Resilience of SES from a Resource-Economics Perspective

Massive transformation of user groups and land use change characterise today’s socialecological dynamics in the savannahs of Eastern and Southern Africa. Changing populations and market environments as well as institutional dynamics – for instance altered rights of access to resources – are driving these changes. Resource economics will concentrate on strengthening the link between natural and social sciences by modelling the interaction between ecosystems, the resources that these ecosystems incorporate, and the human communities using and managing these resources in the described SES. The main analytical tools will be bio-economic numerical simulation and the empirical analysis of the formal and informal institutional designs that are relevant for the regulation of resource use. The sub-project will work in Naivasha/Kenya and Thaba Nchu/South Africa.

DFG Programme Research Units

Subproject of FOR 1501:  Resilience, Collapse and Reorganisation in Social-Ecological Systems of East- and South Africa's Savannahs