Most cited papers in Sustainability and Ecological Systems Analysis
What are the most cited papers in Sustainability and Ecological Systems Analysis?
The most cited paper in Sustainability and Ecological Systems Analysis is "The value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital" (Robert Costanza, Ralph C. d’Arge, R.S. de Groot et al., 1997), with 22,491 citations. Next come "A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems" (8,610) and "TOWARD A METABOLIC THEORY OF ECOLOGY" (7,970).
Showing 50 of 100 papers. Every paper with more than 580 citations is listed.
| # | Paper | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital Robert Costanza, Ralph C. d’Arge, R.S. de Groot et al. · Nature | May 1997 | 22,491 |
| 2 | A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems Элинор Остром · Science | 23 Jul 2009 | 8,610 |
| 3 | TOWARD A METABOLIC THEORY OF ECOLOGY James H. Brown, James F. Gillooly, Andrew P. Allen et al. · Ecology | Jul 2004 | 7,970 |
| 4 | Resilience: The emergence of a perspective for social–ecological systems analyses Carl Folke · Global Environmental Change | 22 Jul 2006 | 7,678 |
| 5 | Catastrophic shifts in ecosystems Marten Scheffer, Stephen R. Carpenter, Jonathan A. Foley et al. · Nature | Oct 2001 | 7,525 |
| 6 | The Strategy of Ecosystem Development Eugene P. Odum · Science | 18 Apr 1969 | 5,478 |
| 7 | Early-warning signals for critical transitions Marten Scheffer, Jordi Bascompte, William A. Brock et al. · Nature | 2 Sep 2009 | 4,946 |
| 8 | A typology for the classification, description and valuation of ecosystem functions, goods and services R.S. de Groot, Matthew A Wilson, Roelof M. J. Boumans · Ecological Economics | Jun 2002 | 4,803 |
| 9 | Complexity of Coupled Human and Natural Systems Jianguo Liu, Thomas M. Dietz, Stephen R. Carpenter et al. · Science | 13 Sep 2007 | 3,645 |
| 10 | Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries Katherine Anne Koren Richardson et al. · Science Advances | 13 Sep 2023 | 3,158 |
| 11 | The complexity and stability of ecosystems Stuart L. Pimm · Nature | 1984 | 3,117 |
| 12 | Catastrophic regime shifts in ecosystems: linking theory to observation Marten Scheffer, Stephen R. Carpenter · Trends in Ecology & Evolution | 23 Sep 2003 | 2,844 |
| 13 | Ecological Resilience—In Theory and Application Lance Gunderson · Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics | Nov 2000 | 2,767 |
| 14 | Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities Luís M. A. Bettencourt, José Lobo, Dirk Helbing et al. · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | 16 Apr 2007 | 2,733 |
| 15 | Detecting Causality in Complex Ecosystems George Sugihara, Robert Mccredie May, Hao Ye et al. · Science | 21 Sep 2012 | 2,648 |
| 16 | The circular economy Walter R. Stahel · Nature | 18 Mar 2016 | 2,440 |
| 17 | Ecological footprints and appropriated carrying capacity: what urban economics leaves out William E. Rees · Environment and Urbanization | Oct 1992 | 2,414 |
| 18 | PARTITIONING DIVERSITY INTO INDEPENDENT ALPHA AND BETA COMPONENTS Lou Jost · Ecology | Oct 2007 | 2,322 |
| 19 | Anticipating Critical Transitions Marten Scheffer, Stephen R. Carpenter, Timothy M. Lenton et al. · Science | 18 Oct 2012 | 2,275 |
| 20 | STABILITY AND COMPLEXITY IN MODEL ECOSYSTEMS Thomas W. Schoener · Evolution | Sep 1974 | 2,235 |
| 21 | Command and Control and the Pathology of Natural Resource Management Crawford S. Holling, Gary K. Meffe · Conservation Biology | Apr 1996 | 2,056 |
| 22 | Approaching a state shift in Earth’s biosphere Anthony D. Barnosky et al. · Nature | Jun 2012 | 1,978 |
| 23 | Ecosystems and the Biosphere as Complex Adaptive Systems Simon A. Levin · Ecosystems | Sep 1998 | 1,747 |
| 24 | The economic resilience of regions: towards an evolutionary approach James Martin Simmie, Richard W. Martin · Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society | 6 Jan 2010 | 1,665 |
| 25 | Quantifying and mapping the human appropriation of net primary production in earth's terrestrial ecosystems Helmut Haberl, Karl‐Heinz Erb, Fridolin Krausmann et al. · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | 6 Jul 2007 | 1,637 |
| 26 | A Framework to Analyze the Robustness of Social-ecological Systems from an Institutional Perspective John Martin Anderies, Marco A. Janssen, Элинор Остром · Ecology and Society | 2004 | 1,612 |
