Sub-theme 5. Modelling and multi-methods approaches in polycentric commons systems
Panel 5.5.
Different perceptions on commons theory and modelling
Panel 5.5.A
The presentations offered in panel 5.5.A are centered around
the exploration, analysis, and search for solutions regarding various
aspects of resource management and socio-economic systems with a
methodological focus. The proposals address topics such as the
governance of common goods, the transformation of sociotechnical
systems, collective action to maintain food security, technical
efficiency in agricultural production, and environmental restoration.
They highlight the importance of models and analytical approaches to
understand and influence these systems, as well as the involvement of
local actors in co-construction and decision-making processes. The
common objective is to find sustainable and diversified solutions to
address the challenges related to resource management and community
resilience.
Panel 5.5.B
The common thread among the four proposals in panel 5.5.B is
the study and analysis of different forms of governance and preservation
of common resources, whether related to aquaculture, rice production,
pasture management, or the preservation of cultural traditions. The
authors examine the specific challenges and issues in each context, as
well as the strategies and initiatives implemented to ensure sustainable
use of resources and the preservation of cultural knowledge and
practices. In each study, modeling methods, resource management
techniques, or revitalization approaches are applied to foster the
sustainability and resilience of socio-ecological systems or cultural
traditions. The results also underline the importance of stakeholder
participation, adaptation to local realities, and collaborations among
different actors to achieve successful collective governance.
Panel 5.5. A
1. Mapping for system transformation: A case of the Ugandan Off-grid Renewable Energy Sector
University of Oxford, United Kingdom
To effectively address the rising societal pressing issues such as social inequalities, unemployment and the exacerbating damages due to climate change, scholars can significantly benefit from an enhanced understanding of the dynamic interactions within and across interconnected systems. Various strands of literature have long shown that the complexity of highly interdependent systems necessitates a systems approach. For example, viewing social systems nested within natural systems and recognizing the dependence on each other could offer the promise of solving the most pressing issues of this generation. However, despite this consensus systems still remain challenging to understand. They are even more difficult to change effectively to better align with a desired system goal. To this effect, many tools and notations have been developed to model and communicate how systems work. Tools include influence maps and system dynamics. They each have their strengths. However, they are designed to describe an existing system and not to gain insight on how to change a system. These tools are not easy to use to effectively communicate how to enable change. To this end, we propose a new approach called Mapping System for Transformation (MST). MST is based on the premise that socio-technical systems can only be proactively transformed to better meet a system goal if one or more key persons decides to act differently. MST explicitly focuses on both the person and the decision.
We use this approach to gain insights on how to transform the off-grid renewable energy sector to delivering more affordable electricity to rural communities.
2. Exploring the outcomes of a simulation model : Collective action in the Village of Diohine
1LASTIG, IGN/ENSG , Univ Guistave Eiffel, France, 2CIRAD, Senegal, 3CNRS, France
The groundnut basin is a region of Senegal that has relied heavily on the combination of organic manure and mineral fertilizer since colonization. Today, despite the lack of mineral fertilizer supply, fertility has been maintained or reduced in fairly small proportions thanks to the maintenance of the “Faidherbia park” and organic manure. As part of the DSCATT project (https://dscatt.net/), we co-defined a set of aspirations with farmers in the village of Diohine. One of the outlined aspirations was to maintain the community fallow in time and space.
We developed a multi-agent model involving the interaction of agropastoralist households, their herds and the fertility of the soil . The objective is to understand how collective action, manifested in particular by the maintenance of fallow land and several solidarity networks, benefits the entire village and contributes to maintaining its food security.
We propose here to consider the diversity of collective actions as the diversity of possible regimes of the simulation model. Exposing these regimes, in order to qualify and compare them, requires a systematic exploration of the behaviors of the model, using specific tools and methods.
The difficulty (and the interest) of this exploration lies in the space that is explored, which is the the model dynamics space. Its analysis can take several forms depending on the focus : the analysis of the viability of the modeled system fertility, demographics, trees or the classification of its dynamics by the values of the input variables that led to it.
