ZMT - Leibniz Zentrum für Marine Tropenforschung

The Social-Ecological Systems (SES) Analysis Work Group was active until the retirement of Marion Glaser in 2026. 

During its runtime between 2002 and 2026, the group investigated feedbacks between social and ecological dynamics in tropical coastal and marine social-ecological systems (CM-SES). In contrast to purely terrestrial or marine SES, CM-SES, located in the margin between land and deep ocean are particularly diverse in forms of use and governance. Research areas included human-nature interactions and their governance in mangroves, coral reefs, atolls, upwelling areas, and river estuaries. In the context of ongoing environmental change, the group focused on key coastal sustainability problems including ecosystem and resource degradation and overuse, coastal poverty, and on CM-SES governance and management.

While working with various SES concepts, the main working definition regarded an SES as multi-level from local to global and linking actors that affect or are affected by a particular issue or problem at a focal spatial or institutional level.

Analyses of the characteristics and dynamics of CM-SES focused on:

• Equity in coastal livelihood dynamics under conditions of change in the natural environment
• Formal and informal institutions, and the roots of social energy for the conservation and sustainable use of coastal and marine areas
• Social and social-ecological network characteristics and types in the governance of CM-SES
• Methods for SES analysis including multi-agent modelling and qualitative, quantitative and inclusive participatory approaches

To better link the diverse knowledge systems (of social and natural sciences, engineering, the humanities and the arts, fisherfolk and other ecosystem users, political decision-makers and others) around identified issues in the tropical coastal and marine realm, and to enable inter-and transdisciplinary collaboration, the group developed and interfaced methods for social-ecological systems analysis.

The Work Group’s ZMT level and global cooperation partners were complemented by various networks of national collaboration partners mainly but not exclusively in Bangladesh, Brazil, and Indonesia.