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Panarchy: Implications for Economic & Social PolicyHumanity’s Test

December 3, 2014

Panarchy: Implications for Economic & Social PolicyHumanity’s Test.

Background 

Panarchy is a model that seeks to explain the evolution of complex systems, developed firstly by Buzz Holling through his observation of the adaptive cycle of forests[1]. The forest cycle follows a process of growth/exploitation, conservation, release and reorganization/renewal. At first, there is rapid growth as new species establish themselves in a recently disturbed environment. As the vegetation becomes denser, and the linkages within the system proliferate, the forest moves into a slower-growing state of conservation. It becomes increasingly stable within, and highly adapted to, a limited number of conditions. Efficiency, through the reuse of existing structures and increased connectivity, is traded for lower resilience. A disturbance that exceeds the reduced bounds of resilience then causes the forest to “crash” to a simpler state that releases the material and energy accumulated in the earlier adaptive phases. A highly uncertain phase of renewal can then start, during which novel combinations of species may establish themselves. These can then rapidly develop during a new growth phase. This adaptive cycle has been found to operate across many different natural systems.

Panarchy model

figure 1: Panarchy Model from The Sustainable Scale Project. Accessed at http://www.sustainablescale.org/ConceptualFramework/UnderstandingScale/MeasuringScale/Panarchy.aspx

The Panarchy model accepts the fundamentally dynamic nature of ecosystems, and moves away from the previous assumptions of linear and predictable natural systems that could be managed through actions targeted at one variable, such as the maximum sustainable fishing catch. Instead a panarchy approach accepts that components of complex systems may actively adapt to changes within their environments, creating surprising outcomes. Ecological systems are non-linear, and capable of moving from one stable state to another, very different, one. Within an overall system there are nested sets of adaptive cycles, with the larger cycles operating more slowly than the smaller ones. The different cycles can interact, with the larger ones tending to play a stabilizing role. At a critical point though, changes at different scales may interact and reinforce each other leading to systemic collapse.

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