A concept that struck me from this reading is one that Harsha touched on in her blog post: the idea of perspective when defining relationships and actors within a system. When something is defined as being A, the opposite is categorized and defined as not-A. This idea of exclusion-based definitions... Continue reading

One aspect of systems thinking that has always frustrated me is its inaccessibility. Systems thinking is not made up of extremely complicated rules and ideas, but rather consists of simple rules and ideas that work together to create a complex network or system. If this is the case, then why... Continue reading

To be upfront, my opinion is that the overall water system in the Western U.S. is not resilient. While there are resilient practices and techniques emerging within the water system (water banking, super ditch concepts, changes in ag. practices, etc.), I think that the system as a whole is actually... Continue reading

Resilience thinking has come a long way since its conception in 1973. Originally introduced as a technical ecological term by Holling in his research on spruce forest budworms, resilience is a term now commonly associated with many different systems. Stemming from the concept that an ecosystem is nonlinear and extremely... Continue reading

The “coproduction of knowledge” is a concept that is relatively new to me, and pretty exciting! According to Meadow et al., the “coproduction of knowledge is the process of producing usable, or actionable, science through collaboration between scientists and those who use science to make policy and management decisions,” (2015).... Continue reading

The reading material for class this week was quite diverse! The most interesting piece assigned, in my opinion, was the excerpt from the report written by Stan Deetz (“PUBLICATION 1F HOF LL_V12”). This report focuses on how Executive and Senior managers within the “overall nuclear system” can implement the actions... Continue reading

Chapter six of Meadow’s Thinking in Systems; A Primer discusses twelve leverage points within a system. These leverage points can be used to create changes in a systems behavior, however, Meadows points out that often times exploiting these leverage points can create unwanted behavior, or even the opposite behavior compared... Continue reading

The authors of “The Sustainable Economy” provide a great example of a tool that the system in question uses to self-organize. Meadows defines self-organization as the “the capacity of a system to make its own structure more complex,” (79). In the case at hand, Chouinard, Ellison and Ridgeway discuss the... Continue reading

Alec Brazeau Meadows identifies successful systems as those that have at least one of the three following characteristics: resilience, self-organization, and/or hierarchy. Resiliency is defined as the ability of a system to bounce back (elasticity). Self-organization applies to systems that are able to make themselves more complex through the use... Continue reading

Alec Brazeau Systems have three essential parts: elements, interconnections, and purposes. Elements are the easiest to identify, however they usually do not define the unique qualities of a system unless a change in elements results in a change in interconnections. Changing up the interconnections, or the relationships between elements, usually... Continue reading