| 1. |
- Schill, Caroline, 1984-, et al.
(författare)
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Sustaining local commons in the face of uncertain ecological thresholds : Evidence from a framed field experiment with Colombian small-scale fishers
- 2023
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Ingår i: Ecological Economics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0921-8009 .- 1873-6106. ; 207
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Due to climate change abrupt and persistent changes in ecosystems, impacting millions of livelihoods, are likely but hard to predict. How people respond to such uncertain 'regime shifts' is poorly understood. Here, we assess the potential for local collective action to avert uncertain, yet catastrophic, regime shifts using behavioural economic experiments with 256 small-scale fishers from the Colombian Caribbean coast. With a framed, dynamic common-pool resource game, we tested the effect of different degrees of uncertainty (risk, ambiguity, certainty) about the existence of climate-induced thresholds on group exploitation patterns. Results from four different communities show that groups uncertain about thresholds are likely to sustain higher stock levels, thus poten-tially averting regime shifts. We also find that threshold uncertainty does not influence exploitation beyond thresholds. However, catch inequalities in the game, and community-level factors influence such exploitation, and appear to limit or even eliminate treatment effects; highlighting the significant influence of context on behaviour. Contrasting previous evidence, our results suggest to focus less on determining precise threshold likelihoods, but rather on identifying and communicating what ecosystem variables might have thresholds, and their potential consequences. Hence, we provide a more hopeful outlook given the irreducible uncertainties in relation to global environmental change.
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| 2. |
- Wu, Tong, et al.
(författare)
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Triple Bottom Line or Trilemma? Global Tradeoffs Between Prosperity, Inequality, and the Environment
- 2024
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Ingår i: World Development. - 0305-750X .- 1873-5991. ; 178
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A key aim of sustainable development is the joint achievement of prosperity, equality, and environmental integrity: in other words, material living standards that are high, broadly -distributed, and low -impact. This has often been called the triple bottom line. But instead, what if there is a trilemmathat inhibits the simultaneous achievement of these three goals? We analysed international patterns and trends in the relationships between per -capita gross national income, the Gini coefficient for income distribution, and per -capita ecological footprint from 1995 to 2017, benchmarking them against thresholds from the existing literature. A dynamicanalysis of the trajectories of 59 countries and a staticanalysis of a larger sample of 140 countries found that none met the triple bottom line, and that instead there were widespread tradeoffs among the three indicators. These tradeoffs, leading to divergent national trajectories and country clusters, show that common pair -wise explanations such as Kuznets Curves do not adequately capture important development dynamics. In particular, while only a few countries simultaneously met the thresholds for prosperity and equality on the one hand and equality and environment on the other, none did for prosperity and environment. Moreover, inequality likely makes resolving this critical tradeoff more difficult. Our findings suggest that mitigating the sustainability trilemma may require countries - especially those that are already prosperous - to prioritize economic redistribution and environmental stewardship over further growth.
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| 3. |
- Chaigneau, Tomas, et al.
(författare)
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Environmental behaviours within ecological and social limits : integrating well-being with behavioural research for sustainability
- 2022
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Ingår i: Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. - : Elsevier BV. - 1877-3435 .- 1877-3443. ; 57
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- There is a pressing need to reduce inequalities and bring everyone above a foundational level of well-being whilst simultaneously staying within planetary boundaries. Yet, there is a limited understanding of how moving into and maintaining such 'safe and just' spaces affect environmental behaviours. To fill this gap, we argue for integrating human well-being and behaviour research. In particular, to 1) implement social thresholds when investigating environmental behaviours; 2) investigate the impact of social inequalities on environmental behaviours directly and 3) incorporate well-being domains with controlled behavioural experiments. Such understandings will be crucial for anticipating the implications of realising safe and just spaces for people and the planet.
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| 4. |
- Lindahl, Therese, et al.
(författare)
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Potential Disasters can Turn the Tragedy into Success
- 2016
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Ingår i: Environmental and Resource Economics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0924-6460 .- 1573-1502. ; 65:3, s. 657-676
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper presents a novel experimental design that allows testing how users of a common-pool resource respond to an endogenously driven drastic drop in the supply of the resource. We show that user groups will manage a resource more efficiently when confronted with such a non-concave resource growth function, compared to groups facing a logistic growth function. Even among cooperative groups there is a significant behavioral difference, although theory predicts there should not be. We argue that effectiveness of communication is endogenous to the problem; the threat of reaching a critical tipping point, beyond which the growth rate will drop drastically, triggers more effective communication within the group, enabling stronger commitment for cooperation and more knowledge sharing, which together explains the results. We argue that the insights generated by this study can be seen as one of many, but nevertheless important, contributions towards an increased understanding of the interactions between human behavior and the environment in common-pool resource systems.
