Commons-Based Governance under Uncertainty: The Role of Behaviours and Information

Una efficace governance dell'acqua di irrigazione è fondamentale per affrontare il futuro e la sostenibilità dei sistemi alimentari. I limiti alla gestione delle risorse idriche per la produzione primaria sono sempre più evidenti e complessità, incertezza e comportamenti umani ricevono sempre più considerazione. Per far fronte a questi fenomeni la comunità e le azioni collettive stanno emergendo come i domini più appropriati di analisi. Infatti la buona gestione di una risorsa condivisa dipende in gran parte da un'azione coordinata a livello individuale per ridurre la vulnerabilità del sistema a livello macro. Ma la cooperazione può essere in gioco quando si verificano cambiamenti imprevedibili e rapidi, minando in tal modo la capacità di resilienza e adattamento di una comunità. Nonostante la ricerca nel settore manca ancora la comprensione su fattori che favoriscono o limitano la cooperazione in condizioni di variabilità di una risorsa come l’acqua. Per contribuire a tale dibattito la presente ricerca si interessa a come i comportamenti cooperativi sono affetti dall’ incertezza e della conseguente interazione con i sistemi socio-ecologici. A tal fine proponiamo un modello che integra incertezza delle risorse disponibili, processi cognitivi e comportamenti sociali nel processo decisionale. Identifichiamo l'esperienza, l'accesso alle informazioni, la reciprocità e la rete come fattori di supporto a comportamenti cooperativi per utilizzatori delle risorse idriche in condizioni di incertezza di disponibilità.Effective irrigation water governance is crucial to address the future and sustainability of food systems. Limits to the governance of water resources for primary production are becoming more evident and complexity, uncertainty and human dimensions are receiving more consideration. To address these phenomena community level and collective actions issues are emerging as the most appropriate domains of analysis. In fact successful management of a shared resource largely depends on coordinated action at individual level that will reduce sector vulnerability at macro level. But cooperation can be at stake when unpredictable and rapid changes occur, thus undermining the capacity of community resiliency and adaptation. Despite the literature there is still lack of understanding concerning successful and constrains factors enabling cooperation under water changing conditions. To contribute the debate on how cooperative behaviours are affected by uncertainty and dig deeper in socio-ecological systems interactions, we propose an agent-based model integrating water resource uncertainty, cognitive processes and social behaviours into decision-making. We identify experience, access to information, reciprocity and network as factors supporting cooperative behaviours of resource users under water changing conditions

Living territories to transform the world

What resources underpin the development of a territory? What does territorial management of resources mean? What specific characteristics and opportunities does territorial organization offer for agricultural production, regulation of sectors, and services? How are territorial public policies conceived and applied? But also, what are the limits of the territorial approach? How does a territorial approach refashion the frameworks of intervention for development? How do we implement and reinvent mechanisms to provide support, build skills, and promote production and good governance? How do we mobilize information systems, apprehend territorial dynamics, and encourage decentralized planning? Using a wide diversity of case studies, the book explores how actors, scales and scopes of intervention interact in the development of rural spaces in the countries of the Global South, both at the local level and in the global perspective of the objectives of sustainable development. The book brings together the experiences and views of more than 150 researchers and experts from CIRAD, AFD and their partners. It is aimed at researchers, engineers, professionals in the countries of the Global South, as well as students and the wider public