The concept of social-ecological systems has been gaining increased interested in science. Below is a graph showing papers whose topic includes social-ecological systems. During the 1990s there were a few publications and then a rapid rise during the 2000s.  Two influential books articulated social-ecological ideas:

• Linking social and ecological systems: Practices and Social Mechanisms for Building Resilience in 2000 and
• Navigating social-ecological systems: building resilience for complexity and change in 2003 .

Papers from ISI - social-ecological or social ecological and Systems

The top five journals are dominated by Ecology and Society:

1. Ecology and Society (78)
2. Global Environmental Change (13)
3. Ecosystems (13)
4. Proc. of National Academy of Science (USA) (10)
5. Ecological Economics (8)

The most prolific authors are a group of people who are working to bridge the social and natural (with number of papers in brackets).  The top two authors, Carl and Fikret, were editors of the Linking and Navigating books.

1. Carl Folke (26)
2. Fikret Berkes (14)
3. Steve Carpenter (14)
4. Per Olsson (13)
5. J. Marty Anderies (11)

The universities with the most publications are:

1. Stockholm University (41) (where Carl Folke is located)
2. Arizona State University (27) (where Marty Anderies and a number of SES researchers are)
3. University of Wisconsin (19) (Steve Carpenter)
4. University of Manitoba (18) (Fikret Berkes)
5. Indiana University (14) (Elinor Ostrom and formerly Marco Janssen, both of whom have frequently published on social-ecological systems)