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| 5. |
- Lindkvist, Emilie, 1973-, et al.
(författare)
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Untangling social–ecological interactions : A methods portfolio approach to tackling contemporary sustainability challenges in fisheries
- 2022
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Ingår i: Fish and Fisheries. - : Wiley. - 1467-2960 .- 1467-2979. ; 23:5, s. 1202-1220
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Meeting the objectives of sustainable fisheries management requires attention to the complex interactions between humans, institutions and ecosystems that give rise to fishery outcomes. Traditional approaches to studying fisheries often do not fully capture, nor focus on these complex interactions between people and ecosystems. Despite advances in the scope and scale of interactions encompassed by more holistic methods, for example ecosystem-based fisheries management approaches, no single method can adequately capture the complexity of human–nature interactions. Approaches that combine quantitative and qualitative analytical approaches are necessary to generate a deeper understanding of these interactions and illuminate pathways to address fisheries sustainability challenges. However, combining methods is inherently challenging and requires understanding multiple methods from different, often disciplinarily distinct origins, demanding reflexivity of the researchers involved. Social–ecological systems’ research has a history of utilising combinations of methods across the social and ecological realms to account for spatial and temporal dynamics, uncertainty and feedbacks that are key components of fisheries. We describe several categories of analytical methods (statistical modelling, network analysis, dynamic modelling, qualitative analysis and controlled behavioural experiments) and highlight their applications in fisheries research, strengths and limitations, data needs and overall objectives. We then discuss important considerations of a methods portfolio development process, including reflexivity, epistemological and ontological concerns and illustrate these considerations via three case studies. We show that, by expanding their methods portfolios, researchers will be better equipped to study the complex interactions shaping fisheries and contribute to solutions for sustainable fisheries management.
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| 6. |
- Ntuli, Herbert, et al.
(författare)
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Sanctioned Quotas Versus Information Provisioning for Community Wildlife Conservation in Zimbabwe: A Framed Field Experiment Approach
- 2023
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Ingår i: Environmental and Resource Economics. - : Springer Science and Business Media B.V.. - 0924-6460 .- 1573-1502. ; 84:3, s. 775-823
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We investigate the behavioural responses of natural common-pool resource users to three policy interventions—sanctioned quotas, information provisioning, and a combination of both. We focus on situations in which users find utility in multiple resources (pastures and wild animal stocks) that all stem from the same ecosystem with complex dynamics, and management could trigger a regime shift, drastically altering resource regrowth. We performed a framed field experiment with 384 villagers from communities managing common-pool wildlife in Zimbabwe. We find that user groups are likely to manage these natural resources more efficiently when facing a policy intervention (either a sanctioned quota, receiving information about a drastic drop in the stocks’ regrowth below a threshold, or a combination of both), compared to groups facing no intervention. A sanctioned quota is likely to perform better than providing information about the existence of a threshold. However, having information about the threshold also leads to higher efficiency and fewer depletion cases, compared to a situation without any intervention. The main contribution of this study is to provide insights that can inform policymakers and development practitioners about the performance of concrete and feasible policy interventions for community wildlife conservation in Southern Africa.
