Resource management

Increasingly the human dimension revealed to be playing a key role in resources management. Uncertainties, complex problems render short term prediction possible while integrated approaches to resources management are advocated. Management in this context is an ongoing learning and negotiation process where a high priority is given to questions of communication, perspective sharing and development of adaptive group strategies for problem solving. Such a process is becoming known as social learning.
The notion of social learning has been used in quite different meanings to refer to processes of learning and change of individuals and social systems. Observation of others and their social interactions within a group, e.g. through imitation of role models is part of social learning that feedback individual learning. This is a constant process for learner changing the environment which in turn changes the learner. Models serve as tools of communication in processes of social learning.

Learning process involving resource management emerges in broader approach in communities of practice that emphasizes learning as participation. Individuals engage in actions and interactions that have to be embedded in culture and history. Such interactions are influenced by and may change social structure and, at the same time, the individual gains experience situated in a context. Such learning processes confirm and shape the identity of the individual in its social surroundings. They confirm and change social practice and the associated interpretation of the environment.

This framework embeds the process of social learning for resources management in a context of governance structure and natural environment. It emphasizes that in the process of resource management, social involvement (e.g. the generation of social capital, the development of new social practices) is as important as content management (e.g. the development and communication of knowledge about the state of a water resource, use models to predict the effects of measures to achieve a good ecological state of a river). The outcomes of the management process are not only technical qualities such as an improved state of the environment but also relational qualities such as an improved capability of the actors in a basin to solve conflicts and come to cooperative agreements.

The outcomes feed back into change and mutual tuning of governance structure and the state of the natural environment. Social learning is an iterative and ongoing process that comprises several loops and enhances the flexibility of the socio-ecological system and its ability to respond to change. In this process trust, understanding shared problem and goals and ultimately working together is practiced. The mutual interaction between content management and social involvement in the process of resources management implies that ‘soft’, relational, and ‘hard’, factual aspects of analysing and managing a human-environment system must also be combined (Johnson, 2000).

An investigation into how water management can prove participatory approach focused on the actors who are supposed to later use the models for decision-making and strategic planning, to participate and contribute to the entire modelling process. This guaranteed that the model captures issues that are of relevance to the actors involved. One key assumption is that the process how a model is developed is as important as the factual knowledge included in the model and the model simulations finally produced. The ‘ingredients necessary to encourage social learning are: awareness of others’ perspectives; understanding actors’ mutual dependence and system complexity; learning to work together; elicitation of soft data; and creating trust.

Card sorting technique which finds categorization of concepts is often practised in the discipline of knowledge engineering for expert systems. This technique as a method appears also to be based on an assumption that categorization concepts play a central role in human cognition. Role playing is another good technique for perspective sharing (in that actors had to see the management system from the point of view and goals of another actor) it was also an effective method of allowing people to discover how their own actions affect and interact with other actors’ decisions.
From the increased awareness of others’ perspectives, technical quality outcomes emerged. It became evident during the process that in the system there is a conflict between different actor norms, each of which, on its own, had merits:
_ Supply security must be high.
_ Water saving is a desirable goal.
_ Financial security and efficiency of water supply should be high.
_ Water prices, according to the public, should be seen to be fair and costs should be charged based on consumption.

These norms were seen to conflict with each other in various ways. Having a very high water security locks the system into high fixed costs, which reduces the chances of the water utility remaining financially secure in the face of increasing water saving. As the finances of the water utility become threatened, not only does the ability of the utility to maintain a high security infrastructure get weakened, but also, in order to safeguard economic security, the income from water provision needs to be decoupled from water consumption levels, thus further tariffs based on covering the fixed costs of water supply need to be introduced.

The major outcome in terms of technical quality was a transformation away from considering supply side management as a means to reduce the gap between supply and demand, and instead towards thinking ‘outside the box’ to reach a policy in agreement with the four norms. The resulting idea was a policy of regionalisation including public consultation.

Participatory modelling for resources management is an expanding field. Approaches can vary enormously. Common group models, for example, may be developed from scratch by the group as a whole, rather than being built up from individual mental models. Participants may also not be representative stakeholders; processes may instead be bottom up, composing of members of the community who have direct control over resources, or top down, composing of members of one or more governing authorities.

Over the past years increasing emphasis has been devoted to processes of decision making (mainly based on formal decision theory) in resources management whereas processes of social learning have largely been neglected. However the processes of social learning are important for understanding transformation processes in human-technology-environment systems. Further research is needed between different fields to improve our understanding for processes of social learning and the role of different techniques to facilitate it.

Source: www.economics.ox.ac.uk