TY - JOUR
T1 - "What kind of a science is sustainability science?" An evidence-based reexamination
AU - Fang, Xuening
AU - Zhou, Bingbing
AU - Tu, Xingyue
AU - Ma, Qun
AU - Wu, Jianguo
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding: This research was supported partially by grants from National Basic Research Program of China (2014CB954303), National Natural Science Foundation of China (31700406), and US National Science Foundation (DEB-1342757).
Funding Information:
While our manuscript was in its final stage of revision, we learned from Professor William Clark about the great loss that Professor Robert Kates passed away on April 21, 2018. Please refer to the obituary: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/telegram/obituary.aspx?n=robert-kates&pid=188870248. Professor Kates will be dearly missed, with his intellectual legacy continuing to inspire more research. Besides, we thank Maxwell Wilson, Jingwei Li, Dehua Mao, and Ignacio Fernandez for their comments on a draft version of the paper. This research was supported partially by grants from National Basic Research Program of China (2014CB954303), National Natural Science Foundation of China (31700406), and US National Science Foundation (DEB-1342757).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 by the author.
PY - 2018/5/8
Y1 - 2018/5/8
N2 - Sustainability science (SS), rooted in multiple disciplines, has been developing rapidly during the last two decades and become a well-recognized new field of study. However, the "identity" of SS remains unclear. Therefore, this study was intended to help synthesize the key characteristics of SS by revisiting the question raised by the leading sustainability scientist, Robert Kates (2011): "What kind of a science is sustainability science?" Specifically, we reviewed the literature in SS, and developed a synthesis of definitions and core research questions of SS, using multiple methods including change-point detection, word cloud visualization, and content and thematic analyses. Our study has produced several main findings: (1) the development of SS exhibited an S-shaped growth pattern, with an exponential growth phase through to 2012, and a asymptotic development phase afterwards; (2) ten key elements from the existing definitions of SS were identified, of which understanding "human-environment interactions" and "use-inspired" were most prominent; and (3) sixteen core questions in SS were derived from the literature. We further proposed an eight-theme framework of SS to help understand how the sixteen questions are related to each other. We argue that SS is coming of age, but more integrative and concerted efforts are still needed to further consolidate its identity by developing a coherent and rigorous scientific core.
AB - Sustainability science (SS), rooted in multiple disciplines, has been developing rapidly during the last two decades and become a well-recognized new field of study. However, the "identity" of SS remains unclear. Therefore, this study was intended to help synthesize the key characteristics of SS by revisiting the question raised by the leading sustainability scientist, Robert Kates (2011): "What kind of a science is sustainability science?" Specifically, we reviewed the literature in SS, and developed a synthesis of definitions and core research questions of SS, using multiple methods including change-point detection, word cloud visualization, and content and thematic analyses. Our study has produced several main findings: (1) the development of SS exhibited an S-shaped growth pattern, with an exponential growth phase through to 2012, and a asymptotic development phase afterwards; (2) ten key elements from the existing definitions of SS were identified, of which understanding "human-environment interactions" and "use-inspired" were most prominent; and (3) sixteen core questions in SS were derived from the literature. We further proposed an eight-theme framework of SS to help understand how the sixteen questions are related to each other. We argue that SS is coming of age, but more integrative and concerted efforts are still needed to further consolidate its identity by developing a coherent and rigorous scientific core.
KW - Core questions
KW - Definition
KW - Landscape sustainability
KW - Sustainability education
KW - Sustainability science
KW - Sustainable development
KW - Thematic framework
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U2 - 10.3390/su10051478
DO - 10.3390/su10051478
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85046626991
SN - 2071-1050
VL - 10
JO - Sustainability (Switzerland)
JF - Sustainability (Switzerland)
IS - 5
M1 - 1478
ER -