Geographic approaches to LTSER: Principal themes and concepts with a case study of Andes-Amazon Watersheds

Analysis of current works and trends in geography is conducted, with emphasis on human-environment and nature-society geography (HE-NS) in order to identify areas of conceptual overlap, promising exchange, and potential collaboration with Long-Term Social-Ecological Research (LTSER). HE-NS geography resembles the defining focus of LTSER on the coupled interactions of human societies and environments. Important conceptual connections to LTSER are identified as follows: (i) Coupled Human-Environment Interactions; (ii) Sustainability Science, Social-Ecological Adaptive Capacity, and Vulnerability; (iii) Land-Use and Land-Cover Change (LUCC) and Land Change Science (LCS); (iv) Environmental Governance and Political Ecology; (v) Environmental Landscape History and Ideas; and (vi) Environmental Scientific Concepts in Models, Management, and Policy. Demonstrated promise and potential value of conceptual “points of contact” exist in each of these areas of HE-NS geography and LTSER. Concepts of spatial and temporal scale, human-environment and nature-society interactions, multi-scale and networked spatiotemporal designs, and socio-ecological science theories and methodologies offer specific examples of the bridges between HE-NS geography and LTSER in interdisciplinary environmental studies and policy, a case study of Andean watersheds in the upper Amazon basin, and conclusions.