1. Integrating Inquiry and Practice for Rural Resilience Jan Sendzimir International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis Laxenburg, Austria

2. Wicked Problems Can recognize it - can’t really define it Can recognize it - can’t really define it No single objective function to maximize No single objective function to maximize Many players working at different levels and using different values that are not commensurate - You can’t add them up Many players working at different levels and using different values that are not commensurate - You can’t add them up

3. Wicked Problems Problems that are complex all the way down. Problems that are complex all the way down. They don’t successfully decompose at any one level into units that can be added back up to the whole picture. They don’t successfully decompose at any one level into units that can be added back up to the whole picture. Things are entangled within levels and across levels (up and down). Things are entangled within levels and across levels (up and down).

4. One Source of Wicked Problems Someone decomposed them anyway - ignoring complexity within and between levels to maximize one objective function. Someone decomposed them anyway - ignoring complexity within and between levels to maximize one objective function. Prostitution Imperative for maximum productivity: everyone reduced to their maximum utility Prostitution Imperative for maximum productivity: everyone reduced to their maximum utility  Farmers = food producers  Non-farmers = cheap labor  Wildlife = pests or aesthetic amenities

5. Outline Resilience Theory Resilience Theory  Ideas relating structure and dynamics to why system persist, collapse and renew What Makes Systems Resilient? What Makes Systems Resilient? Adaptive Practices for Resilience Adaptive Practices for Resilience  Sustainability Indicators  Adaptive Management in Minnesota and Hungary Summary Summary

6. System Dynamics Adaptive Cycle (after Holling 1986) return return 19

7. Vegetative Scales LOG SPACE- km 0 1 2 3 4 century year month decade 420- 2- 4- 6 -3 -2 -4 1 000 yrs 10 000 yrs day hour 1 cm 1000 km 1 km 10 km 100 m 1m1m standpatch crown needle forest region Boreal forest is patterned across a range of scales. Larger slower structures usually constrain the behaviour of faster smaller scales. Occasionally change at a small and fast scale spreads up to a larger scale. return return LOG TIME - years

8. Vegetative & Atmospheric Scales Atmospheric processes occur faster than vegetative processes occurring at the same spatial scale. LOG SPACE- km 0 1 2 3 4 century year month decade 420- 2- 4- 6 -3 -2 -4 1 000 yrs day hour 1 cm 1000 km 1 km 10 km 100 m 1m1m standpatch crown needle forest region El Niño front s long waves thunderstorms climate change LOG TIME - years Vegetative Structures Atmospheric Processes 10 000 yrs

9. Collapse of Resilience  Surprise from Cross-scale Interactions – Occasionally Natural systems develop to a stage of “over-maturity” where elements are over-connected. – They become accidents waiting to happen. – Then collective activities of small scale processes can “cascade upward” and cause the system to flip to another system type.

10. Examples of Multiple Stable States  Coral Reefs – coral vs. algae  Arid Landscapes – shrubland vs. grassland  Shallow Lakes – eutrophic vs. clear  North Florida Forest – longleaf pine savanna & fire vs. hardwood forest without fire

11. Surprise in Florida Bay Florida Bay Seagrass Clear Water Muddy Water Algae Blooms

12. Ecological Resilience  Measures  System integrity as the capacity to absorb disruption and remain the same kind of ecosystem.  Emerges from cross-scale interactions  Depends upon: – Control of Disturbance jump jump – Regulation of Renewal

13. Outline Resilience Theory   Ideas relating structure and dynamics to why system persist, collapse and renew What Makes Systems Resilient? What Makes Systems Resilient? Adaptive Practices for Resilience   Sustainability Indicators   Adaptive Management in Minnesota and Hungary Summary

14. What Promotes Resilience?  Control of Disturbance – Disturbance Frequency and Intensity – Technical Restrictions – Chesapeake Shellfish Fishery – Herbivore grazing/browsing – Fire or logging in forests – Development in floodplain – Local rain cycle in river basins

15. What Promotes Resilience?  Control of Disturbance – Capacity to Absorb Disturbance – Landscape morphometry – Room for the River Program - Rhine river – Habitat availability – Ability to migrate (connectivity of landscape) – Spatial Heterogeneity (mangroves, eel grass) – Processing and Cycling of Resources – Cross-scale functional reinforcement – Within-scale functional diversity

16. Cross-Scale Resilience Use of different resources at same scale Scale (species body mass) Guild D Guild C Guild B Guild A Overlapping function within scales and functional reinforcement across scales. At the same scale species from different guilds specialize in the use of different resources, but each guild can use other resources at lower efficiencies. Species in a guild utilize the same resource, but at different scales in the landscape hierarchy jump jump

