ABSTRACT

Socio-hydrology has recently garnered attention as a promising research paradigm among hydrologists. In this paper, we argue that viewing the socio-hydrological systems as a network of causal factors can assist in these efforts by revealing emergent properties of socio-hydrological systems. These factors, which are neither actors nor affiliations but symbolic representations of miscellaneous phenomena, represent the key variables affecting socio-hydrological system behaviour. Despite being crucial for understanding system dynamics, these factors are not captured by most equations of coupled human–water coevolutionary models. To demonstrate our method, we use qualitative case study research to analyse the Jaguaribe Basin in Ceará State-Brazil as a network of factors, i.e. mental conceptions, and representations of water resource management experts. We show that most results are unsurprising, exhibiting expected causal relationships. However, there was at least one unexpected result, which showed that the variable “conflict” was the single most sensitive variable to systemic evolution.

摘要

社会水文学最近作为一种有前途的研究范式在水文学家中引起了人们的注意。在本文中，我们认为将社会水文系统视为因果因素网络可以通过揭示社会水文系统的新兴特性来帮助这些努力。这些因素既不是参与者也不是从属关系，而是杂项现象的象征性表现，代表了影响社会水文系统行为的关键变量。尽管对于理解系统动力学至关重要，但大多数人-水协同进化模型的方程并未捕捉到这些因素。为了证明我们的方法，我们使用定性案例研究来分析巴西塞阿拉州的 Jaguaribe 盆地作为一个因素网络，即心理概念和水资源管理专家的代表。我们表明，大多数结果并不令人惊讶，表现出预期的因果关系。然而，至少有一个出乎意料的结果，表明变量“冲突”是对系统进化最敏感的单一变量。