A socio-ecological system is a type of complex adaptive system composed of two primary subdomains, a human society and economy on the one hand and a biological ecology on the other. They are systems in that they are composed of a set of parts that are interdependent in effecting some joint outcome. They are complex in that they typically consist of a very many parts interacting in a nonlinear networked fashion. They are adaptive in that components in the system change their state in response to that of others, and in this capacity, socio-­ecological systems exhibit strong co­evolution as they develop over time. Like all complex systems, socio-­ecological systems are multidimensional, they exist on many qualitatively different levels from basic geological processes to various biological and ecological processes interacting with technological, economic and social processes. Added to this socio­-ecological systems exist on all scales from an individual to an agricultural farm to a metropolitan area to a nation state to the whole global economy and the supporting biosphere.