Environmental Social Science -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Preface -- 1 The Challenge of Human-Environment Interactions Research -- The Evolution of Social Ecological Systems -- Characterization of Contemporary Global Environmental Changes -- History of the Development of the Human Dimensions Agenda -- Characteristics of the Research on the Human Dimensions -- The Way Forward: Integrative Science -- 2 Theories and Concepts from the Social Sciences -- Population, Technology, and Central Place Theories -- Population and Environment Theories -- Agency and History -- Decision-theoretic Approaches -- Political Economy and Political Ecology -- Cultural Ecology -- 3 Theories and Concepts from the Biological Sciences -- Evolution by Natural Selection -- Species Respond Individualistically, Not as Communities -- Interactions with Other Species: Niche and Neutral Theories -- Top-down vs. Bottom-up Control in Ecosystems -- Succession -- Island Biogeography -- Equilibrium and Nonequilibrium Theories -- Biodiversity and Ecosystem Processes/Services -- The Ecosystem Concept in Biology and the Social Sciences -- 4 Spatially Explicit Approaches -- Remote Sensing and GIS -- A Case Study Using GIS/Remote Sensing to Study Amazonian Deforestation -- Urban-Rural Spatial Dynamics -- Modeling and GIS -- 5 Multi-scale and Multi-temporal Analysis -- An Approach to Multidisciplinary, Multi-scale Research -- Scale -- Local Level of Analysis -- Regional Level of Analysis -- Global Level of Analysis -- Future Directions -- 6 Biocomplexity in Ecological Systems -- Introduction -- Spatially Explicit Processes in Ecological and Social Systems -- Agent-based Modeling of Complex Systems -- Hierarchical Modeling -- Conclusions -- 7 Environmental Decision Making -- Institutional Analysis -- Individual Behavior and Environmental Decisions -- Decisions and Social Context.

Conclusions -- 8 Towards Sustainability Science -- Sustainability Science Research Priorities -- Scales of Sustainability -- Cities and Sustainability Science -- Climate Change and Sustainability -- Conclusions -- References -- Index.