The relationship between resilience and sustainable development of ecological-economic systems

Resilience as a descriptive concept gives insight into the dynamic properties of a system. Sustainability as a normative concept captures basic ideas of inter- and intragenerational justice. In this paper we specify the relationship between resilience and sustainable development. Based on an ecological-economic model where two natural capital stocks provide ecosystem services that are complements for human well-being, we derive conditions on the dynamics of the ecological-economic system and the sustainability criterion, such that a) resilience of the system in a given regime is both necessary and sufficient for sustainable development, b) resilience of the system in a given regime is sufficient, but not necessary, c) resilience of the system in a given regime is necessary, but not sufficient, and d) resilience of the system in a given regime is neither necessary nor sufficient for sustainable development. We conclude that more criteria than the resilience of the current state of the system have to be taken into account when designing policies for sustainable management of ecological-economic systems.ecosystem resilience, sustainable development, management of ecological-economic systems

Managing ecological-economic systems under uncertainty - from concepts to contracts

The dissertation is concerned with the management of ecological-economic systems, especially with policy instruments to promote the ecosystem services such systems provide.Within the research field of environmental and resource economics, resilience has become a key concept to give guidance for the management of ecological-economic systems. However, resilience as an attribute of those systems cannot be alone a sufficient paradigm for a management device e.g. regarding sustainablity, a fallacy which is often made. For the attempt to maintain or increase a specific ecosystem service, such as water purification, landscape beauty or watershed production, policy instruments have been approved as a means to produce environmental goods and services. Such approval is embedded in the logic of public goods and market environmentalism: If markets do not exist the objective is to construct appraisal methods that come as near to the Free Market ideal as possible. Within design of those instruments the dynamics of the system which produces an ecosystem service are usually not considered. The aim of the dissertation is therefore to apply the insights regarding the dynamic of ecological-economic systems and make this knowledge applicable and valuable for the design of policy instruments. Since many open questions exist regarding the behavior and the dynamics of ecological-economic systems, the dissertation exhibits a conceptual and analytical character in large parts. In a fist instance, the relationship between resilience and sustainable development of ecological-economic systems is discussed in detail by means of an ecological-economic system featuring multiple stable states. The obtained result is that a deduction from resilience to sustainability, or vice versa, is not possible. On the basis of the same model the effects of factors influencing the stability and resilience of a system, such as complementarity of resources and species interaction are analyzed. Thereby the insights and knowledge about ecological-economic systems are expanded. To make these insights applicable and valuable for the management of ecological-economic systems the design of policy instruments is analyzed.Die vorliegende Dissertation beschäftigt sich mit dem Management ökologisch-ökonomischer Systeme, insbesondere mit Politikinstrumenten, welche die Bereitstellung von Ökosystemdienstleitungen durch solche Systeme unterstützen. Innerhalb der Umwelt- und Ressourcenökonomik gilt Resilienz zunehmend als ein Schlüsselkonzept für das Management von ökologisch-ökonomischen Systemen. Hierbei wird oft jedoch nicht berücksichtigt, dass Resilienz als eine Eigenschaft ökologisch-ökonomischer Systeme noch keine hinrichtende Bedingung für eine Managementscheidung, z.B. in Hinblick auf Nachhaltigkeit, liefert. Bei dem Bestreben bestimmte Ökosystemdienstleitungen, so genannte “Ecosystem Services”, zu fördern und zu erhalten, werden für den Bereich öffentlicher Güter, zu denen viele dieser Dienstleistungen gehören, vor allem marktwirtschaftliche Instrumente eingesetzt. Bei der Anwendung und Gestaltung dieser werden jedoch bisher die Eigenschaften von dynamischen Systemen nicht berücksichtigt. Das Ziel der Dissertation war es daher, neue Erkenntnisse zur Dynamik ökologischökonomischer Systeme zu gewinnen, und diese bei der Gestaltung von Politikinstrumenten in den Fokus zu nehmen. Da zu dem Verhalten und zu den Eigenschaften ökologisch-ökonomischer Systeme noch viele Fragen offen waren und sind, hat die Arbeit in weiten Teilen einen stark konzeptionellen und analytischen Charakter. Zunächst wird das Verhältnis des Resilienz-Paradigmas als Eigenschaft ökologischökonomischer Systeme zu der normativen Forderung nach einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung analysiert. Mit Hilfe eines ökologisch-ökonomischen Modells werden die unterschiedlichen logischen Möglichkeiten zwischen Resilienz und nachhaltiger Entwicklung dargestellt. Hierbei wird deutlich, dass der logische Schluss von der Resilienz eines bestimmten Zustandes auf dessen Nachhaltigkeit und umgekehrt nicht möglich ist. Anhand eben dieses Modells werden die Auswirkungen von Faktoren wie der Komplementarität bestimmter Ressourcen und Artinteraktionen auf die Stabilität eines Systems verdeutlicht. Die Erkenntnisse in Bezug auf die Reaktionen ökologischökonomischer Systeme werden damit erweitert. Um diese Erkenntnisse auch für das Management ökologisch-ökonomischer Systeme nutzbar zu machen, werden dazu Politikinstrumente untersucht

The relationship between resilience and sustainability of ecological-economic systems

Resilience as a descriptive concept gives insight into the dynamic properties of an ecological-economic system. Sustainability as a normative concept captures basic ideas of intergenerational justice when human well-being depends on natural capital and services. Thus, resilience and sustainability are independent concepts. In this paper, we discuss the relationship between resilience and sustainability of ecological-economic systems. We use a simple dynamic model where two natural capital stocks provide ecosystem services that are complements for human well-being, to illustrate different possible cases of the relationship between resilience and sustainability, and to identify the conditions under which each of those will hold: a) resilience of the system is necessary, but not sufficient, for sustainability; b) resilience of the system is sufficient, but not necessary, for sustainability; c) resilience of the system is neither necessary nor sufficient for sustainability; and d) resilience is both necessary and sufficient for sustainability. We conclude that more criteria than just resilience have to be taken into account when designing policies for the sustainable development of ecological-economic systems, and, vice versa, the property of resilience should not be confused with the positive normative connotations of sustainability.Ecosystem resilience Dynamics Management of ecological-economic systems Sustainability

Consumer Preferences Determine Resilience of Ecological-Economic Systems

We perform a model analysis to study the origins of limited resilience in coupled ecological-economic systems. We demonstrate that under open access to ecosystems for profit-maximizing harvesting forms, the resilience properties of the system are essentially determined by consumer preferences for ecosystem services. In particular, we show that complementarity and relative importance of ecosystem services in consumption may significantly decrease the resilience of (almost) any given state of the system. We conclude that the role of consumer preferences and management institutions is not just to facilitate adaptation to, or transformation of, some natural dynamics of ecosystems. Rather, consumer preferences and management institutions are themselves important determinants of the fundamental dynamic characteristics of coupled ecological-economic systems, such as limited resilience