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| 7. |
- Schill, Caroline, 1984-
(författare)
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Human Behaviour in Social-Ecological Systems : Insights from economic experiments and agent-based modelling
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Progress towards sustainability requires changes in our individual and collective behaviour. Yet, our fundamental understanding of behaviour in relation to environmental change remains severely limited. In particular, little attention has been given to how individual and collective behaviours respond to, and are shaped by, non-linear environmental change (such as ‘regime shifts’) and its inherent uncertainties. The thesis makes two main contributions to the literature: 1) it provides one of the first accounts of human behaviour and collective action in relation to ecological regime shifts and associated uncertainties; and 2) extends the incipient behavioural common-pool resource literature that acknowledges social-ecological dynamics and ecological complexity. The overarching aim of this thesis is to further advance an empirically grounded understanding of human behaviour in social-ecological systems. In particular, the thesis attempts to unravel critical social-ecological factors and mechanisms for the sustainability of common-pool resources. This is especially relevant for contexts in which livelihoods can be more directly threatened by regime shifts. The following methods are applied: behavioural economic experiments in the lab (with students; Papers I and II) and in the field (with small-scale fishers from four different communities in the Colombian Caribbean; Paper III), and agent-based modelling empirically informed by a subset of the lab experiments (Paper IV). Paper I tests the effect of an endogenously driven regime shift on the emergence of cooperation and sustainable resource use. Paper II tests the effect of different risk levels of such a regime shift. The regime shift in both papers has negative consequences for the productivity of the shared resource. Paper III assesses the effect of different degrees of uncertainty about a climate-induced threshold in stock dynamics on the exploitation patterns; as well as the role of social and ecological local context. Paper IV explores critical individual-level factors and processes affecting the simultaneous emergence of collective action and sustainable resource use. Results cumulatively suggest that existing scientific knowledge indicating the potential for ecological regime shifts should be communicated to affected local communities, including the remaining uncertainties, as this information can encourage collective action for sustainable resource use. Results also highlight the critical role of ecological knowledge, knowledge-sharing, perceived ecological uncertainties, and the role local contexts play for sustainable outcomes. This thesis enriches the literature on social-ecological systems by demonstrating how a behavioural experimental approach can contribute new insights relevant for sustainability. Overall, these insights indicate that, given the opportunity and the willingness of people to come together, share knowledge, exchange ideas, and build trust, potential ecological crises can encourage collective action, and uncertainties can be turned into opportunities for dealing with change in constructive ways. This provides a hopeful outlook in the face of escalating environmental change and inherent uncertainties.
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- West, Simon, 1985-, et al.
(författare)
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Negotiating the ethical-political dimensions of research methods : a key competency in mixed methods, inter- and transdisciplinary, and co-production research
- 2022
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Ingår i: Humanities and social sciences communications. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2662-9992. ; 9:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Methods are often thought of as neutral tools that researchers can pick up and use to learn about a reality 'out there.' Motivated by growing recognition of complexity, there have been widespread calls to mix methods, both within and across disciplines, to generate richer scientific understandings and more effective policy interventions. However, bringing methods together often reveals their tacit, inherently contestable, and sometimes directly opposing assumptions about reality and how it can and should be known. There are consequently growing efforts to identify the competencies necessary to work with multiple methods effectively. We identify the ability to recognise and negotiate the ethical-political dimensions of research methods as a key competency in mixed methods, inter- and transdisciplinary, and co-production research, particularly for researchers addressing societal challenges in fields like environment, health and education. We describe these ethical-political dimensions by drawing on our experiences developing an ethics application for a transdisciplinary sustainability science project that brings together the photovoice method and controlled behavioural experiments. The first dimension is that different methods and methodological approaches generate their own ethical standards guiding interactions between researchers and participants that may contradict each other. The second is that these differing ethical standards are directly linked to the variable effects that methods have in wider society (both in terms of their enactment in the moment and the knowledge generated), raising more political questions about the kinds of realities that researchers are contributing to through their chosen methods. We identify the practices that helped us-as two researchers using different methodological approaches-to productively explore these dimensions and enrich our collaborative work. We conclude with pointers for evaluating the ethical-political rigour of mixed methods, inter- and transdisciplinary, and co-production research, and discuss how such rigour might be supported in research projects, graduate training programmes and research organisations.
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| 10. |
- Wijermans, Nanda, et al.
(författare)
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Combining approaches : Looking behind the scenes of integrating multiple types of evidence from controlled behavioural experiments through agent-based modelling
- 2022
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Ingår i: International Journal of Social Research Methodology. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1364-5579 .- 1464-5300. ; 25:4, s. 569-581
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Understanding complex (social) phenomena benefits from combining different tools, perspectives, expertise, and experiences. Research designs that combine approaches are gaining in popularity. Carrying out research in interdisciplinary teams, however, is a challenging, high-investment activity. Unawareness of and reflecting on conflicting ways of seeing or studying the world may endanger project success. Agent-based modelling has proven instrumental in bringing together different approaches. Yet, this potential enabler remains an unusual combination partner: the additional prevalent lack of transparency about what is combined, and how, obstructs advancement. We therefore invite our readers behind the scenes of our multi-year research collaboration where we combine agent-based modelling with controlled behavioural experiments to advance the understanding of collective resource use in a common pool resource dilemma. The paper contributes by 1) being an example in sharing the processes of combining approaches, and by 2) highlighting the enabling role of ABM in combining research approaches.
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