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Bio‐economic resource management under threats of environmental catastrophes
Author(s) -
Tsur Yacov,
Zemel Amos
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
ecological research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.628
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1440-1703
pISSN - 0912-3814
DOI - 10.1007/s11284-007-0361-4
Subject(s) - ignorance , ecosystem management , resource (disambiguation) , ecosystem , natural resource , renewable resource , environmental resource management , ecology , exploitation of natural resources , resource management (computing) , disturbance (geology) , natural resource economics , economics , computer science , renewable energy , biology , computer network , philosophy , paleontology , epistemology
We combine ecological and economic dynamics to study the management of a natural resource that supports both ecosystem and human needs. Shrinking the resource base introduces a threat of occurrence of catastrophic ecological events, such as sudden ecosystem collapse. The occurrence conditions involve uncertainty of various types, and the distinction among these types is important for optimal resource management. When uncertainty is due to our ignorance of some aspects of the underlying ecology, the isolated equilibrium states characterizing optimal exploitation for many renewable resource problems become equilibrium intervals. Genuinely stochastic events shift the optimal equilibrium states, but maintain the structure of isolated equilibria.