and fairness have become key considerations in sustainability pathways and nature-based solutions (NBS), following activists and critical scholars who have long argued that the urban environment is an inherently political space that requires an analysis of benefits and burdens associated with its existence, use, and access. However, what justice means and how it is expressed, recognized, or achieved is often implicit in the literature on …
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
Beyond bouncing back? Comparing and contesting urban resilience frames in US and Latin American contexts
Urban resilience has gained considerable popularity in planning and policy to address cities’ capacity to cope with climate change. While many studies discuss the different ways that academics define resilience, little attention has been given to how resilience is conceptualized across different urban contexts and among the actors that engage in building resilience ‘on the ground’. Given the implications that resilience frames can have for the so…
The co-production of sustainable future scenarios
Scenarios are a tool to develop plausible, coherent visions about the future and to foster anticipatory knowledge. We present the Sustainable Future Scenarios (SFS) framework and demonstrate its application through the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-term Ecological Research (CAP LTER) urban site. The SFS approach emphasizes the co-development of positive and long-term alternative future visions. Through a collaboration of practitioner and academic …
Integrating existing climate adaptation planning into future visions
Cities face a number of challenges to ensure that people’s well-being and ecosystem integrity are not only maintained but improved for current and future generations. Urban planning must account for the diverse and changing interactions among the social, ecological, and technological systems (SETS) of a city. Cities struggle with long-range approaches to explore, anticipate, and plan for sustainability and resilience—and scenario development is o…
Pathways out of poverty through the lens of development resilience
Dou, Y., P. J. Deadman, M. Berbés-Blázquez, N. D. Vogt, and O. Almeida. 2020. Pathways out of poverty through the lens of development resilience: an agent-based simulation. Ecology and Society 25(4):3. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-11842-250403
The development of resilience thinking.
This chapter offers an overview of the evolution of resilience thinking, from a descriptive concept in ecology to a boundary concept and approach that fosters interdisciplinary research of social-ecological systems. The first section begins with a review of the evolving conceptualizations of resilience, distinguishing between those definitions that emphasize a systems understanding and the more recent definitions of resilience that emerge from it…
Measuring and assessing resilience
Increased interest in managing resilience has led to efforts to develop standardized tools for assessments and quantitative measures. Resilience, however, as a property of complex adaptive systems, does not lend itself easily to measurement. Whereas assessment approaches tend to focus on deepening understanding of system dynamics, resilience measurement aims to capture and quantify resilience in a rigorous and repeatable way. We discuss the stren…
Towards an ecosystem services approach that addresses social power relations
The Need for Heuristics in Ecosystem Approaches to Health
Ecohealth and Resilience Thinking
Berbés-Blázquez, M., J. S. Oestreicher, F. Mertens, and J. Saint-Charles. 2014. Ecohealth and resilience thinking: a dialog from experiences in research and practice. Ecology and Society 19(2): 24. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-06264-190224
Towards an ecosystem services approach that addresses social power relations
What do we mean by justice in sustainability pathways? Commitments, dilemmas, and translations from theory to practice in nature-based solutions
Justice and fairness have become key considerations in sustainability pathways and nature-based solutions (NBS), following activists and critical scholars who have long argued that the urban environment is an inherently political space that requires an analysis of benefits and burdens associated with its existence, use, and access. However, what justice means and how it is expressed, recognized, or achieved is often implicit in the literature on …
An environmental justice perspective on ecosystem services
Mainstreaming of ecosystem service approaches has been proposed as one path toward sustainable development. Meanwhile, critics of ecosystem services question if the approach can account for the multiple values of ecosystems to diverse groups of people, or for aspects of inter- and intra-generational justice. In particular, an ecosystem service approach often overlooks power dimensions and capabilities that are core to environmental justice. This …
The role of values in future scenarios
