Recent research has demonstrated the multidimensional nature of poverty and the multi-level organization of social-ecological systems that display poverty traps. The traps on these different levels can reinforce each other, and therefore multi-level traps pose particular challenges for poverty alleviation. Yet, poverty trap models rarely consider more than one level of organization and only a few attributes of the system at each level. These limitations constrain our understanding of the mechanisms that generate poverty traps and may hinder or even mislead development efforts. Here, we present a series of two-level dynamical system models of poverty traps and use these models to investigate the combined influences of biophysical and economic factors, farmers’ habits and community decisions on creating and alleviating persistent poverty. Our results indicate that neglecting key interactions can lead to incorrect assessments and potentially inadequate alleviation strategies. Moreover, we obtain necessary conditions for the existence of fractal poverty traps, and show that (i) cross-level interactions can open possibilities for escaping from poverty, (ii) that farmers’ behavioral changes may create or impede a way out of poverty, and (iii) that the effectiveness of development interventions depends on the combined influences of biophysical and economic dynamics, farmers’ behavior and community spending on agricultural and social activities.

最近的研究证明了贫困的多维性质和显示贫困陷阱的社会生态系统的多层次组织。这些不同级别的陷阱可以相互增强，因此多级别陷阱对缓解贫困提出了特殊的挑战。但是，贫困陷阱模型很少考虑一个以上的组织级别，而很少考虑每个级别的系统属性。这些局限性限制了我们对造成贫困陷阱的机制的理解，并可能阻碍甚至误导发展努力。在这里，我们提出了一系列贫困陷阱的两级动力学系统模型，并使用这些模型来研究生物物理和经济因素，农民的习惯和社区决策对创造和减轻持续贫困的综合影响。我们的结果表明，忽视关键的相互作用可能会导致评估不正确，并可能导致缓解策略不足。此外，我们获得了存在分形贫困陷阱的必要条件，并表明（i）跨层次的互动可以为摆脱贫困提供可能性，（ii）农民的行为改变可能创造或阻碍摆脱贫困的道路， （iii）发展干预措施的有效性取决于生物物理和经济动态，农民的行为以及社区对农业和社会活动的支出的综合影响。