Dr Steven Lade
Areas of expertise
- Simulation And Modelling 080110
- Environmental Management 4104
Research interests
Resilience is the ability of individuals, technological systems, ecosystems, societies, etc. to deal with short-term shocks and long-term stressors. Dr Lade takes a complex systems approach to studying the resilience of systems of humans and nature, from local to planetary scales. He integrates mathematical methods and concepts from his background in theoretical physics with knowledge and approaches from other disciplines. He uses these tools in a broad range of intensive interdisciplinary collaborations on topics including water resources, Earth system science, climate change, biodiversity loss, fisheries, poverty and agriculture.
Biography
Dr Steve Lade is an ARC Future Fellow at the Fenner School of Environment & Society, Research Cluster Co-lead for Risk, Vulnerability and Resilience at the Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions (ICEDS) and Researcher at the Institute for Water Futures. Outside ANU, he is Theme Leader for cross-theme collaboration at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Science Lead at the Earth Commission secretariat (Future Earth), member of the Editorial Board at Ecology & Society, and a Resilience Alliance Young Scholar.
After a PhD in Theoretical Physics at the Australian National University (2007-2010) and a postdoctoral position at the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems (2010-2012) he worked as a researcher at the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University (2012-).
He was an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Fenner School from 2017-2021, with travel to Australia supported by a mobility grant from the Swedish Research Council Formas. In 2021, he was granted a Future Fellowship from the Australian Research Council.
He has published over 40 scientific articles, of which over 20 were as first author, in journals including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), Nature Sustainability and Science Advances. He has presented at over 50 scientific conferences, co-organised two conference sessions (at Resilience 2014 and MODSIM 2021) and co-organised one workshop (at Kioloa, with Prof Xuemei Bai) and multiple workshops for the Earth Commission.
Dr Lade has taught in over 16 undergraduate and postgraduate courses. He has co-convened a course on Sustainability Science, convened course modules on Resilience for Sustainable Development and on Adaptive Governance, convened an evening adult education course on Sustainable Futures and delivered an executive education course on Resilience: Theory and Practice.
Researcher's projects
Earth Commission - Earth system targets for a safe and just future
ARC Future Fellowship - Advancing resilience theory and practice for water resource management
The futures of reef services in the Anthropocene (REEF-FUTURES)
The Economics of Planetary Boundaries
Science in action: intersecting pathways to the SDGs across scales in the drylands (XPaths)
Available student projects
I have several available projects within resilience theory, Earth system science, social-ecological modelling, resilience of water resources, economics of planetary boundaries, dynamical systems modelling. Contact me and we can talk!
For example
- Modelling the resilience of water resources
- Testing the ‘rule of hand’
- Environmental impact metrics for the financial sector
- Interactions between the planetary boundaries
At PhD level, I ocassionally have grants that will fund your scholarship. Usually, you will have to apply for your own funding through the Australian Government's Research Training Program (see https://www.anu.edu.au/study/scholarships/find-a-scholarship/australian-government-research-training-program-agrtp-stipend )
Publications
- Yamaura, Y, Fletcher Jr, R, Lade, S et al. 2022, 'From nature reserve to mosaic management: Improving matrix survival, not permeability, benefits regional populations under habitat loss and fragmentation', Journal of Applied Ecology, vol. 59, no. 6, pp. 1472-1483pp.
- Scherbaum, S, Lade, S, Siegmund, S et al. 2022, 'From single decisions to sequential choice patterns: Extending the dynamics of value-based decision-making', PLOS ONE (Public Library of Science), vol. 17, no. 4 April.
- Radosavljevic, S, Haider, L, Lade, S et al. 2021, 'Implications of poverty traps across levels', World Development, vol. 144.
- Lade, S, Fetzer, I, Cornell, S et al. 2021, 'A prototype Earth system impact metric that accounts for cross-scale interactions', Environmental Research Letters, vol. 16, no. 11.
- Lade, S, Wang-Erlandsson, L, Staal, A et al. 2021, 'Empirical pressure-response relations can benefit assessment of safe operating spaces', Nature Ecology & Evolution, vol. 5, pp. 1078-1079.
- Donges, J, Lucht, W, Cornell, S et al. 2021, 'Taxonomies for structuring models for World-Earth systems analysis of the Anthropocene: subsystems, their interactions and social-ecological feedback loops', Earth System Dynamics, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 1115-1137pp.
- Rockström, J, Gupta, J, Lenton, T et al. 2021, 'Identifying a safe and just corridor for people and the planet', Earth's Future, vol. 9, no. 4.
