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Towards a Social-Ecological-Entropy Perspective of Sustainable Exploitation of Natural Resources

Authors :
Sebastián Michel-Mata
Mónica Gómez-Salazar
Víctor Castaño
Iván Santamaría-Holek
Source :
Foundations, Vol 2, Iss 4, Pp 999-1021 (2022)
Publication Year :
2022
Publisher :
MDPI AG, 2022.

Abstract

An innovative and integrative modeling strategy for assessing the sustainability and resilience of social-ecological systems (SES) is presented by introducing a social-ecological entropy production (SEEP) method. In analogy to the thermodynamic entropy production of irreversible processes, we discuss a theoretical model that relates energy and information flow with the cultural and epistemological peculiarities of different communities that exploit the same natural resource. One of the innovative aspects of our approach comes from the fact that sustainability is assessed by a single parameter (SEEP) incorporating the simulation outcomes of all the populations participating in the dynamics, and not only on the fate of the resource. This is significant as far as the non-linearities introduced by the coupling of the different dynamics considered may lead to high sensitivity to small perturbations. Specifically, by assuming two possible types of technical and environmental knowledge-transfer methods [direct (D) and phase-in (P)] within each one of the two communities that exploit and restore a resource, we generate four mathematical models to explore the long-term sustainability scenario due to the intervention, by a new epistemological community, of an initially sustainable resource-community SES. By exploring the space of four key parameters characterizing the degree of technical and environmental knowledge, as well as the rates of social inclusion and knowledge transfer, our simulations show that, from 400 scenarios studied in each case, the P-P model predicts 100% sustainable cases in the use of the resource after the intervention by the second community. The mixed scenarios P-D and D-P predict about 29%, and the D-D scenario only predicts 23% of sustainable cases. Catastrophic outcomes are predicted at about 71% in P-D and D-P scenarios, and about 77% of extinction of the system by exhaustion of the resource and community populations in the D-D scenario. In this form, our theoretical strategy and the knowledge-transfer scenarios studied may help policymakers to find a priori science-based criteria to solve possible controversies arising from social-ecological interventions.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
26739321
Volume :
2
Issue :
4
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
Foundations
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.40dfeac03d943b288649b5a0c81663c
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3390/foundations2040067