A risk analysis methodology for assessing natural resources degradation

Risk analysis has been employed, amongst other things, both to estimate the probability of future water demand emergencies in reservoir systems (using simulation modelling), and to estimate environmental and public health risks (using empirical data). We assert that this framework, when coupled with simulation modelling, can be applied to examine and compare the impacts of resource exploitation, land use and production strategies which may cause land degradation. Our representation of risk analysis relies on the assumption that each land use strategy is associated with a risk of the system (i.e., social system, production system, ecosystem) attaining a subjectively unacceptable environmental condition (e.g. poor human nutrition, crop failure, degradation of a natural resource) sometime during a management planning period. The research methodology entails: (1) the identification of critical variables in the social and biological environment that are affected by exploitation and management of resources; (2) the identification through interviews, surveys, and research of regions of unacceptability in these variables that determine the dynamics of local environmental degradation; (3) the translation of resource policy and practice into a computer model of impact on the resource system; (4) many iterations of simulation of the system to determine the ‘risk of failing’ in each of the critical variables. The presentation of risk probabilities to decision-makers represents a reduction of many simulations into an understandable estimate of environmental impact. More importantly, risk analysis is potentially a learning tool for human system studies, and an interface for applied social science and ecological research.