The object of this book is to highlight how the nascent field of sustainability science is addressing a key challenges for scientists; that is, understanding the workings of complex systems especially when humans are involved. A consistent thread in the sustainability science movement is the wide acknowledgement that greater degrees of integration across what are now segmented dimensions of extant Science and Technology systems will be a key factor in matching the most appropriate science and technology solutions to specific sustainability problems in specific places.

Foreword.- Section I Managing the Earth's Life Support Systems: The Emergence of Sustainability Science and Transdisciplinarity.- From the Unity of Nature to Sustainability Science: Ideas and Practice.- Sustaining Sustainability: Creating a Systems Science in a Fragmented Academy and Polarized World.- A Landscape Approach for Sustainability Science.- It's OK to Talk about Sustainability.- Section II Balancing Ecology and Economy: Natural Capital and Quality of Life.- The Value of Natural and Social Capital in Our Current Full World and in a Sustainable and Desirable Future.- Steps Towards Sustainability and Tools for Restoring Natural Capital: Etang de Berre (Southern France) Case Study.- Sustainability of Biodiversity under Global Changes, with Particular Reference to Biological Invasions.- Section III  From Science to Policy: Managing the Commons, Social Learning and Social Responsibility.- Post-Sustainability: the Emergence of the Social Sciences as the Hand-Maidens of Policy.- The Purpose and Politics of Ecosystem-Based Management.- Sustainable Coastal Margins: Challenges of Tempo and Mode for the Policy Domain.- Forest and Fishery Transitions to Sustainability.- Session IV   The Ecology of Cities.- Cities as Dissipative Structures: Global Change and the Increasing Vulnerability of Urban Civilization.- A Mathematical Description of Urban Metabolism.- Urbanization, Local Government and Planning for Sustainability.- Climate Change, Globalization, and the Double Exposure Challenge to Sustainability: Rolling the Dice in Coastal New Jersey.- Sustainability Trajectories for Urban Waters.- Session V   Restoring and Rehabilitating Ecosystems: Return from the Precipice.- Reversing Two Centuries of Ecosystem Degradation: Can Science Better Inform Policy& Practice?.- Changing Nature: Novel Ecosystems, Intervention, and Knowing When to Step Back.- Knocking on Doors: Boundary Objects in Ecological Conservation and Restoration.- Sustainability: More aboutthe Toolmaker than the Tools.- Epilogue.- The Challenge of Sustainability: Lessons from an Evolutionary Perspective.- Index.