modelling social-ecological transformation
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Modelling social-ecological transformation. Steven Lade Stockholm Resilience Centre Montpellier, 8 October 2013. Social-ecological systems. Human behaviour. Natural resources. Adaptation and Transformation. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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Modelling social-ecological transformation
Steven LadeStockholm Resilience CentreMontpellier, 8 October 2013
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Social-ecological systems
Human behaviour
Naturalresources
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Adaptation and Transformation• Adaptation: small changes in an SES that reflect the ability
of actors “to learn, combine experience and knowledge, and adjust [their] responses” (Folke 2010)
• Transformation: drastic change into a different type of system
?
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Examples of transformations• Changes in regional tax structures -> farming to
suburbanisation (Folke 2010)• Loss of arctic sea ice -> transformation of geopolitical and
economic feedbacks among Arctic nations (Folke 2010)• Farming -> Ecotourism in Zimbabwe (Cumming, 1999)• Transformation to ecosystem-based management (Swedish
lake, Great Barrier Reef) (Olsson 2004, 2008)• Water system innovations for the development of dryland
agro-ecosystems (Enfors, 2012)
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Resilience
• Persistence: “The ability of a system to withstand shocks.”• Adaptability: “The capacity of actors in a system to
influence resilience.”• Transformability: “The capacity to transform the stability
landscape itself in order to become a different kind of system, to create a fundamentally new system when ecological, economic, or social structures make the existing system untenable.” (Folke 2010)
“Resilience is the long-term capacity of a system to deal with change and continue to develop” (SRC website)
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Outline• How can we model adaptation and transformation?• Traditional dynamical systems approaches not enough
1. Network theory; adaptive and dynamic networks2. SES framework of Ostrom3. Power and agency Tentative framework for modelling social-ecological
transformation
Biggs et al. (2012)Walker et al. (2004)
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SRC Research Insight #1
Enfors, Global Environmental Change, 2013
Descriptive frameworks• Per Olsson’s 3 phases of transformation
• Attractors and development trajectories
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Research questions1. How resilient is a social-ecological system?2. What processes/mechanisms/feedbacks contribute to the
resilience of a social-ecological system?3. How do social-ecological systems transform from one state
to another? What factors drive this transformation?4. What development trajectories can a social-ecological
system follow? Can these trajectories be altered? How?• Initially, not predictive: represent and evaluating knowledge• Later, could create ‘null hypotheses’
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Structure• Transformations involve reorganisation• New roles, new interactions, new governance structures,
new social norms• Difficult to capture in dynamical systems framework:
require new processes or even new state variables
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Networks
Adaptation
Transformation
?
?
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Dynamic/adaptive networks• Dynamic networks (social network analysis): statistical tests• Adaptive networks (physics): Mathematical properties and
phase transition
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SES-framework• Developed by the Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom and
collaborators• A framework for comparing case studies on with respect to
which variables are important for successful SES outcomes• We can identify three important types of nodes• Links will be interactions between them• The SES framework identifies properties of these nodes to
which we should pay attentionGovernance actors
User
Resource system
Elinor Ostrom
Maja Schlüter
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Example: Poverty trap
Resource system
Governance system
User (Harvester)
Prov
ision
ing Extraction
Reproduction
(low) Resource level
(low) Income
(low) Policy action
+
-
+
Poverty trap
Prov
ision
ing Extraction
Reproduction
(high) Income
(high) Policy action
RuleEnforcem
ent
Mon
itorin
g
(high) Resource level+
+
-
-
-
Well-functioning system
escape from trap?
descent into trap?
Jamila Haider NandaWijermans
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Power• A critical aspect of a poverty
trap is that the resource users lack the power to change their circumstances
• Resilience thinking often criticised for neglecting power, agency, equity
• Power can operate in many different ways
• Include rewiring rate to represent power: ability of an actor to modify links in which they are participating
Gaventa, Institute of development studies, 2006
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Poverty trap with powerPr
ovisi
onin
g Extraction
Reproduction
(low) Resource level
(low) Income
(low) Policy action
Prov
ision
ing Extraction
Reproduction
(high) Income
(high) Policy action
RuleEnforcem
ent
Mon
itorin
g
(high) Resource level
G rewiring (low)
U rewiring (low)
G rewiring (med)
U rewiring (high) +
-
+
-
Extortion
-
Generationalforgetting
-
-
+
-
-
+ +
Lobb
ying
+
Generationalforgetting
-
escape from trap?
descent into trap?
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Rules for link change? Links change at random (at actor’s rewiring rate)? Actors make those link changes they expect to be beneficial
for them (ending in a kind of Nash equilibrium)
• Also need dynamical equations for state variablesdIncome/dt = …
dResourceLevel/dt = …
Rules for node dynamics
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Descent into a poverty trap
(low) Resource level
(low) Income
(low) Policy action
(high) Income
(high) Policy action
(high) Resource level
G rewiring (low)
U rewiring (low)
G rewiring (med)
U rewiring (high)
Generationalforgetting
Extortion-
-
Extraction-
Prov
ision
ing
+
RuleEnforcem
ent
-
Mon
itorin
g
-
+
-
Reproduction
+
Lobb
ying
+
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ResiliencePersistence: Eigenvalues/return time
Adaptability: power of an actor
Transformability: network-level ability to re-configure system.
– Number of link changes required to reach basin of attraction of another network configuration?
– Probability of endogenous transformation?
Prov
ision
ing Extraction
Reproduction
(low) Resource level
(low) Income
(low) Policy action G rewiring (low)
U rewiring (low)
Generationalforgetting
Extortion
+
-
+
+ -
-
-
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CaveatsThis modelling framework so far does not incorporate• Diversity of actors• Adaptive management: willingness to experiment• Conceptual/cognitive shifts• Transformation within organisations
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Next steps• Make appropriate dynamical rules for (an initial subset of)
link and node dynamics • Apply to appropriate case or stylised case
Other work• Social-ecological regime shifts
– In a simple theoretical model of resource and extractors– In the Baltic Sea
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General resilience• Diversity• Modularity• Openness• Reserves• Feedbacks• Nestedness• Monitoring• Leadership• Trust
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Conclusions
Challenge Potential solution
Structure Networks
Dynamics of structure Dynamic/adaptive networks
Multi-scale and multi-type (“multiplex”) SES framework
Power and agency Rewiring rate for each actor
Process-based dynamical model Dynamical systems/generalised modelling
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SES-LINK
Maja Schlüter Jamila HaiderNanda Wijermans Kirill OrachSteven Lade
Exploring the roles of linkages and feedbacks in social-ecological systems using theoretical models
and grounded case studies