3. How High Standard Farmland Construction Affects Technical Efficiency of Food Production: Evidence from Guanzhong, Shaanxi Province, China
Northwest Agricultural and Forestry University, China
China’s agriculture is still in the stage of extensive production with high input and low efficiency. To ensure national food security, it is urgent to continuously improve the technical efficiency of food production. Based on the induced technology theory and agricultural division theory, this paper constructs a theoretical analysis framework, selects 1725 survey data of farmers in Guanzhong area, Shaanxi Province, China, and uses the three-stage DEA method to compare the difference of grain production efficiency between the “wheat” single crop planting and the “wheat+corn” rotation planting in two typical planting patterns in Guanzhong area, and discusses the impact path of high standard farmland construction on grain production technical efficiency. The results showed that: (1) The grain production technical efficiency of “wheat+corn” rotation planting was higher than that of “wheat” pure planting mode, and moderate diversified planting positively affected the grain production technical efficiency. (2) High standard farmland construction has significantly improved the technical efficiency of grain production in both planting modes. The results are still stable after re testing with instrumental variables. (3) In the “wheat” single crop planting mode, the construction of high standard farmland improves the technical efficiency of grain production by expanding the scale of agricultural socialized services. (4) The promotion of high standard farmland construction on technical efficiency of food production is stronger in mountainous and hilly areas, where farmers are migrant workers and villages with better infrastructure.
4. To be or not to be a common of the land and the resources it carries
1CIRAD, France, 2UMR SENS, France, 3Laboratoire LAVUE, Université Paris Nanterre, France, 4Université Montpellier, France, 5IRD, UMR Eco&Sols, Abidjan, République de Côte d’Ivoire
The groundnut basin is a region of Senegal that has relied heavily on the combination of organic manure and mineral fertilizer since colonization. Today, the supply of mineral fertilizer is no longer accessible to farmers in the area. The maintenance of fertility is linked to that of the “Faidherbia park” and the presence of organic manure-producing livestock. As part of the DSCATT project, we have co-defined a set of aspirations with the farmers of Diohine village. One of them is the restoration of a degraded environment, which would include the densification of the “Faidherbia park”. “More trees” is what the inhabitants wish to see to slow down the process of sahelization.
The result of this work of co-construction of an agent-based model led the participants to question the rules for collecting the wood used to cook food. The model quantifies the loss of agricultural production due to the overexploitation of trees. It also highlights the effectiveness of different rules between community management and central management.
These results are used by the participants in the process to facilitate workshops with the villages in the zone in order to collectively seek diversified management solutions to restore soil fertility and maintain and develop tree cover. We will present the entire process, from co-construction to the operationalization of the process by the population.
Panel 5.5. B
Panel 5.5 B — Accepted Papers
1. Exploring stakeholder mental models to understand coastal pond aquaculture governance in Nusa Tenggara Barat, Indonesia
1Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT), Germany, 2IPB University (Institut Pertanian Bogor), Indonesia, 3Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT), Germany
Aquaculture is the fastest growing food production sector, but governance research is still lacking compared to other shared natural resource sectors. Sustainable development of aquaculture requires complex social-ecological system (SES) knowledge as well as an understanding of how stakeholders perceive and prioritize development of the sector. In this study, we apply a participatory modeling approach called fuzzy cognitive mapping to the case context of coastal “tambak” pond aquaculture in Nusa Tenggara Barat province, Indonesia, where the central government has set major growth targets to expand aquaculture production. We captured stakeholder “mental models” of aquaculture as a SES and interpreted the results through the lens of Ostrom’s SES framework to identify and compare key areas of consensus and differences between stakeholder groups. Our results highlight key differences in perceptions across groups, with fish farmers focusing on resource system challenges relating to production instability and risk of collapse, government managers on increasing production intensivity, and researchers on pond waste treatment and management. Across all groups, tambak aquaculture was viewed as highly actor-driven, while key resource system concepts such as production yield were viewed primarily as outcomes, suggesting the need for decision-makers to more directly consider the trade-offs, feedbacks, and challenges often associated with increased aquaculture production. Concepts describing the governance system were consistently perceived as weakly influential to the aquaculture SES and suggest a need for an increased focus on the development and capacity-building of local institutions associated with successful outcomes in shared natural resource management.
