The study of social-ecological systems and social-ecological networks allows for the joint analysis of both social and ecological systems. Managing and governing – and even more so achieving social-ecologial fit in – social-ecological systems has been claimed to be complex, because of actors’ lack of knowledge about the complex ecological interdependencies, but also because of the dynamic nature of ecological interdependencies. This paper addresses the question of how actors in a social-ecological system address potentially changing ecological systems and related interdependencies. More specifically, we study a river basin in Switzerland and rely on survey data on actors involved in managing the river basin. We further rely on ecological data about connectedness of river patches, and how this connectedness might change depending on a) climate-change induced future scenarios, and b) the addition or removal of man-made barriers and the improvement or deterioration of water quality. This allows us to work with different scenarios of ecological interdependencies, and assess to what degree actors are able to consider these scenario-based interdependencies into their network structure, and where there might be gaps in the collaborative actor network to address future scenarios. We rely on ERGM analyses of the social-ecological network.