17. Birds and Budworm Use of different resources at same scale Scale (species body mass) Nectivore Carnivore Granivore Insectivores As budworm populations increase and occur larger aggregation both larger birds and birds that would not normally consume budworm switch to the use of budworm. This process provides robust control of budworm populations over a wide range of budworm densities. predation of budworm at different aggregations small birdslarge birds

18. What Promotes Resilience?  Regulation of Renewal (or Regenerative potential ) jump jump – Stored Resources – Soil depth, organic content, seed bank – Water (aquifer, lake, river) – Nutrients in biomass

19. What Promotes Resilience?  Regulation of Renewal jump jump – Facility of Response – Recolonization distance –Proximity of Youth (Kobe Earthquake) – Biodiversity – Cross-scale functional diversity – Capacity to adapt, to generate novelty, to innovate

20. What Promotes Resilience?  Regulation of Renewal (or Regenerative potential) – Availability of Information – Viability of cultural information transfer - Cultural Capital –Language (Norway surrenders to English) –Customs (education, discourse) –Politics and institutions – Human Memory & Population Age Structure –Cree People and Caribou (Birkes)

21. Outline Resilience Theory   Ideas relating structure and dynamics to why system persist, collapse and renew What Makes Systems Resilient? Adaptive Practices for Resilience Adaptive Practices for Resilience  Sustainability Indicators   Adaptive Management in Minnesota, Poland and Hungary Summary

22. Sustainability Indicators Allow specialists and stakeholders to visualize and describe factors crucial to quality of life in qualitative and quantitative terms. Allow specialists and stakeholders to visualize and describe factors crucial to quality of life in qualitative and quantitative terms. Are the basis for profound learning when the stakeholders themselves go through a cycle of proposing indicators, measuring them and revising and improving them based on experience. Are the basis for profound learning when the stakeholders themselves go through a cycle of proposing indicators, measuring them and revising and improving them based on experience.

23. Sustainability Indicators in two different nations ( from Meadows et al. 1998) Portugal Portugal  Days of sunshine per year.  Kilometers of clean beach  Are people warm and friendly when you walk the street? United States United States  Lock doors of cars and homes?  Wild salmon in our streams (Seattle)?  Smell sage brush from our windows (Denver)?  Will our children move away?

24. Values at different levels in the world web Ultimate Ends Ultimate Ends : Well-being Intermediate Ends Intermediate Ends : Human & Social Capital Intermediate Means Intermediate Means: Human & Built Capital Ultimate Means Ultimate Means: Natural Capital Happiness, Harmony, Identity, Fulfillment Community, Enlightenment, Self-Respect Consumer goods, Communication, Leisure,Health, Wealth, Knowledge, Mobility Labor, Tools, Factories, Processed Raw Materials, Public and Private Infrastructure Biosphere, Biogeochemical cycles, Solar Energy, Biodiversity, Earth Materials Religion & Ethics Political Economy Science & Technology ( from Daly 1972, Meadows et al. 1998) Transformative Media

25. Mandate to Counter-pose Theory and Practice Science can’t address problems alone Science can’t address problems alone  Control, replication and isolation of single causative variables are impossible in a multi- variate arena (interface of nature/society). Problem causes and solutions are dynamic Problem causes and solutions are dynamic  Basic uncertainty emerging from nature is compounded by society’s attempts to learn and manage. We need adaptive means to understand and implement that flexibly integrate theory and practice.

26. Management Pathology: Today’s problem emerges from yesterday’s fix.  Administrative drive for growth narrows policy to achieve efficiency at the expense of awareness about where the system is going.  Typical history:  Broad research of overall system  Initial success in maximizing productivity by reducing system variability  All research focused on increasing efficiency  Catastrophic surprise

27. Management Pathology: Examples of Emergent Problems following initial success at reducing variability Variability Reduction Tool Variability Reduction Tool  Nurseries, Larger Catch capacity  Pesticides reduce crop yield variation due to pests  CFCs sustain cool temperatures  Dikes and channelization contain river level fluctuations  Greater mobility decreases the heterogeneity of available skills  Standardized fast food Emergent Problem Emergent Problem  Lost salmon wild stocks  New species become pests or new capacities in old species  Ozone hole  Rising floodplain, lower capacity to absorb floods  Whole world is a suburb of L.A.  Lost local species, culture, vulnerable food chains (BSE)

28. Outline Resilience Theory   Ideas relating structure and dynamics to why system persist, collapse and renew What Makes Systems Resilient? Adaptive Practices for Resilience Adaptive Practices for Resilience   Sustainability Indicators  Adaptive Management in Minnesota and Hungary Summary

29. Adaptive Environmental Assessment is not any one thing It’s a set of questions, practices and theories that   Have emerged from hard won experience over thirty years.   Can be tailored to support responses to wicked problems   Understanding that evolves with the system   Policy that flexes to changes in the environment   Actions that manage and probe the system   Monitoring of actions and their effects   Linking of inquiry and practice in a functional cycle

30. Learning That Persistently Adapts Truth is not constant - Social and natural systems continue to change Truth is not constant - Social and natural systems continue to change Initial responses to crises were not as important as the sustained capability to learn and respond accordingly. Initial responses to crises were not as important as the sustained capability to learn and respond accordingly.

