Review Reports - Emergent Cooperation in Socio-Ecological Systems Under Resource Scarcity: An Agent-Based Analysis of Sustainability

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

I read the paper with great interest and am impressed. I have only a few (and completely optional) comments:

Line 53: social/political systems (?--> more political; I would describe this as a higher-level concept, rather than governance)
In general: if the concept of governance is introduced earlier, the integrative nature of human-environment system relationships can be highlighted sooner
Line 79: I would nuance this (alternative economies?)
Line 99: is “the social system” the correct term here? Perhaps “society”? Rethink the cause-and-effect relationship in this sentence?
Line 103: What exactly does “negative peace” mean? Absence of conflicts? Just skip this?
Line 103: also through the war actions themselves
Lines 241 / 242: reference here to research on alternative economies?
Please include references to the methodology at the beginning

That's why I set the scoring criteria for “arguments and discussions” a bit more strictly.

Author Response

Comments: Arguments and discussions a bit more strictly

Response We sincerely thank the reviewer for the positive assessment of the manuscript and for the thoughtful suggestions provided. We carefully considered these comments and revised the manuscript accordingly. In particular, we refined several conceptual definitions, clarified terminology related to social systems, governance, and peace, improved the discussion of human-environment relationships, and incorporated methodological references earlier in the manuscript.

The corresponding revisions were incorporated primarily in Sections 1 and 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Discussing the relationship between sustainability, cooperation and economic systems, the paper presents an agent-based model to show that for resource scarcity exceeding biocapacity cooperation is beneficial to reduce violent conflicts.

Much of the paper consists of well-readable text based on literature which however remains rather general and often represents common sense (like cooperation is beneficial for sustainability and peace). These narratives extend to page 10 and could be shortened to cut down this long article of around 17,000 words, to focus more on the model framework and its results.

While at first glance the paper appears promising the expectations are disappointed when it comes to the model itself, leaving its key mechanisms and results hard to understand.

While the main text is not clear how the model is specifically working, in Appendix B (Submodels) key model variables and elements (like strategies) are explained in words and some equations are presented, but the structure and dynamics of the whole model remain largely intransparent.

Although the model is claimed to be complex, it is questionable how it can produce the simple and strange simulation results presented in Figures 5 to 8. Here in a few years globally all companies and people collapse to zero (independent of strategy) while resources increase by a factor of ten (see more specific comments below). I tried to make sense of this but failed, raising serious questions about the model results.

It is recommended that the authors focus less on literature review and more on constructing a meaningful model with reasonable simulations and interpretations.

Several more specific comments are given in the following, with line numbers.

[54] “The effects of those interactions in human beings can be associated with peace.” Figure1 shows developments over hundreds of years in which there was rarely peace. In the whole paper the repeated reference to peace was somewhat artificial and unexplained.

[242] “As Shelling (36)argued": The author’s name is “Schelling”, same error occurs in reference list.

[276] “(46), However, the space in which patterns that emerge are evidenced.”: Sentence not clear. Also remove comma after (46).

[361] “MBAs”: Do you mean “ABMs”?

[390} Figure 3: “Individuals demand Gs and Ss”: What are “Gs and Ss”?

[396] “The patch corresponds to a unit of renewable resources”: Are the renewable resources in the environmental system the same as the biophysical resources in the economic system (see next point)? This is not clear throughout the whole paper.

[408] “They transfer resources (biophysical units) to the social system by paying wages”: The model mixes biophysical resources and wages (money) which are different things. Units are not given for resources, including the figures.

[484] “In the simulations, it is evident that companies, in just five ticks (years), no longer have the resources obtained from the environmental system to meet demand (see Figures 5 and 6).” This cannot be explained and is contradictory to the figures where companies collapse despite increasing resources (see the following point).

[492] Figure 5: All companies drop from initial value to zero in just four ticks (years), people drop to zero in 20 ticks (years). Strategies have only limited influence and do not change the time of collapse. At the same time, resources increase from around 500 to 5000 units in 7 ticks (units). How do increasing resources lead to collapse of all agents? It is hard to imagine how this can be connected to reality or make any sense. In addition, figures have no units which are not explained here.

