University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU) - Research portal
Selected Publication:
Grunbuhel, CM; Haberl, H; Schandl, H; Winiwarter, V.
(2003):
Socioeconomic metabolism and colonization of natural processes in SangSaeng village: Material and energy flows, land use, and cultural change in Northeast Thailand
HUM ECOL. 2003; 31(1): 53-86.
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- Abstract:
- Conceptualizing environmental problems as sustainability problems contributing to local and global environmental change requires an understanding of how societies cope with their natural environment. Indicators for society-nature interactions are fairly well developed for national-level analyses. This study adapts some of these indicators to the local level and relates them to a qualitative assessment of economic and cultural change in a single community. Indicators are derived from material and energy flow accounting methods and address two major objectives: Firstly, to identify mutual influences between the global and the local level. Secondly, to assess future potentials of environmental pressures and impacts that can be expected to occur as such communities follow a path of further modernization. This study of a small rice-farming community in Northeast Thailand deals with physical as well as sociocultural aspects in order to produce a broad picture of society nature relations. The indicators developed portray a society in the midst of transition and rapid modernization. This becomes apparent when comparing the results to those of similar studies in traditional and industrial societies. What we see is a community struggling to adapt to global influences, while at the same time maintaining subsistence with traditional coping mechanisms.
- Authors BOKU Wien:
- Haberl Helmut
- Winiwarter Verena
- Find related publications in this database (Keywords)
- Southeast Asia
- Thailand
- society-nature relations
- labor
- socioeconomic metabolism
- material flows
- energy flows
- colonization of natural processes
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