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Integrating socio-economics and ecology: a taxonomy of quantitative methods and a review of their use in agro-ecology
Article first published online: 3 MAR 2009
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2664.2009.01615.x
© 2009 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2009 British Ecological Society
Additional Information
How to Cite
Cooke, I. R., Queenborough, S. A., Mattison, E. H. A., Bailey, A. P., Sandars, D. L., Graves, A. R., Morris, J., Atkinson, P. W., Trawick, P., Freckleton, R. P., Watkinson, A. R. and Sutherland, W. J. (2009), Integrating socio-economics and ecology: a taxonomy of quantitative methods and a review of their use in agro-ecology. Journal of Applied Ecology, 46: 269–277. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2664.2009.01615.x
Publication History
- Issue published online: 3 MAR 2009
- Article first published online: 3 MAR 2009
- Received 30 July 2008; accepted 7 January 2009Handling Editor: Simon Thirgood
Keywords:
- agriculture;
- ecological model;
- interdisciplinary;
- socio-economic model
Summary
- 1Answering many of the critical questions in conservation, development and environmental management requires integrating the social and natural sciences. However, understanding the array of available quantitative methods and their associated terminology presents a major barrier to successful collaboration.
- 2We provide an overview of quantitative socio-economic methods that distils their complexity into a simple taxonomy. We outline how each has been used in conjunction with ecological models to address questions relating to the management of socio-ecological systems.
- 3We review the application of social and ecological quantitative concepts to agro-ecology and classify the approaches used to integrate the two disciplines. Our review included all published integrated models from 2003 to 2008 in 27 journals that publish agricultural modelling research. Although our focus is on agro-ecology, many of the results are broadly applicable to other fields involving an interaction between human activities and ecology.
- 4We found 36 papers that integrated social and ecological concepts in a quantitative model. Four different approaches to integration were used, depending on the scale at which human welfare was quantified. Most models viewed humans as pure profit maximizers, both when calculating welfare and predicting behaviour.
- 5Synthesis and applications. We reached two main conclusions based on our taxonomy and review. The first is that quantitative methods that extend predictions of behaviour and measurements of welfare beyond a simple market value basis are underutilized by integrated models. The second is that the accuracy of prediction for integrated models remains largely unquantified. Addressing both problems requires researchers to reach a common understanding of modelling goals and data requirements during the early stages of a project.