[519] Figure 6: Same problem as with Figure 5.

[552] Figure 7: Similar problems as with previous figures although time of collapse of companies is somewhat delayed, depending on strategy. For people all strategies collapse immediately in the left column, except the non-cooperative strategy which stay indefinitely, although no companies exist. Why that?

[603] Figure 8: Same problem as with Figure 5 and 7, results apparently are no meaningful or justifiable.

Appendix A.1 Initial Condition and Model: Most variable have no source, very few variables use one of only three sources.

[942] Table 2: The payment matrix only incompletely represents the Prisoner’s Dilemma game. The cases of mutual cooperation (C-C) and unilateral defection (D-C) here have the same payments 0 but in the classical Prisoner’s Dilemma game there should be an incentive to defect. In addition, D-D should be worse than C-D.

[970-972] Variable names are given in Spanish which occurs several times in the paper.

[1243] “References”: Some references contain errors. Overall old references are dominating, the most recent are from 2022.

Author Response

First at all thank you for your observations, they notably improve this manuscript.

Comment 1: Much of the paper consists of well-readable text based on literature which however remains rather general and often represents common sense (like cooperation is beneficial for sustainability and peace). These narratives extend to page 10 and could be shortened to cut down this long article of around 17,000 words, to focus more on the model framework and its results

Responce 1: We agreed that the manuscript devoted excessive space to the literature review relative to the description of the model and its results. In response, the Introduction and theoretical background were substantially condensed and reorganized, while the methodology section was significantly expanded. This revision allowed us to provide a clearer description of the modelling approach, assumptions, model structure, calibration, validation, and scenario design.

The main revisions were incorporated in Sections 1 and 2.

Comment 2: While at first glance the paper appears promising the expectations are disappointed when it comes to the model itself, leaving its key mechanisms and results hard to understand

Response:

To improve transparency and facilitate understanding of the model, the methodological section was extensively revised. The revised manuscript now includes a clearer description of the model design, agent behaviour, interaction mechanisms, payoff structure, scenario construction, and validation procedures. In addition, information previously distributed across appendices was integrated and better connected to the main text.

These revisions were incorporated primarily in Section 2 and the corresponding appendices.

Comment 3:

Response: We reviewed the presentation and interpretation of the simulation results. Results and Discussion sections were reorganized to distinguish simulation outcomes from their interpretation more clearly. Additional explanations were incorporated to clarify the dynamics observed in each scenario, particularly regarding resource accumulation, agent adaptation, and population dynamics. We also revised the discussion to better connect the simulation outcomes with the theoretical framework and the exploratory nature of the model.

These revisions were incorporated in Sections 3 and 4.

Comments: Aditional Specific comments

Responce: Specific comments related to terminology, notation, typographical issues, figure descriptions, variable definitions, formatting, and minor editorial corrections were reviewed and addressed throughout the revised manuscript. Clarifications were incorporated where necessary to improve readability and consistency.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

I would like to thank you for the opportunity to review your manuscript.

I appreciated reading about your work and found it interesting in its exploration of avenues for cooperation across environmental, social, and economic systems. I believe that there is potential and interest for the agent-based model that you developed, as a simulation tool to account for the inputs and needs of a varied range of stakeholders and community groups.

There are a few comments that I would like to present here, in the hope that they guide you in revising and potentially improving your manuscript.

Kind regards

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Comment 1. Novelty

While the manuscript states that there is “a lack of coherent understanding” of the links between economic development, ecosystems, and social justice (peace), pointing to cooperation as a connecting element, the authors are warmly encouraged to provide more details by building on the published literature. Claiming more explicitly where the novelty that is brought by this study lies is a key requirement for this paper to strongly claim its place in the literature. I warmly suggest the authors to state explicitly which element discussed in this paper represents a contribution that addresses a glaring gap (e.g., theoretical integration of sustainability and peace, the resource-scarcity mechanism, and/or the OECD/non-OECD comparison). Defining a key core contribution appears a key element to address since the abstract. The conclusion later refers to a “theoretical contribution”, but due to limited framing in the early stages of the paper, this statement needs to be strengthened further.

