The modern world has created complex systems that have interrelated concerns. Ecosystems, Society, and Health presents new perspectives on how the challenges relating to these concerns must be examined, not as disparate political narratives, but as dynamic transformational stories that demand integrative systems of research, analysis, practice, and action.

Struggles over healthy watersheds, diseases associated with environmental change, and public health impacts of unsafe food exemplify the demand for integrated understanding and action. Contributors argue that traditional science, power politics, and linear ideals of public policy are inadequate to address sustainability, justice, safety, and responsibility. Drawing from a series of case studies that range from nursing, to watershed management, to environmental health and risk communication, this collection strikes an informed balance between practical lessons and a sophisticated theoretical context with which to interpret them.

Demonstrating the diverse contextual understanding demanded by today’s complex issues, Ecosystems, Society, and Health is a timely resource with guidance for practitioners, researchers, and educators.

Lars K. Hallström is associate professor of political studies and director of the Alberta Centre for Sustainable Rural Communities at the University of Alberta.

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Nicholas P. Guehlstorf is an associate professor of environmental sciences and political science at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

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Margot W. Parkes is associate professor in the School of Health Sciences and the Northern Medical Program at the University of Northern British Columbia.

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