| 27 | Resilience Management in Social-ecological Systems: a Working Hypothesis for a Participatory Approach Brian Walker, Stephen R. Carpenter, John Martin Anderies et al. · Conservation Ecology | 2002 | 1,576 |
| 28 | Environment, economy and society: fitting them together into sustainable development Bob Giddings, Bill Hopwood, Geoff O’Brien · Sustainable Development | 30 Oct 2002 | 1,488 |
| 29 | Circadian Rhythms and the Circadian Organization of Living Systems Colin S. Pittendrigh · Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology | 1960 | 1,412 |
| 30 | Global Resilience of Tropical Forest and Savanna to Critical Transitions Marina Hirota, Milena Holmgren, Egbert H. van Nes et al. · Science | 13 Oct 2011 | 1,321 |
| 31 | Self-Organization, Transformity, and Information Howard T. Odum · Science | 25 Nov 1988 | 1,270 |
| 32 | The Changing Metabolism of Cities Christopher A. Kennedy, John Cuddihy, Joshua Engel‐Yan · Journal of Industrial Ecology | Apr 2007 | 1,262 |
| 33 | From Balance of Nature to Hierarchical Patch Dynamics: A Paradigm Shift in Ecology Jianguo Wu, Orie L. Loucks · The Quarterly Review of Biology | Dec 1995 | 1,256 |
| 34 | A hierarchical concept of ecosystems Brian A. Maurer · Trends in Ecology & Evolution | 1987 | 1,241 |
| 35 | Universal resilience patterns in complex networks Jianxi Gao, Baruch Barzel, Albert-Ĺaszló Barabási · Nature | 16 Feb 2016 | 1,240 |
| 36 | Ecological Thresholds: The Key to Successful Environmental Management or an Important Concept with No Practical Application? Peter M. Groffman, Jill S. Baron, Tamara F. Blett et al. · Ecosystems | 30 Jan 2006 | 1,216 |
| 37 | Economic and ecological concepts for valuing ecosystem services Stephen C. Farber, Robert Costanza, Matthew A. Wilson · Ecological Economics | Jun 2002 | 1,178 |
| 38 | National natural capital accounting with the ecological footprint concept Mathis Wackernagel, Larry Onisto, Patricia Bello et al. · Ecological Economics | Jun 1999 | 1,141 |
| 39 | The concept of scale and the human dimensions of global change: a survey Clark C. Gibson, Элинор Остром, T. K. Ahn · Ecological Economics | Feb 2000 | 1,122 |
| 40 | Analysis of logistic growth models Anastasios Tsoularis, Jonathan G. Wallace · Mathematical Biosciences | Jul 2002 | 1,118 |
| 41 | Integrating Humans into Ecology: Opportunities and Challenges for Studying Urban Ecosystems Marina Alberti, John M. Marzluff, Eric Shulenberger et al. · BioScience | 2003 | 1,099 |
| 42 | Genealogies of resilience Jeremy J. Walker, Melinda Cooper · Security Dialogue | Apr 2011 | 1,092 |
| 43 | Methods for Detecting Early Warnings of Critical Transitions in Time Series Illustrated Using Simulated Ecological Data Vasilis Dakos, Stephen R. Carpenter, William A. Brock et al. · PLoS ONE | 17 Jul 2012 | 1,092 |
| 44 | Carbon use efficiency of microbial communities: stoichiometry, methodology and modelling Robert L. Sinsabaugh, Stefano Manzoni, Daryl Moorhead et al. · Ecology Letters | 30 Apr 2013 | 1,032 |
| 45 | Mapping the Structure of the World Economy Manfred Lenzen, Keiichiro Kanemoto, Daniel Dean Moran et al. · Environmental Science & Technology | 13 Jul 2012 | 1,021 |
| 46 | Ecosystem services: From eye-opening metaphor to complexity blinder Richard B. Norgaard · Ecological Economics | 28 Nov 2009 | 1,015 |
| 47 | Mental Models: An Interdisciplinary Synthesis of Theory and Methods Natalie A. Jones, Helen S. Ross, Timothy Lynam et al. · Ecology and Society | 2011 | 1,002 |
| 48 | Rising variance: a leading indicator of ecological transition Stephen R. Carpenter, William A. Brock · Ecology Letters | 12 Jan 2006 | 993 |
| 49 | The study of urban metabolism and its applications to urban planning and design Christopher A. Kennedy, Stéphanie Pincetl, Paul M. E. Bunje · Environmental Pollution | 18 Nov 2010 | 952 |
| 50 | Babel, or the ecological stability discussions: an inventory and analysis of terminology and a guide for avoiding confusion Volker Grimm, Christian Wissel · Oecologia | 7 Feb 1997 | 950 |
Citations are OpenAlex's own counts, from its 2026-09-23 snapshot, so the ranking can differ from Google Scholar or Web of Science. A paper is listed for a field when OpenAlex files it under one of the field's topics; retracted papers and papers whose citation count cannot be traced to citing works are left out, and a preprint and the article it became are shown once. Release dates are OpenAlex's: where a source gave only a month or a year, that is what is shown. How the lists are chosen.