Comment 2. Literature review

The review of the literature is well developed in depth and breadth; I feel that a bit more clarity on how all these components are connected since the onset is necessary, though, to avoid the risk of a piecemeal approach that delves into different thematic areas without providing a strong overall view that brings them together. For example, the early sections move from human impact on the planet, to systemic relations, to cooperation and peace, then to cooperation and sustainability, then to cooperation in firms, and finally to complexity theory. If the authors managed to organize the narrative around these different themes, eventually being more selective in the arguments presented, I believe that this section would greatly improve in clarity and flow.

Comment 3. Case study

Due to the study being focused on a global simulation to contrapose and compare OECD and non-OECD settings, I feel that a stronger analytical justification could be added by the authors. Usually, conventional empirical case studies provide the benefit of direct simulation on clearly defined and mapped contexts; in this case, this level of analysis cannot be achieved due to the scale of analysis. Some claims are made around the differences between the two settings, and the potential implications and assumptions associated with this; yet, these interesting observations do not by themselves justify why OECD versus non-OECD is the right theoretical comparison for testing cooperation, sustainability, and peace.

Comment 4. Methodology

While the paper correctly notes that ABM is suitable for studying emergent phenomena, many of the most important modelling choices remain difficult to evaluate. The authors mostly provide a high-level description, yet the real mechanics behind this tool/method are pushed into lengthy appendices. More importantly, many crucial values are defined by observers and require calibration; however, the paper could provide stronger sensitivity or uncertainty analysis to strengthen the conclusions – which now might appear to a reader as mostly based on assumptions.

Comment 5. Empirical resonance

I warmly encourage the authors to provide a bit of clarity around the validation and empirical meaning of this work. While simulation is mentioned as an important element in that it allows ‘validation’ by cross-checking correspondence with Global Footprint data, the following paragraphs mostly present a qualitative comparison between model collapse under scarcity and real-world ecological overshoot. The claimed validation, here, could benefit from a stronger approach. Similarly, in the OECD section, there seem to be claims on validation that do not necessarily prove that the model has identified the real mechanisms driving peace or cooperation. At present, the manuscript often moves too quickly from model output to real-world inference.

Comment 6. Discussion

The combination of results and discussion in one section complicates the separation between what was observed in terms of empirical findings, and how the authors interpret these findings vs the literature presented in the earlier sections of the paper. As a key flaw, I would draw the authors’ attention to the fact that the discussion could more directly address the original gap presented earlier in the paper.
The combination of results and discussion, coupled with this gap, risks being a key issue that undermines part of the content presented here. For example, the text often moves from simulation output to interpretation and the literature, something that suits a discussion but that – if not done while providing clarity on what arguments are being presented (the literature, the authors, else) – may make it difficult to a reader to understand what evidence is being produced (e.g., empirical analogies, interpretive inferences) that directly addresses the paper’s core research question.

Comment 7. Practical and policy relevance

The paper suggests that understanding micro-level cooperative dynamics could contribute to public policy for sustainable environmental management, and that this may provide original perspectives for framing peace, sustainability, and social justice. However, I have the feeling that the rest of the paper does not translate effectively its model into clear implications for practitioners or governments. I warmly encourage the authors to mention which institutions, policy, or governance arrangements would promote cooperation, and how policymakers should use the model. I fear that, in absence of a stronger series of claims on actual application and implementation in practice, the relevance for practitioners and government may remain more aspirational than operational.

Comment 8. Conclusion

I warmly encourage the authors to revise the conclusion, focusing on clear summarisation of key content and findings, streamlining the current version of this section. The current version introduces and reiterates several interpretive claims that could be placed instead in the discussion. For example, considerations on how OECD countries are more peaceful and environmentally healthier, that fisheries examples support the model, that scarcity perception creates a confinement cycle, and that cooperation emerges as a necessary trait for peace and sustainability.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Comment 9. English and presentation

While the manuscript is understandable, I warmly encourage the authors to revise and improve the choice of lexicon and syntax. At present, there are several examples of awkward phrases, grammatical issues, inconsistent possessives and plural forms, and signs of unfinished drafting.