2. Influence of Alternate wetting and drying irrigation on resource use efficiency of Ghanaian rice varieties
University of Environment and Sustainable Development, Ghana
With increasing human population in Africa and a growing unmet demand for rice, particularly in Ghana, increasing rice production to meet domestic demand is an important step to achieving food self-sufficiency, but the high-water requirement for rice cultivation is a source of worry, especially in the face of climate change where water shortages and droughts are common. In this study, we tested the influence of a water-limited irrigation management in combination with different nutrient management and rice genotypes on crop yield and water use efficiency. A split-plot design experiment was established in Ghana and tested the following factors: (1) irrigation [alternate wetting and drying (AWD) vs continuous flooding (CF)], (2) Nutrient source at 90kg/ha N [Inorganic fertilizer (IF) vs Organic fertilizer (OF)] and (3) Genotype [Improved variety (IV) vs Local variety (LV)]. The study showed that, irrespective of nutrient source and crop variety, AWD significantly increased water use efficiency by 30% (p
3. Conditions for successful collective governance in grassland: examining design principles in China
College of Humanities and Development Studies, China Agricultural, China
Collective action stays an essential pathway for governing the commons, and Ostrom’s design principles (DPs) have been widely used to analyze the governance of common pool resources (CPR). However, grassland as the typical CPR has rarely been examined and studied in the such framework in China. Based on the survey data in Yushu, Qinghai where ecological husbandry is growing, we considered DPs as fuzzy sets to distinguish the nuances among cases and tried to figure out necessary and sufficient conditions for successful collective governance. We found that (i) Conformity to more DPs can increase the possibility of success; (ii) The good outcome needs regulations from three classifications – rules, rule enforcement, and rule-making arenas, and the failure always attributes to lacking all items from the specific type; (iii) Well-operated husbandry cooperation is the primary factor in grassland governance in line with current trends, bringing advantages and attaining dual desires in economy and ecology system. Also, local rules must match the reality to ensure sustainability.
4. Strategic Revival of Kaavad storytelling of Rajasthan through the Kaavad Project: From sacred space to performing in digital space
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India
Kaavad bachana, a ritualistic storytelling form of Rajasthan, was traditionally marked by the symbiotic relationship of Suthar (kaavad makers) and Kaavadiya Bhat (storytellers/genealogists) communities. The combined efforts of Suthars, known for their expert carpentry skills, and Kaavadiya bhats, or visual storytellers who reimagined Indian Epics and local folklore to reflect the lived realities of their patrons, facilitated the survival of their cultural commons for multiple generations. The two communities, however, experienced globalization and its aftermath differently. While the narrative tradition and its bearers became irrelevant, the kaavad makers saw a rise in fortune as the newly boosted tourism industry turned kaavad boxes into famous relics of the lost tradition. Recent efforts by urban non-hereditary artists draw attention to the waning art form and its dwindling practitioners through online and offline shows. This paper examines one such initiative, the Kaavad Project, a collaboration of theatre practitioner Akshay Gandhi and visual artist Rohit Bhasi to preserve the age-old narrative tradition built around the kaavad box. Our objective is to examine how such traditional cultural commons is revived in the globalized world. The artists were interviewed in depth to learn about the content and context of the project, and secondary sources were reviewed to meet the paper’s objective. We engaged with Bertacchini et al.’s (2012) framework of cultural commons and concluded that by performing the storytelling tradition bereft of rituals and sans the traditional repertoire, the Kaavad Project engages in a strategic revival of cultural commons and keeps the free-rider’s dilemma at bay.
