Image: @markusspiske via Unsplash/Squarespace.
For scholars interested in analytical frameworks and methods to examine complex systems relevant to sustainability, the third section of Mercury Stories provides a summary of key insights from across the five mercury systems in chapters 3 to 7. In chapter 8, we reflect on the ways in which our new HTE framework provide insights about mercury (and potentially other sustainability issues) that go beyond previous mercury-focused studies using other analytical frameworks and methods. To this end, chapter 8 is about “seeing the matrix.”
In chapter 8, we return to the first three of the four research questions that we posed in chapter 1 and that guided our application of the HTE framework and the matrix-based approach in chapters 3 to 7. The three research questions were: First, what are the main components of systems relevant to sustainability? Second, in what ways do components of these systems interact? Third, how can actors intervene in these systems to effect change? Here, we briefly summarize our main findings relating to the components of the mercury systems, as well as interactions and past interventions in these systems. For a more detailed discussion with lots of empirical examples, you have to read chapter 8!
What are the main components of systems relevant to sustainability? We draw three main conclusions. First, we needed all five categories of human, technical, environmental, institutional, and knowledge components to analyze the mercury systems, and all the individual components that we needed fit into one of the five categories. As such, we conclude that our five categories of system components are both necessary and sufficient. Second, we were able to sufficiently analyze the mercury systems by identifying a relatively small number of each type of system component at differing levels of specificity. The total number of system components for each of the mercury systems ranges from 20 to 27. We believe that a greater number of system components would not have had a meaningful positive impact on our analysis of system interactions and interventions. Third, while some components are unique to a single mercury system, others are common across several mercury systems, and these may also be important to other sustainability-relevant systems. Components common across systems may be particularly important for advancing sustainability more broadly.
In what ways do components of these systems interact? We highlight three major findings. First, most interaction pathways (linked interactions that form causal chains) involve interactions among all three categories of material components, demonstrating the analytical value of making a distinction between human, technical, and environmental components (rather than collapsing two of them into a larger category). Second, pathways differ with respect to their scope (the number of interactions that they contain), and their complexity (some pathways are linear while others involve multifactor causality, feedbacks, and reciprocal interactions). A large number of non-linear pathways with multiple interactions poses substantial analytical challenges for researchers to document causality. Third, pathways cross spatial scales from local to global, and temporal scales from minutes to millennia. The fact that pathways cross both spatial and temporal scales can separate impacts in space and time from their causes, which makes it difficult to link specific sources of mercury use, exposure, and discharges to particular observed environmental and human health effects.
How can actors intervene in these systems to effect change? We summarize four different conclusions about how actors can change either system components and/or interactions toward greater sustainability. First, some interveners targeted mercury specifically, while other interventions that affected mercury use and discharges were taken with other goals in mind (such as reducing other forms of pollution or improving a particular product or production process). Interventions had both positive and negative spillover effects, suggesting that both synergies and tradeoffs are prevalent among efforts to address sustainability issues. Second, interventions addressed both material and non-material components at different leverage points across pathways and targeted multiple types of interactions both “upstream” and “downstream” – and many of the more successful interventions addressed material and non-material components simultaneously. Third, interventions occurred at different spatial and temporal scales, but they often propagated across such scales. These processes prompted learning over time and across jurisdictions – for example, the diffusion of mercury-free technologies. Fourth, a broad range of actors with varying levels of power and influence was able to prompt system-level changes. This suggests that there is much potential for many different individuals and groups to act to further sustainability goals.
Since the publication of mercury stories, the HTE framework is beginning to be applied to other systems. See our resources page for some examples including single-use plastics, air pollution and agricultural burning in India, and water and irrigation in Pakistan, in the form of case studies usable for teaching. Further, the three questions posed in Mercury Stories were revised and applied in a 2021 article in Science Advances as a method to evaluate whether research on sustainability-relevant topics accounts for their components and interactions in complex, adaptive systems, and the article highlights the HTE framework as a methodological approach and road map for identifying which components and interactions in systems are most important to account for in research.
Box 1: Characteristics of Sustainability-Relevant Systems Research. from Selin, Science Advances, 2021.
Stay tuned for further refinements and applications!