Author Response

Coment 1: contribution and novelty of the manuscript should be stated more explicitly

Thank you for this observation. To address this point, we revised the manuscript structure to make the study's contribution more explicit. The Introduction, Discussion, and Conclusions were substantially reorganized to better define the research gap and highlight the theoretical and methodological contributions of the study.The revised version emphasizes three main contributions: (i) the integration of sustainability, cooperation, and sustainable peace within a complex adaptive systems perspective; (ii) the analysis of how scarcity influences cooperative and non-cooperative behaviours; and (iii) the identification of different adaptive responses among individuals and firms within socio-ecological systems.

The main revisions were incorporated in Sections 1.1, 1.2, 4, and 5

Coment 2: Literature Review.

Response: To improve the clarity and flow of the manuscript, the Introduction was substantially reorganized. The literature review was streamlined and restructured around the central role of cooperation as the element linking sustainability, peace, and economic systems. Several sections were condensed, redundant arguments were removed, and the connections among the different theoretical perspectives were made more explicit.

These revisions were primarily introduced in Sections 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3.

Coment 3: Case Study

Response: In the revised manuscript, we strengthened the justification of the OECD and non-OECD scenarios and clarified their analytical purpose. These scenarios are not presented as proxies for peace or development, but as contrasting socio-ecological configurations constructed from aggregated indicators related to population, resource availability, biocapacity, and ecological demand.

Additional clarification was incorporated in the methodology, results, and discussion sections to avoid normative interpretations of these categories and to better explain their role within the simulation design.

The main revisions were introduced in Sections 2.3, 3.1, and 4.

Coment 4: Metodology

Coment 5: Empirical resonance

Response Comment 4 and 5:

To address both concerns, we revised the methodological section and clarified the scope of the model's empirical interpretation. The revised manuscript provides a more detailed description of the modelling approach, model design, scenario construction, payoff structure, and the assumptions underlying the simulations. In addition, calibration, validation, and verification procedures were incorporated and described in greater detail.

We also revised the Results and Discussion sections to more clearly distinguish simulation outcomes from their interpretation and to avoid direct real-world inferences that extend beyond the scope of the model. Throughout the manuscript, the model is now presented as an exploratory tool aimed at identifying plausible mechanisms and emergent patterns within socio-ecological systems rather than making predictive claims.

The main revisions were introduced in Sections 2, 3, 4, and 5.

Comment 5: Discusion

Response: In the revised manuscript, the Results and Discussion sections were reorganized to clearly separate the simulation outcomes from their interpretation. The results are now presented independently for the Global, OECD-based, and Non-OECD-based scenarios, while their implications are examined in a dedicated Discussion section in light of the literature on cooperation, sustainability, complex adaptive systems, and sustainable peace.

These revisions were incorporated in Sections 3 and 4

Comment 7: Practical and Policy Relevance

Response:

To show practical implications of the study, the Discussion section was expanded to further examine how the identified cooperative dynamics may inform sustainability-oriented governance and collective action processes. In particular, we incorporated a discussion on the potential role of mechanisms that promote cooperation, positive reciprocity, and intergroup selection as a tool to boost cooperation as conditions that may contribute to more resilient socio-ecological systems and to the conditions associated with sustainable peace.

These revisions were incorporated primarily in Section 4.4.

Comment 8: Conclusions

Response: The Conclusions section was substantially revised and condensed. The revised version focuses more explicitly on the main findings, contributions, limitations, and future research directions, while several interpretative elements were relocated to the Discussion section. This restructuring improves the clarity and focus of the manuscript's closing section.

These revisions were incorporated in Section 5.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have made extensive revisions to the long text which has even increased in length. But the model simulation results are still the same which is the main reason to question the paper. Critical review comments are not sufficiently addressed. I can only repeat my critical comment from the first review:

Although the model is claimed to be complex, it is questionable how it can produce the simple and strange simulation results presented in Figures 4 to 7. Here in a few years globally all companies and people collapse to zero (independent of strategy) while resources increase by a factor of ten. I tried to make sense of this but failed, raising serious questions about the model results.

The additional explanations cannot justify the meaning of these results. Partly they even make them more confusing. For instance, the paper in line 690 argues that the simulations in figure 4 show that “environmental resources progressively decline as consumption outpaces regeneration.” But figure 4 shows that resources increase significantly by a factor of 10 in seven time steps and then stay constant. Either the authors misunderstand their own simulation results or insufficiently explain them. Figures should be self-explanatory to give them a reasonable meaning.