- Radosavljevic, S, Haider, L, Lade, S et al. 2020, 'Effective alleviation of rural poverty depends on the interplay between productivity, nutrients, water and soil quality', Ecological Economics, vol. 169.
- Vidal, A, Lade, S, Hoff, H et al. 2020, COVID-19: A Dashboard to Rebuild with Nature.
- El Sawah, S, Filatova, T, Jakeman, A et al. 2020, 'Eight grand challenges in socio-environmental systems modeling', Socio-Environmental Systems Modelling, vol. 2.
- Lade, S, Walker, B & Haider, L 2020, 'Resilience as pathway diversity: Linking systems, individual, and temporal perspectives on resilience', Ecology and Society, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 1-14.
- Lade, S, Steffen, W, de Vries, W et al. 2020, 'Human impacts on planetary boundaries amplified by Earth system interactions', Nature Sustainability, vol. 3, pp. 119-128.
- Lade, S, Norberg, J, Anderies, J et al. 2019, 'Potential feedbacks between loss of biosphere integrity and climate change', Global Sustainability, vol. 2, no. 21, pp. 1-15pp.
- Ringsmuth, A, Lade, S & Schlüter, M 2019, 'Cross-scale cooperation enables sustainable use of a common-pool resource', Royal Society of London. Proceedings B. Biological Sciences, vol. 286, no. 1913.
- Lade, S & Peterson, G 2019, 'Comment on "Resilience of Complex Systems: State of the Art and Directions for Future Research"', Complexity, vol. 2019, pp. 4 pages.
- Downing, A, Bhowmik, A, Collste, D et al 2019, 'Matching scope, purpose and uses of planetary boundaries science', Environmental Research Letters, vol. 14, no. 7, pp. 1-11.
- Schlüter, M, Haider, L, Lade, S et al 2019, 'Capturing emergent phenomena in social-ecological systems: an analytical framework', Ecology and Society, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 1-26.
- Lade, S, Donges, J, Fetzer, I et al. 2018, 'Analytically tractable climate–carbon cycle feedbacks under 21st century anthropogenic forcing', Earth System Dynamics, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 507-523pp.
- Steffen, W, Rockstrom, J, Richardson, K et al. 2018, 'Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene', PNAS - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 115, no. 33, pp. 8252-8259pp.
- Barfuss, W, Donges, J, Lade, S et al. 2018, 'When optimization for governing human environment tipping elements is neither sustainable nor safe', Nature Communications, vol. 9, no. 2354, pp. 1-10pp.
- Lade, S, Haider, L, Engström, G et al 2017, 'Resilience offers escape from trapped thinking on poverty alleviation', Science Advances, vol. 3, no. 5, pp. e1603043-e1603043.
- Lade, S & Niiranen, S 2017, 'Generalized modeling of empirical social-ecological systems', Natural Resource Modeling, vol. 30, no. 3, pp. -.
- Mathias, J, Lade, S & Galaz, V 2017, 'Multi-level policies and adaptive social networks – a conceptual modeling study for maintaining a polycentric governance system', International Journal of the Commons, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 220-247pp.
- Lade, S, Craig, E & Linke, H 2011, 'Effectiveness of beads for tracking small-scale molecular motor dynamics', Physical Review E-Statistical, Nonlinear and Soft Matter Physics, vol. 84, no. 2, pp. 1-10.
- Lade, S 2010, 'Ratchet-based magnetic micropump', Europhysics Letters, vol. 92, no. 3, pp. 33001-1/6.
- Lade, S 2009, 'Geometric and projection effects in Kramers-Moyal analysis', Physical Review E-Statistical, Nonlinear and Soft Matter Physics, vol. 80, no. 031137, p. 6.
- Lade, S 2009, 'Finite sampling interval effects in Kramers-Moyal analysis', Physics Letters A, vol. 373, pp. 3705-3709.
- Lade, S & Kivshar, Y 2008, 'Simplified models for vibrational energy transfer in proteins', Physics Letters A, vol. 372, pp. 1077-1080.
- Lade, S 2008, 'Ratchets: Directed transport without a bias force', National AIP Congress 2008, ed. Conference Program Committee, Australian Institute of Physics, Australia, pp. 81-84.
- Lade, S 2008, 'The optimal driving waveform for overdamped, adiabatic rocking ratchets', Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical, vol. 41, no. 275103, p. 10.
Projects and Grants
Grants information is drawn from ARIES. To add or update Projects or Grants information please contact your College Research Office.
- Sharing early insights for more resilient communities (Secondary Investigator)
- FT20: Advancing resilience theory and practice for water resource management (Primary Investigator)
