期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：2015
卷号：112
期号：43
页码：13207-13212
DOI：10.1073/pnas.1410688112
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：SignificanceRecent years have witnessed an explosion of interdisciplinary research on social-ecological systems (SESs), which has typically viewed SESs as self-organized systems. This view, however, may be incomplete in that many modern SESs are in fact part designed and part self-organized, i.e., the coupled processes in most SESs are mediated by consciously designed infrastructure. We examined how design features of infrastructure shape the long-term dynamics of SESs, using a model of an irrigation system (an exemplary case of a partly designed SES). We show that two design features common to many SESs--the structure of benefit flows and the scale of effort needed to maintain infrastructure--can induce fundamental changes in qualitative behavior as well as altered robustness characteristics. The use of shared infrastructure to direct natural processes for the benefit of humans has been a central feature of human social organization for millennia. Today, more than ever, people interact with one another and the environment through shared human-made infrastructure (the Internet, transportation, the energy grid, etc.). However, there has been relatively little work on how the design characteristics of shared infrastructure affect the dynamics of social-ecological systems (SESs) and the capacity of groups to solve social dilemmas associated with its provision. Developing such understanding is especially important in the context of global change where design criteria must consider how specific aspects of infrastructure affect the capacity of SESs to maintain vital functions in the face of shocks. Using small-scale irrigated agriculture (the most ancient and ubiquitous example of public infrastructure systems) as a model system, we show that two design features related to scale and the structure of benefit flows can induce fundamental changes in qualitative behavior, i.e., regime shifts. By relating the required maintenance threshold (a design feature related to infrastructure scale) to the incentives facing users under different regimes, our work also provides some general guidance on determinants of robustness of SESs under globalization-related stresses.
关键词：social−ecological system ; infrastructure ; robustness ; resilience ; irrigation
