Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Bodin & Norberg (2005) Information Network Topologies for Enhanced Local Adaptive Management. Environmental Management Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 175–193

Not sure how much network stuff people read, but this is a nice link up of social networks and ecological managment. In a nut shell they find that if you have no friends you won't do very well, if you have a few friends (low density of links) then the system as a whole is pretty resliant to change and the community as a whole does well because they can learn from each others experiences. If the the community has too many links the agents synchronise there actions, making the ecological system unstable, swinging from good to bad and back again. So it is good to have a few friends, but not too many. Perhaps we need to start managing which agencies can talk to each other?

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