Sustainable Political-Ecological Development

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainable political-ecological development not only improves the lives of people living in a developing country, but also improves the country's biodiversity and reduces pollution levels in the country's air, soil, and water. Political processes often determine what actions a country's actors take to further or hinder such development. These actors include the country's government, political groups, involved NGOs, and identity groups such as pastoralists, ethnic groups, and religious groups. Countries providing aid to the developing country may also impact policy decisions. A theory of political-ecological dynamics gives more detail on the nature of these political processes than might be contained in a more individual-oriented theory of a socio-ecological system. Simulable and risk-qualified models of political-ecological systems that produce policy-relevant outputs can be used to find actions that these actors might take to drive such development.

To further the development of such policy-relevant modeling, manuscripts are invited that describe models of coupled political and ecological processes.  Ideally, a model will operationalize some theoretical perspective of a political-ecological system's dynamics.

Manuscripts that describe models that include cutting edge mechanisms of actor decision making along with outputs whose values can be used to select among competing policy options are particularly encouraged. Some attention as to how the model might be validated against observations on a political-ecological system would also be welcomed.

Dr. Timothy C. Haas
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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• Sustainable Development
• Coupled Human-Natural Systems
• Political-Ecological Systems
• Socio-Ecological Systems
• Political Decision Making
• Agent-Based Modeling
• Policymaking