CNH: When Strengths Can Become Weaknesses: Emerging Vulnerabilities in Coupled Natural Human Systems under Globalization and Climate Change

长寿的耦合自然人类系统（CNH）通常通过它们如何在其生物物理和社会子系统之间进化出正确的匹配来区分。研究人员用密切反馈来描述这种匹配，这种反馈使系统在面临一组已知的干扰状态时能够良好运行。该项目解决了一个关键问题，当这些系统暴露于一套新的干扰制度或新的变化时，自然会出现，因为这是可能发生的全球化和气候变化：在多大程度上发展的相互依存关系，以加强系统的能力，以适应一定的干扰限制或提高其能力，以适应新的条件？ 为了解决这一问题，项目团队将重点关注一类特殊的CNH-小型灌溉系统，其中已建成的基础设施在资源供应中发挥着关键作用。将采用多方法方法，首先对大量案例研究进行定性分析，以建立灌溉系统的类型学。我们将重新审视以前研究过的一部分典型案例，以研究它们如何应对出现的新漏洞。与此同时，将与资源使用者和基础设施提供者进行实地实验，将行为经济学的原则应用于灌溉系统中出现的社会困境，以测试集体行动对不同压力的鲁棒性。随后将对大学生进行实验室实验，以研究这些发现是否可以推广到其他系统。最后，从案例研究和实验的见解将被用来开发正式的原型灌溉为基础的CNH的动态模型。利用动力系统和鲁棒控制的工具，辅以数值实验和仿真（包括基于代理的方法），这些系统的定性动态和相关的鲁棒性-脆弱性特征将被研究，以提炼出一套用于开发预期治理工具的制度设计原则。除了对耦合自然人类系统（CNH）本身的研究外，这个项目是出于一个重要的实际考虑。社会和自然系统目前的变化速度-在很大程度上是由全球化和气候变化驱动的-对一些CNH自我组织和有效应对这种变化的能力提出了挑战。正在进行的实地研究表明，占全球农场90%的小规模农场（不到2公顷）消耗了约70%的发达供水，最容易受到这种变化的影响。因为这些农场也生产全球40%的农业产量，并支持世界上大多数人？对于最贫穷的人来说，必须提高他们的适应能力，以维持粮食安全和减轻贫困。该项目以深入研究小型灌溉系统为重点，推动了资源治理思想超越传统方法。而不是寻求“最佳”的政策，为一个特定的系统在一组给定的冲击，它试图了解CNH如何科普变化下的范围广泛的干扰制度。该项目的理论基础是基于工程学的一个关键见解：反馈（CNH中的管理和治理就是其中的例子）可以用来稳定系统并降低其对给定扰动集的敏感性。然而，这种稳定反馈可以增加对新类型干扰的灵敏度。通过研究对一系列干扰的反应，该项目有助于推进对CNH进化的更细致入微的理解，认识到在对某些干扰进行微调时，系统如何变得越来越容易受到其他干扰的影响。通过理论建模以及来自美国西南部、印度、尼泊尔和泰国各种环境的案例研究和实地实验，该项目将开发一套工具，有助于决策者更好地预测新出现的脆弱性，并设计学习和适应机制，以更有效地科普变化。

Long-lived coupled natural human systems (CNHs) are often distinguished by how they have evolved the right fit between their biophysical and social sub-systems. Researchers have characterized this fit in terms of the close feedbacks that enable a system to function well when faced with a known set of disturbance regimes. This project addresses a key question that naturally arises when these systems are exposed to a new set of disturbance regimes or novel change as is likely to occur with increased globalization and climate change: to what extent do the interdependencies that developed to strengthen the system's capacity to fit to a certain set of disturbances limit or enhance its capacity to refit to new conditions? To address this question, the project team will focus on a particular class of CNHs - small scale irrigation systems where the built infrastructure plays a critical role in resource provision. A multi-method approach will be employed that begins with the qualitative analysis of a large number of case studies to develop a typology of irrigation systems. A subset of previously examined exemplar cases will be revisited to examine how they have coped with new vulnerabilities that have emerged. In parallel, field experiments will be conducted with resource users and infrastructure providers that apply principles of behavioral economics to social dilemmas that emerge in irrigation systems in order to test the robustness of collective action to different stressors. These will be followed by laboratory experiments with college students to examine whether the findings can be generalized to other systems. Finally, insights from the case studies and experiments will be used to develop formal dynamic models of prototypical irrigation-based CNHs. Using tools from dynamical systems and robust control complemented by numerical experiments and simulation (including agent-based approaches), the qualitative dynamics and associated robustness-vulnerability characteristics of these systems will be studied in order to distill a set of institutional design principles for use in the development of tools for anticipatory governance.In addition to the study of coupled natural human systems (CNHs) in its own right, this project is motivated by an important practical consideration. The pace at which social and natural systems are currently changing - driven to a large degree by globalization and climate change - has challenged the capacity of several CNHs to self-organize and respond effectively to this change. Ongoing field studies have shown that small scale farms (less than 2 hectares), which constitute 90% of farms worldwide and consume an estimated 70% of developed water supplies, are the most vulnerable to such changes. Since these farms also produce 40% of agricultural output globally and support the majority of world?s poorest people, it is essential to enhance their adaptive capacity in order to maintain food security and alleviate poverty. Focusing on the in-depth study of small-scale irrigation systems, this project pushes ideas of resource governance beyond traditional approaches. Rather than seeking the "best" policies for a specific system under a given set of shocks, it seeks to understand how CNHs cope with change under a wide range of disturbance regimes. The theoretical foundation for the project is based on a key insight from engineering: feedback (of which management and governance in CNHs are examples) can be used to stabilize a system and reduce its sensitivity to a given set of disturbances. However, this stabilizing feedback can increase sensitivity to new types of disturbances. By studying responses to a suite of disturbances, this project helps advance a more nuanced understanding of evolution of CNHs in terms of recognizing how in becoming finely-tuned to certain disturbances, systems become increasingly vulnerable to others. Building on this insight through theoretical modelling as well as case studies and field experiments from a wide variety of settings in the southwestern US, India, Nepal and Thailand, this project will develop a set of tools that will contribute to the capacity of policy makers to better anticipate emerging vulnerabilities and design learning and adaptive mechanisms to cope more effectively with change.