2007/08/10 11:30 Nicholas Magliocca, "Induced Coupling: An Approach to Modeling and Managing Complex Human-Landscape Interaction

2007/08/10 11:30 Nicholas Magliocca, "Induced Coupling: An Approach to Modeling and Managing Complex Human-Landscape Interaction", ISSS Tokyo 2007

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Introduction by Gary Metcalf

  • Recipient of the Sir Geoffrey Vickers award for ISSS 2007.

[Nick Magliocca]

Nicholas Magliocca

Induced coupling, coming out of human and landscape

Emergent naturalized interaction is the result of an induced coupling

Complexity driven by population growth, and mitigation of technology

Natural hazards

Two pictures:

  • Fire
  • Barrier island

Fire as a natural ecosystem

  • Seasonal conditions result in fast changes

Barrier island

  • Overwash helps maintain elevation and width relative to size
  • If have houses, they get washed away

Get a linear intensification of natural disturbance events, yet nonlinear intensification of the effects

  • About the same number of fires, but bigger impacts

Coupling:  like a celtic knot

  • Interconnections, one change impacts everywhere

Similarly, classic predator / prey:  one impacts others

  • Each ecosystem has a flow coming in and out
  • Can have one way interactions, e.g. humans eating maple sugar

Traditional human-landscape interactions

  • Landslides, earthquakes have short-terms impacts, don't see tight coupling in natural ecosystems

Induced coupling:

  • e.g. energy accumlation, with ignition sources, creates fires
  • If we suppress fires, creating opportunity for urban development, which links back to fire suppression

Hierarchical complex systems framework

  • Can describe how system components are organized, by temporal and spatial scales
  • Self-organization, tend to create order (similar to positive feedback)
  • Dissipation, tends to oppose order, smoothing out differences in time and space (similar to negative feedback)

Traffic in downtown Tokyo

  • Individual behaviours, that can be described as jams

Natural systems have a similar reasoning:  can talk about different sand grains that form dunes, that make barrier islands

  • A hierarchical complex system

Why is induced coupling "induced"?

  • Manifestation on new temporal and spatial scales
  • They don't have the large scale of natural processes

Overwash: we build beaches

Protect measures have both first and second-order effects

  • Rescale natural processes in space
  • Overwash, where it can and can't operate in interest of Outer Banks in North Carolina
  • When sea level rises, storms and surge levels get worse

Another problem: rescaling natural processes in time

  • Protect yourself against small, frequent fires, but then build up of fuel source drives bigger fires

When we alter nature processes, we have to think about it changes on temporal and spatial scales

Social decisions on environmental manager

  • Usual behaviour is risk averse
  • Deal with concrete threats, e.g. fire burning my house, not the abstract
  • Solutions often prohibitively costsly

Propose induced coupling's role to address management failures in both physical and social

  • It's an ideal tool for collaborative problem-solving