Agricultural Sustainability in a Simple Social-Ecological System

• Autorzy: Katarzyna Ostasiewicz , Piotr Magnuszewski
• Języki publikacji: EN

Abstrakty

EN

There is a growing consciousness of the complexity and universality of interactions between social and ecological systems. Here we investigate a simple social-ecological model of land cultivation. It is shown that even very simple rules of land-use and an ecosystem’s dynamics can generate a variety of possible stationary states. In particular, the possibility of the existence of “desirable” stationary states is examined. These desirable states are understood in the sense of sustainable development, that is, profitable for farmers and non-degrading for ecosystems. It turns out that the existence of such states can depend strongly on the parameters that are under a government’s control, e.g. subsides, and others. Although real systems can reveal much more complex and counterintuitive behaviour, such a “toy model” can at least give some insight, help to realize the range of possible scenarios and improve our intuition about what might happen in real systems. (original abstract)

Słowa kluczowe

EN

Sustainable agriculture; Natural environment; Sustainable development

PL

Rolnictwo zrównoważone; Środowisko przyrodnicze; Rozwój zrównoważony

• Czasopismo: Operations Research and Decisions
• Rocznik: 2010
• Tom: 20
• Numer: nr 3-4
• Strony: 81--94

Twórcy

autor

Katarzyna Ostasiewicz

• Center for System Solutions

autor

Piotr Magnuszewski

• Center for System Solutions

Bibliografia

• [1] ANDERIES J.M., JANSSEN M.A., OSTROM E., A framework to analyze the robustness of social-ecological systems from an institutional perspective, Ecology and Society, 2004, 9, 18-35.
• [2] BRUELHEIDE H., LUGINBÜHL U., Peeking at ecosystem stability: making use of a natural disturbance experiment to analyze resistance and resilience, Ecology, 2009, 90, 1314-1325.
• [3] HOLLING C.S., Resilience and stability of ecological systems, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 1973, 4, 1-23.
• [4] SCHEFFER M., CARPENTER S., FOLEY J., FOLKE C., WALKER B., Catastrophic shifts in ecosystems, Nature, 2001, 413, 591-596.
• [5] STERMAN J.D., Business dynamics: Systems Thinking and modeling for a complex world, /McGraw-Hill, Boston, 2000.
• [6] United Nations, Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, General Assembly Resolution 42/187, 11 December 1987.
• [7] WALKER B.H., CARPENTER S., et al., Resilience Management in Social-ecological Systems: a Working Hypothesis for a Participatory Approach, Conservation Ecology, 2002, 6, 14-31.
• [8] WALKER B.H., HOLLING C.S., CARPENTER S.C., KINZIG A.P., Resilience, Adaptability and Transformability in Social-ecological Systems, Ecology and Society, 2004, 9, 5-14.