Values have been recognized as critical leverage points for sustainability transformations. However, there is limited evidence unpacking which types of values are associated with specific types of sustainable and unsustainable futures, as described by future scenarios and other types of futures-related works. This paper builds on a review of 460 future scenarios, visions, and other types of futures-related works in the Intergovernmental Science-P…
Biosphere Futures
Biosphere Futures (https://biospherefutures.net/) is a new online database to collect and discover scenario studies from across the world, with a specific focus on scenarios that explicitly incorporate interdependencies between humans and their supporting ecosystems. It provides access to a globally diverse collection of case studies that includes most ecosystems and regions, enabling exploration of the multifaceted ways in which the future might…
Ecohealth and Resilience Thinking
Berbés-Blázquez, M., J. S. Oestreicher, F. Mertens, and J. Saint-Charles. 2014. Ecohealth and resilience thinking: a dialog from experiences in research and practice. Ecology and Society 19(2): 24. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-06264-190224
Assessing resilience, equity, and sustainability of future visions across two urban scales
Cities need to take swift action to deal with the impacts of extreme climate events. The co-production of positive visions offers the potential to not only imagine but also intervene in guiding change toward more desirable urban futures. While participatory visioning continues to be used as a tool for urban planning, there needs to be a way of comparing and evaluating future visions so that they can inform decision-making. Traditional tools for c…
Pathways out of poverty through the lens of development resilience
Dou, Y., P. J. Deadman, M. Berbés-Blázquez, N. D. Vogt, and O. Almeida. 2020. Pathways out of poverty through the lens of development resilience: an agent-based simulation. Ecology and Society 25(4):3. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-11842-250403
The Need for Heuristics in Ecosystem Approaches to Health
Ecohealth and Resilience Thinking
Berbés-Blázquez, M., J. S. Oestreicher, F. Mertens, and J. Saint-Charles. 2014. Ecohealth and resilience thinking: a dialog from experiences in research and practice. Ecology and Society 19(2): 24. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-06264-190224
Measuring and assessing resilience
Increased interest in managing resilience has led to efforts to develop standardized tools for assessments and quantitative measures. Resilience, however, as a property of complex adaptive systems, does not lend itself easily to measurement. Whereas assessment approaches tend to focus on deepening understanding of system dynamics, resilience measurement aims to capture and quantify resilience in a rigorous and repeatable way. We discuss the stren…
Towards an ecosystem services approach that addresses social power relations
The development of resilience thinking.
This chapter offers an overview of the evolution of resilience thinking, from a descriptive concept in ecology to a boundary concept and approach that fosters interdisciplinary research of social-ecological systems. The first section begins with a review of the evolving conceptualizations of resilience, distinguishing between those definitions that emphasize a systems understanding and the more recent definitions of resilience that emerge from it…
The co-production of sustainable future scenarios
Scenarios are a tool to develop plausible, coherent visions about the future and to foster anticipatory knowledge. We present the Sustainable Future Scenarios (SFS) framework and demonstrate its application through the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-term Ecological Research (CAP LTER) urban site. The SFS approach emphasizes the co-development of positive and long-term alternative future visions. Through a collaboration of practitioner and academic …
Integrating existing climate adaptation planning into future visions
Cities face a number of challenges to ensure that people’s well-being and ecosystem integrity are not only maintained but improved for current and future generations. Urban planning must account for the diverse and changing interactions among the social, ecological, and technological systems (SETS) of a city. Cities struggle with long-range approaches to explore, anticipate, and plan for sustainability and resilience—and scenario development is o…
Pathways out of poverty through the lens of development resilience
Dou, Y., P. J. Deadman, M. Berbés-Blázquez, N. D. Vogt, and O. Almeida. 2020. Pathways out of poverty through the lens of development resilience: an agent-based simulation. Ecology and Society 25(4):3. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-11842-250403
Beyond bouncing back? Comparing and contesting urban resilience frames in US and Latin American contexts
Urban resilience has gained considerable popularity in planning and policy to address cities’ capacity to cope with climate change. While many studies discuss the different ways that academics define resilience, little attention has been given to how resilience is conceptualized across different urban contexts and among the actors that engage in building resilience ‘on the ground’. Given the implications that resilience frames can have for the so…
