The DOI matches its Crossref record; 52 of the 52 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Defining tipping points for social-ecological systems scholarship—an interdisciplinary literature review
Open accessAbstract
The term tipping point has experienced explosive popularity across multiple disciplines over the last decade. Research on social-ecological systems (SES) has contributed to the growth and diversity of the term's use. The diverse uses of the term obscure potential differences between tipping behavior in natural and social systems, and issues of causality across natural and social system components in SES. This paper aims to create the foundation for a discussion within the SES research community about the appropriate use of the term tipping point, especially the relatively novel term 'social tipping point.' We review existing literature on tipping points and similar concepts (e.g. regime shifts, critical transitions) across all spheres of science published between 1960 and 2016 with a special focus on a recent and still small body of work on social tipping points. We combine quantitative and qualitative analyses in a bibliometric approach, rooted in an expert elicitation process. We find that the term tipping point became popular after the year 2000—long after the terms regime shift and critical transition—across all spheres of science. We identify 23 distinct features of tipping point definitions and their prevalence across disciplines, but find no clear taxonomy of discipline-specific definitions. Building on the most frequently used features, we propose definitions for tipping points in general and social tipping points in SES in particular.
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Citations
Cites
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The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research
Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (2017) · Aldine (Routledge reprint) · doi:10.4324/9780203793206 · Cited by 25,789
Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems
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Threshold models of collective behavior
Granovetter, M. (1978) · American Journal of Sociology · doi:10.1086/226707 · Cited by 6,072
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Early-warning signals for critical transitions
Scheffer, M., Bascompte, J., Brock, W. A., Brovkin, V., Carpenter, S. R., Dakos, V., Held, H., van Nes, E. H., Rietkerk, M., & Sugihara, G. (2009) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature08227 · Cited by 4,854
Tipping elements in the Earth’s climate system
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Regime Shifts, Resilience, and Biodiversity in Ecosystem Management
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Cited by
Social tipping dynamics for stabilizing Earth’s climate by 2050
Otto, I. M., Donges, J. F., Cremades, R., Bhowmik, A., Hewitt, R. J., Lucht, W., Rockström, J., Allerberger, F., McCaffrey, M., Doe, S. S. P., et al. (2020) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1900577117 · Cited by 958
Self-citationVicious Circles: Violence, Vulnerability, and Climate Change
Buhaug, H., & von Uexkull, N. (2021) · Annual Review of Environment and Resources · doi:10.1146/annurev-environ-012220-014708 · Cited by 187
From moral hazard to risk-response feedback
Jebari, J., Táíwò, O. O., Andrews, T. M., Aquila, V., Beckage, B., Belaia, M., Clifford, M., Fuhrman, J., Keller, D. P., Mach, K. J., et al. (2021) · Climate Risk Management · doi:10.1016/j.crm.2021.100324 · Cited by 55
Metadata
- Authors
- Milkoreit, M., Hodbod, J., Baggio, J., Benessaiah, K., Calderón-Contreras, R., Donges, J. F., Mathias, J.-D., Rocha, J. C., Schoon, M., & Werners, S. E.
- Venue
- Environmental Research Letters
- Publisher
- IOP Publishing
- Published
- 2018-03-01
- Volume
- 13
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 033005
- ISSN
- 1748-9326 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2793426517
- Cited by
- 363
- References
- 52
- FWCI
- 12.38
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
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- Milkoreit, M., Hodbod, J., Baggio, J., Benessaiah, K., Calderón-Contreras, R., Donges, J. F., Mathias, J.-D., Rocha, J. C., Schoon, M., & Werners, S. E. (2018). Defining tipping points for social-ecological systems scholarship—an interdisciplinary literature review. Environmental Research Letters. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aaaa75
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
