[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/)

# A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems

## Details

**Authors** Ostrom, Elinor

**Year** 2009

**Publisher** Science

**Kind of work** article

**Discipline** Political Science

**Secondary disciplines** Ecology, Environment & Sustainability

**Applied** false

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1172133) 
10.1126/science.1172133

## In authors' words

### What they set out to do (purpose)

To provide a common framework that researchers in different disciplines can use to organize findings on why some resource users self-organize to sustain fisheries, forests and water resources while others do not.

### How they did it (methods)

A conceptual framework that identifies subsystem variables affecting the likelihood of self-organization.

### What they found (results)

The framework identifies 10 subsystem variables that affect the likelihood of self-organization to achieve a sustainable social-ecological system. The author argues that disciplines use different concepts and languages for such systems, and that without a shared framework isolated findings do not accumulate.

## Commentary

### In short

The author sets out a shared framework for studying resource systems and their users, and identifies ten subsystem variables that bear on whether users organize themselves to sustain a resource.

### Response

The framework treats a social-ecological system as a whole composed of interacting subsystems, with variables located at the subsystem level (S), and asks how those subsystems act on one another to produce sustainable or unsustainable outcomes (R). Caveats: only the abstract and a summary page were read, so the internal structure of the framework is not described here. The fit to DSRP is partial. The abstract also touches on differing disciplinary vocabularies, which is arguably a perspective issue, but that is not established here.

**Patterns it shows** S, R

Shows the structure is there

**Added** 2026-10-12

**How to cite this** Ostrom, Elinor (2009). A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems. Science.