PLAN 597

Planning for Water Resources Management

Socio-Economic Systems 1: 30th January 2008

Technologies and Values: Analysis of Natural and Human Systems

In the first 1 1/2 hours we will discuss emerging ideas and theories relating to the behaviour of ecological systems including complexity, stability, resilence and adaptive change. This extends our discussion of last time about our ability to model impacts of waste discharges and habitat changes on aquatic ecosystems. The researchers developing these ideas and theories have also applied them to socio-economic and legal-institutional systems and argued that they are applicable to them. This provides one way of applying comparable systems thinking to each of the three major sub-systems of the framework being developed in the course.

Reading for first 1 1/2 hours today:

Holling, C.S., Gunderson, L.H., and Ludwig, D. 2002. "In Search of a Theory of Adaptive Change" in Gunderson, L.H. and Holling, C.S. Eds. Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems. Washington, D.C. : Island Press (read this chapter to understand the basic arguments being advanced by these researchers)

Resilience Alliance Panarchy (take a look at the Resilience Alliance home page to learn more about the activities of the researchers involved in developing these ideas and theories and read the elaboration of Panarchy to provide a basis beyond the chapter for our discussions)

NY Times. 1993. Biologists Fear Sustainable Yield Is An Unsustainable Idea. (this is the controversial article referred to in Don Ludwig's bio - the arguments advanced by him with Carl Walters and Ray Hilborn about sustainable yields for fisheries will provide one example for us to use in our discussions of the general ideas and theories).

Organization

Preliminary schedule for presentations and preparations. We will discuss titles and schedule during the break.

We will spend time after the break preparing for the presentations by reviewing what we are trying to achieve. Please think about any questions you might have.

After class I will meet with the first two pairs to discuss their preliminary ideas for their sessions.

Please review the proposal for the class participation grade for discussion and decision next class.

Discussion

1. Recapping so far
   • focused on natural resource systems and subsystems
   • need to recognize they are systems
   • planners and managers need to understand their behaviour
   • hence importance of functional knowledge
   • in order to be able to predict
   • therefore concerned with modelling natural systems
   • uncertainty makes it essential to be explicit about assumptions and to do sensitivity analyses of their implications
   • you need to develop and maintain a general knowledge of the state-of-the-art of modelling natural resource systems
2. Now we bring the same perspective to human (socio-economic) systems.
   • extend our consideration to people and their technological and value systems
   • planning involves the analysis of goals, alternatives, consequences, choices (Hierarchy of Needs diagram from Maslow, and figure of Inquiry/Problem Solving Process from Mason and Mitroff)
3. Understanding natural and human systems and their interactions
   • Caricatures of nature (Fig. 1-1, and Table 1.1 in Holling et al.)
   • Stability and resiliency - the raft metaphor (Box 1.2 by Ludwig in Holling et al.)
   • Panarchy theory - does it help in thinking about transformational change? (Panarchy)
   • Does it apply to socio-economic and legal-institutional systems as well as physical-chemical-biological?
   • How do these ideas relate to wicked problems?