Social and Ecological System Dynamics: Characteristics, Trends, and Integration in the Lake Tana Basin, Ethiopia, one of the first books in the AESS Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies and Sciences Series, is now in production and is expected to be published by the conference.  This presentation tells the story of the book’s development as a practical mechanism for promoting integration across disciplines and among researchers and decision-makers in the Lake Tana basin in Ethiopia.

In 2013-2014 I spent a year as a Core Fulbright Scholar in the Lake Tana region in Ethiopia.  The Lake Tana basin is the  headwater catchment for the Blue Nile River.  It is economically and environmentally important locally, nationally, and internationally.  In spite of its importance, there is no comprehensive, integrated, system-wide description of its characteristics and dynamics that can serve as a basis for its sustainable development.

In the course of my early conversations with regional researchers, decision-makers, local residents, and NGO staff, issues of system integration kept arising. It became clear that, while there was a lot of good research being done locally, it was getting little recognition from policy makers at all levels or from other researchers outside the region.  Regional researchers felt their work and concerns were not being fully considered by decision-makers and decision-makers felt researchers weren’t giving them the information they needed to answer specific applied questions.  By my second month, this book project was born to collect local social and ecological knowledge about the region and frame it in a systems context.  In the course of the book development, we held a systems mapping workshop to develop a tangible systems framework and promote collaboration.  This presentation describes the process of developing the book, its content, and the potential of this kind of project to engage communities working to sustain regional wellbeing.