In addition the manuscript still contains language problems, e.g. “dinamyc” instead of “dynamic” (in table 1), “OCDE” instead of “OECD”, Spanish instead of English terms (e.g. in Figure 7) and so on.

Author Response

Comments:

Answer:

We thank the reviewer for this valuable comment. Following this observation, we substantially revised the presentation and interpretation of the simulation results. To facilitate their interpretation, we incorporated a conceptual figure 4 that illustrates the model structure and the interactions among the environmental, social, and economic subsystems, providing a clearer framework for understanding the emergent dynamics observed in the simulations. In addition, the entire Results section was reorganized and rewritten so that each simulation configuration is analysed independently before presenting a comparative analysis across configurations.

We also carefully reviewed the interpretation of all simulation outputs to ensure consistency between the figures and the corresponding discussion. Descriptions of the system dynamics were rewritten to better explain the observed behavioural patterns, resource trajectories, and subsystem interactions

Comment: In addition the manuscript still contains language problems, e.g. “dinamyc” instead of “dynamic” (in table 1), “OCDE” instead of “OECD”, Spanish instead of English terms (e.g. in Figure 7) and so on.

Answer: the manuscript underwent a thorough editorial revision, including corrections to terminology, figure labels, and English language throughout the text.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

I appreciate your effort to revise the manuscript, and the paper is now clearer in structure than the previous version. The separation between results and discussion has improved, and the authors have attempted to respond to several methodological and conceptual concerns.

However, I would encourage you to consider the feedback below to keep improving your document.

The validation section could be strengthened. The authors now acknowledge that validation relies primarily on face validation through expert discussion, seminars, and consultations. This is useful for assessing plausibility, but it cannot support strong claims about cooperation, scarcity, sustainability, peace, or OECD/non-OECD dynamics. The statement that the model is valid within the scope of its objectives and assumptions should therefore be made more cautious. As currently written, the manuscript still moves too quickly from model plausibility to substantive claims about complex socio-ecological and peace-related processes.

The OECD/non-OECD comparison has been clarified, but I remain unconvinced by its analytical role. The authors now state that these categories are not direct proxies for peace, conflict, or development, but rather broad socio-ecological configurations. This avoids one difficulty, but it creates another: if these are only broad configurations, it is still not clear why this is the right comparison for a paper about cooperation, sustainability, and peace. The scenario choice still feels convenient rather than theoretically necessary.

The practical implications remain too general. The manuscript argues that institutions should reward cooperation, strengthen reciprocity, and support cooperative dynamics. These are reasonable points, but they are not yet operational. The paper should say more clearly which institutions, which policy tools, and which governance arrangements could realistically promote the cooperative dynamics described by the model. Without this, the policy relevance remains aspirational rather than actionable.

The conclusion is cleaner than before, but it has become too thin. It summarizes the findings, but it does not provide a sufficiently serious limitations section relative to the level of modelling uncertainty. Given the remaining issues around calibration, validation, scenario construction, and sensitivity, the manuscript needs a more explicit and proportionate discussion of what the model can and cannot claim.

Finally, the English still requires substantial editing. This is not only a stylistic issue. Errors such as “The significant finding show,” “OCDE-Based Configuration,” “Not OCDE,” “variate of behaviors mechanisms,” “clasical,” “The amount of cost are,” “defeat” where the intended term appears to be “defect,” “Global Footprint Netwoork,” and “Gloval Enviroment” affect clarity and credibility. A full language revision is necessary before the manuscript can be considered publication-ready.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Comment 9. English and presentation

Author Response

Comment: The validation section could be strengthened. The authors now acknowledge that validation relies primarily on face validation through expert discussion, seminars, and consultations. This is useful for assessing plausibility, but it cannot support strong claims about cooperation, scarcity, sustainability, peace, or OECD/non-OECD dynamics. The statement that the model is valid within the scope of its objectives and assumptions should therefore be made more cautious. As currently written, the manuscript still moves too quickly from model plausibility to substantive claims about complex socio-ecological and peace-related processes

Answer:

We sincerely thank the reviewer for the thorough and constructive evaluation of our manuscript. We carefully considered all the comments and substantially revised the manuscript accordingly. In the Methodology (Section 2), we strengthened the description of the model by clarifying the rationale for the three simulation configurations and explicitly incorporating the Global Reference Configuration as the methodological baseline for interpreting the OECD and Non-OECD scenarios.

