CAREER: Local Context and the Dynamics of Social-Ecological Systems: Beyond One-size-fits-all Solutions to Environmental Problems

全球化正在从根本上改变人类与自然资源互动的方式。许多人不再依靠当地资源，而是依靠通过全球经济网络连接起来的一系列遥远的资源。不幸的是，这种跨时间和空间尺度的地方资源系统的整合有可能将地方资源退化问题扩大到全球范围。对日益复杂的全球资源系统的健全管理需要在地方直觉和地方生态环境以及地方机构和它们所处的全球环境之间取得良好的配合。该项目将结合来自全球各地的当地社会生态系统的实证案例研究与程式化动态数学模型的开发和分析，开始推导关于如何最好地实现这种契合的一般原则。具体而言，该项目将解决两个首要问题：1)在决定当地资源管理机构的成败方面，当地背景的社会和生态变量是最重要的；2)当地机构的绩效如何随着与全球化相关的更大规模进程的变化而变化。该项目旨在解决这些问题的综合研究和教学计划将有助于改善资源管理和提高数学素养。越来越多的证据表明，基于极其简化的理论模型的政策往往会失败。本项目将利用数据明智地增加基本理论模型的复杂性，系统地探索当地文化、社会、经济和生态背景对制度和管理政策绩效的影响，并确定当地制度对哪些外部因素最敏感。这种理解将提高我们诊断资源管理问题的能力，建立更好的解决办法，防止现有机构多样性的丧失，并保持我们都依赖的全球资源系统的完整性。与此同时，通过让学生沉浸在自然科学、社会科学和数学科学之间的研究中，该项目将有助于解决我国数学素养低下的挑战。数学素养低的部分原因是，在物理、化学和工程以外的学生中，缺乏有趣的背景来应用数学技术。该项目将通过专门设计的课程和研究生研究提供这样的背景，学生将通过使用数学来解决对他们真正重要的社会和生命科学问题来学习数学。最后，本项目开发的基于互联网的案例研究、模型和可视化工具电子图书馆将通过将其应用于社会和生命科学问题，为学习数学提供宝贵的资源。

Globalization is fundamentally changing the way humans interact with natural resources. Many people no longer rely on local resources but, rather, on a set of distant resources linked through a global economic network. Unfortunately, this integration of local resource systems across several temporal and spatial scales has the potential to amplify local resource degradation problems to the global scale. Sound management of the increasingly complex global resource system requires achieving a good fit both between local intuitions and local ecological contexts and local institutions and the global context in which they are embedded. This project will combine empirical case studies of local social-ecological systems from around the globe with the development and analysis of stylized dynamic mathematical models to begin to derive general principles concerning how to best achieve such a fit. Specifically, the project will address two overarching questions: 1) what local contextual social and ecological variables are most important in determining the success or failure of local resource management institutions and 2) how does the performance of local institutions change in response to changes in larger-scale processes associated with globalization.The project's integrated research and teaching program directed at addressing these issues will contribute to both improved resource management and enhanced mathematical literacy. Evidence continues to mount that policies based on extremely simplified, theoretical models frequently fail. Using data to judiciously add complexity to basic theoretical models, this project will systematically explore the effects of local cultural, social, economic, and ecological context on the performance of institutions and management policies and identify to which external factors local institutions are most sensitive. This understanding will improve our capacity to diagnose resource management problems, build better solutions, prevent the loss of existing institutional diversity, and maintain the integrity of the global resource system upon which we all rely. At the same time, by immersing students in research at the boundaries between natural, social, and mathematical sciences, the project will help address our nation's challenges with low mathematical literacy. Low mathematical literacy is due, in part, to the lack of interesting context in which to apply mathematical techniques for students outside physics, chemistry, and engineering. This project will provide such context through specially-designed courses and graduate research in which students will learn mathematics by using it to address problems in the social and life sciences that really matter to them. Finally, the internet-based e-library of case studies, models, and visualization tools developed in this project will provide a valuable resource for learning mathematics through its application to problems in the social and life sciences.