31. AEA Processes Linked in a Cycle of Integrated Learning Policy as Hypothesis Evaluation Management Actions as Tests Assessment

32. Surprise in Florida Bay Florida Bay Seagrass Clear Water Muddy Water Algae Blooms

33. Florida Bay Hypotheses Strangled Bay Topless Bay Senile BayOuthouse Bay Thirsty Bay Rising Bay

34. AEA applied in the Everglades Wading bird populations have declined dramatically (as much as 95 percent) over the past 70 years in South Florida. In an AEA process, convened in 1989, a number of alternative hypotheses were posed to explain these population declines.

35. Everglades Hypotheses   - Shrunken Habitat: The conversion of portions of the Everglades by agriculture and urbanization has decreased the original area to half its size. This area has low biological productivity per unit area, so loss of productive habitat has lead to lower nesting populations.   - Decreased Flow: The development of the Everglades involved drainage and diversion of much of the water in south Florida to the extent that much less water flows through the park. These lower water flows have caused dramatic declines in biological productivity at the estuarine fringe of mangroves, a border area that used to hold the densest nesting colonies.

36. Everglades Hypotheses   - Damped Fluctuations of Water Level: Water levels fluctuate seasonally in South Florida, driving the ecology of the Everglades. These fluctuations provide the means of food production and delivery. Fish populations thrive and reproduce in times of flooding and are concentrated by lowering water levels to the point where wading birds can easily feed on them. Water management schedules for canals in the Everglades has changed these hydrological patterns to the point where they are not synchronized with wading bird nesting cycles.   - Distant Magnet: The decreases in nesting populations in the Everglades are matched by increases in other parts of the Southeastern United States, Louisiana and the Carolinas for example. Population declines in the Everglades may not wholly reflect lowered ecological conditions there so much as better or improving conditions elsewhere that have drawn the populations to distant sites.

37. Everglades Hypotheses   - Mercury: Mercury concentrations have increased in the atmosphere over this century, and many wetland soils absorb and concentrate deposition from the air. Anaerobic water conditions can mobilize this metal from the soil, and it can pass up the food chain to wading birds. Over time the latent toxic effects of mercury have decreased the nesting success of wading birds.   - Parasites: : Increased agriculture upstream of the Everglades has released progressively larger amounts of nutrients into the surface water, and populations of parasites have thrived and increased as a result. The increased burden of parasites has diverted metabolic energy normally given to reproduction and thereby lowered the success of nesting of wading birds.

38. Adaptive Science and Practice in Minnesota Prairie Streams  Effective Collaboration – Scientists provide theory and supervise fieldwork – Farmers manage cattle according to experimental design and help monitor results – Local citizens help monitor stream conditions  Mutual Benefit – Stream conditions improve – Erosion reduced, water quality improved – Diversity of habitats and species increased – Farmers increase income and keep their farm – Local citizens learn science, ecology and farming and spread the knowledge informally – Advance ecological theory on disturbances

39. Cycles of Erosion and Grazing A. B. C.

40. Adaptive Science and Practice in a Hungarian River Basin  Ecology – Study of flipping behavior of shallow lakes builds a bio- physical model  Socio-Economics  Computer simulation links bio-physical model to economic decisions in the basin  Adaptive Integration of Ecology and Socio- Economics for both stakeholders and scientists – explore alternative futures using the model and suggest policies – Monitor policy implementation and revisit assumptions – Suggest new experiments and policies

41. Summary No scale is more important than others. Global change doesn’t make local transition irrelevant No scale is more important than others. Global change doesn’t make local transition irrelevant Key goal: integrate inquiry and practice across all scales. Key goal: integrate inquiry and practice across all scales. Adaptive Management is a useful framework for such integration: Adaptive Management is a useful framework for such integration:  To start and sustain a dialogue  To adaptively link changes in understanding with innovative action.

42. Summary Why is this so rare? Practice : People are most used to giving or taking orders. Practice : People are most used to giving or taking orders. Theory : We are just beginning to understand how nature and society are structured and operate. Theory : We are just beginning to understand how nature and society are structured and operate. Integrating practice and theory into a workable whole that can adapt to changes in the world has been accomplished rarely at one scale: farming, fishing, hunting. Integrating practice and theory into a workable whole that can adapt to changes in the world has been accomplished rarely at one scale: farming, fishing, hunting.