Comment: The OECD/non-OECD comparison has been clarified, but I remain unconvinced by its analytical role. The authors now state that these categories are not direct proxies for peace, conflict, or development, but rather broad socio-ecological configurations. This avoids one difficulty, but it creates another: if these are only broad configurations, it is still not clear why this is the right comparison for a paper about cooperation, sustainability, and peace. The scenario choice still feels convenient rather than theoretically necessary.

Answer: We expanded the justification for selecting the OECD and Non-OECD configurations, emphasizing that they represent contrasting empirical socio-ecological settings derived from differences in resource availability and consumption patterns rather than proxies for peace, conflict, or development. In addition, a conceptual figure illustrating the model structure and the interactions among the environmental, social, and economic subsystems was incorporated to facilitate the interpretation of the simulation dynamics. The Results (Section 3) were substantially reorganized and rewritten to provide a clearer interpretation of each configuration before presenting an integrated comparative analysis.

Comment: The practical implications remain too general. The manuscript argues that institutions should reward cooperation, strengthen reciprocity, and support cooperative dynamics. These are reasonable points, but they are not yet operational. The paper should say more clearly which institutions, which policy tools, and which governance arrangements could realistically promote the cooperative dynamics described by the model. Without this, the policy relevance remains aspirational rather than actionable

Answer: The Discussion (Section 4) was expanded to strengthen the theoretical interpretation of the findings and to develop more concrete practical implications for renewable resource governance, sustainability, and the conditions associated with sustainable peace.

Comment: The conclusion is cleaner than before, but it has become too thin. It summarizes the findings, but it does not provide a sufficiently serious limitations section relative to the level of modelling uncertainty. Given the remaining issues around calibration, validation, scenario construction, and sensitivity, the manuscript needs a more explicit and proportionate discussion of what the model can and cannot claim.

Answer: The Conclusions (Section 5) were reformulated to explicitly address the research question, highlight the principal scientific contributions of the study, acknowledge the methodological limitations associated with modelling three interacting adaptive subsystems, and identify future research directions.

Comments:Finally, the English still requires substantial editing. This is not only a stylistic issue. Errors such as “The significant finding show,” “OCDE-Based Configuration,” “Not OCDE,” “variate of behaviors mechanisms,” “clasical,” “The amount of cost are,” “defeat” where the intended term appears to be “defect,” “Global Footprint Netwoork,” and “Gloval Enviroment” affect clarity and credibility. A full language revision is necessary before the manuscript can be considered publication-ready.

Answer: We also carefully addressed the reviewer's editorial observations by correcting terminology, figure labels, typographical errors, and inconsistencies throughout the manuscript, including the examples identified in the review (e.g., OECD, defection, English terminology, and figure labels). We have implemented all the editorial changes suggested by the reviewer. If, after considering the scientific revisions incorporated in this version, the reviewer still considers that further improvements in language or writing style are needed, the manuscript will be submitted for professional English language editing once all reviewers' comments have been fully addressed

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The questionable simulation results are still the same and not justifiable which implies that the critical review comments are not sufficiently addressed. In addition, all tables are not visible in the PDF version of the revised paper.

Author Response

We sincerely thank the reviewer for the careful evaluation of our manuscript and for the constructive comments provided throughout the review process.

Following your recommendations, the validation section was strengthened by incorporating additional analyses of the model under extreme conditions to assess whether its behaviour remains logically consistent in limiting scenarios. These additions were intended to strengthen the scientific coherence of the manuscript by providing further methodological support for the interpretation of the simulation results and the conclusions derived from them.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

I would like to thank you for the time and effort that went into revising your manuscript. I believe that your manuscript had improved in clarity and consistency and I am glad to recommend it for publication.

Warm regards

Author Response

Thank you for all your advice