A social-ecological-technological systems framework for urban ecosystem services
What do we mean by justice in sustainability pathways? Commitments, dilemmas, and translations from theory to practice in nature-based solutions
Justice and fairness have become key considerations in sustainability pathways and nature-based solutions (NBS), following activists and critical scholars who have long argued that the urban environment is an inherently political space that requires an analysis of benefits and burdens associated with its existence, use, and access. However, what justice means and how it is expressed, recognized, or achieved is often implicit in the literature on …
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
Relating social, ecological, and technological vulnerability to future flood exposure at two spatial scales in four U.S. cities
Science on ecosystems and people to support the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework
In December 2022, members of the Convention on Biological Diversity adopted the new Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) (https://www.cbd.int/gbf/targets/) to guide international biodiversity conservation efforts until 2030 in order to be able to live ‘in harmony with nature’ by 2050. This framework addresses the implementation gap left after the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, which were the previous global instrument for mainstreami…
The role of values in future scenarios
Values have been recognized as critical leverage points for sustainability transformations. However, there is limited evidence unpacking which types of values are associated with specific types of sustainable and unsustainable futures, as described by future scenarios and other types of futures-related works. This paper builds on a review of 460 future scenarios, visions, and other types of futures-related works in the Intergovernmental Science-P…
Assessing resilience, equity, and sustainability of future visions across two urban scales
Cities need to take swift action to deal with the impacts of extreme climate events. The co-production of positive visions offers the potential to not only imagine but also intervene in guiding change toward more desirable urban futures. While participatory visioning continues to be used as a tool for urban planning, there needs to be a way of comparing and evaluating future visions so that they can inform decision-making. Traditional tools for c…
Shifting from binaries to pluralism
An environmental justice perspective on ecosystem services
Mainstreaming of ecosystem service approaches has been proposed as one path toward sustainable development. Meanwhile, critics of ecosystem services question if the approach can account for the multiple values of ecosystems to diverse groups of people, or for aspects of inter- and intra-generational justice. In particular, an ecosystem service approach often overlooks power dimensions and capabilities that are core to environmental justice. This …
Beyond Academia
Gray literature is increasingly considered to complement evidence and knowledge from peer-reviewed literature for science-policy processes and applied research. On the one hand, science-policy assessments need to consider a diversity of worldviews, knowledge types and values from a variety of sectors and actor groups, and synthesize policy-relevant findings that are salient, legitimate and credible. On the other hand, practitioners and scholars c…
Biosphere Futures
Biosphere Futures (https://biospherefutures.net/) is a new online database to collect and discover scenario studies from across the world, with a specific focus on scenarios that explicitly incorporate interdependencies between humans and their supporting ecosystems. It provides access to a globally diverse collection of case studies that includes most ecosystems and regions, enabling exploration of the multifaceted ways in which the future might…
Enabling "barrio" innovation
Sustainability transformations are most meaningful when communities take ownership of their collective futures and guide transformative processes that are rooted in their local traditions and value systems. Yet, researcher–community collaborations aimed at facilitating meaningful transformations can fall short of their objectives if they do not explicitly recognize bottom-up transformative processes that already exist in the community that enable…
Welcome home! Introducing SocSES
Underpinned by systemic thinking, social-ecological systems (SES) research has emerged as a critical field for addressing the challenges of the Anthropocene, marked by a cross-scale focus, inter- and transdisciplinary approaches, and a strong emphasis on place-based work. Thanks to the efforts of many networks and institutes, the field has advanced new theoretical and methodological approaches, fostered dedicated journals, and spurred educational…
Environmental resource management (17 works) · Ecology (16 works) · Sociology (14 works) · Political science (13 works) · Environmental Science (12 works) · Geography (12 works) · Computer Science (11 works) · Land Use and Ecosystem Services (10 works) · Economics (9 works) · Environmental planning (9 works)