Browse case studies header
There follows a list of case studies in the SES Library.
Title | Type |
|---|---|
Coastal vulnerability to climate change: A comparative study of cases in the UK, France, and South Africa | Case |
| This case represents the collaborative effort of an international team focused on studying how coastal regions may respond to climate change as part of the Multi-Scale Adaptations to Climate Change and Social-Ecological Sustainability in Coastal Areas (MAGIC) research project funded by a Belmont grant. The study involved three sites: Cornwall, England; Languedoc-Roussillon, France; and Eden District, South Africa. The three study sites were selected based on their history of rapidly... | 09 Aug 2016 |
"A" irrigation watercourse, "Area Three", Indonesia | Case |
| The resource appropriated from A Watercourse in Area Three is water for irrigation. Area Three is a large irrigation system run by a government agency. At the watercourse level, there are strong village organizations responsible for distributing water and maintaining ditches. These organizations, however, have no role in decisions concerning system-wide management. The boundaries of the location are the boundaries of the watercourse. This is one of four cases studies used in a comparative case... | 09 Aug 2016 |
A Tailend Watercourse in "Area Two", India | Case |
| The resource appropriated from A Tailend Watercourse in Area Two is water for irrigation to farmlands. The resource discussed in this study is a watercourse located in the tail-end part of a large irrigation system. Area Two is a large irrigation system managed by a government agency. There are neither users' organizations nor effective rules governing water rotation at the watercourse level. Great inequalities exist between head-end and tail-end farmers.This case study is part of the original... | 09 Aug 2016 |
Agave Cultivation in the Arid Pre-Hispanic, Villanueva Municipality, state of Zacatecas, northern Mexico | Case |
| Agave is a perennial plant that can be used for multiple purposes: as edible materials for yielding caloric values and as fiber materials for producing items like clothing, ropes, and baskets. Historical records indicate that the cultivation of agave was a common practice in pre-Hispanic Northern Mexico and the American Southwest. It is generally accepted among archeologists that the agave cultivation was linked to the strategy of ensuring food supply when maize cropping failed from droughts.... | 09 Aug 2016 |
Agcuyo Irrigation System, Barrio Samoki, Bontoc municipality, Philippines. | Case |
| The case of the Agcuyo Irrigation System is located in the Barrio Samoki 4 km east of Bontoc municipality, Mountain Province, Philippines. The resource appropriated is water for irrigation. The system serves an area of 9 hectares cultivated by 50 farmers. At the beginning of the study period, there was a moderately abundant supply of biological and physical resources withdrawn compared to the number of units available. There was no formal organization or leaders. However, farmers did cooperate... | 09 Aug 2016 |
Agricultural Water Use and the 1980 Groundwater Management Act: Institutional Change and Water Conservation in South-Central AZ | Case |
| The seminal 1980 Groundwater Management Act (GMA) in Arizona, USA is an institution designed to curb groundwater overdraft through a combination of conservation strategies, augmentation and supply development, and reduction in agricultural water use through strict prohibition of its expansion in designated areas called Active Management Areas (AMAs). With urbanization pressures and the halting of agricultural expansion, agriculture in the Phoenix and Pinal AMAs uses less water on the whole than... | 09 Aug 2016 |
Ain Sultan Irrigation System, Sidi Lahcen, Morocco | Case |
| The Ain Sultan irrigation system is located northwest from the town of Sefrou in Morroco. It encompasses an unknown geographical area which is characterized by very little precipitation and a lower elevation level than the Ait Sidi Musa irrigation system. The case study involves an undetermined snapshot in time and catalogues an action situation involving 400 households in the village of Sidi Lahcen with each household relying on approximately 2 ha of dry and 1 ha of irrigated land to grow... | 09 Aug 2016 |
Ait Sidi Musa Irrigation System, Sefrou, Morocco | Case |
| The Ait Sidi Musa irrigation system is located northwest from the town of Sefrou in Morroco. It encompasses a geographical area of approximately 147 ha which is characterized by little precipitation and high elevation (1,300 meters). The case study involves an undetermined snapshot in time and catalogues an action situation involving an unknown number of community members and households which are dependent on the water distribution system (mubih or queue distribution system) to divert stream... | 09 Aug 2016 |
Alanya Coastal Fishery, Turkey | Case |
| The coastal fishery in Alanya is situated in Antalya Province along the southern Mediterranean coast of Turkey. The original case, which spans from 1976-1978, catalogues approximately 100 registered farmers operating 45 small inboard boats; pelagic fish (including bonits and large carangids) are the target resource unit. There is only one user group organization and no subgroups (just one group of small boat fishermen). The fishermen cooperate with one another and have access rules that involve... | 09 Aug 2016 |
Analysis of Phoenix, AZ Heat as a Social Ecological System | Case |
| Cities have a finite capacity to dissipate heat into the environment; I consider this a resource that Phoenix residents use within a resource system. This resource can be amplified or attenuated by human-made public and private infrastructure, which can include, public green spaces and building codes, or private net-heat-generating air conditioning and automobiles. The common pool resource dilemma is the potential for under investment in public infrastructure and over appropriation of the... | 09 Aug 2016 |
Archetype Analysis in Commons Research | Case |
| This is a collaborative project based on the IASC Arizona 2020 workshop panel on archetype analysis for commons research. Archetypes are increasingly used across a wide range of sustainability themes for “pattern recognition, diagnosis, or scenario development”. The work draws on a family of cases from the Social-Ecological Systems (SES) Library at ASU - to explore how archetype analysis can be used to synthesize results from a set of case studies. A second goal is... | 21 Feb 2020 |
Arembepe Coastal Fishery, Brazil | Case |
| Arembepe, a village in the north-central Brazil and capital of the state of Bahia, is located to the north of the city of Salvador on the Atlantic coast. The original case, which spans from 1962 to 1964, catalogues a population of 181 fishermen in the village. A variety of fish are appropriated from the Arembepe Fishery, mainly depending on the season. Few of the most commonly caught fish species are badejo, dentão, carnapú, and olho de boi. The rule that regulates temporary access to fishing... | 09 Aug 2016 |
Argali Raj Kulo irrigation system (Jethi Kulo), Argali village Panchayat, southern Nepal | Case |
| The resource appropriated from Argali Raj Kulo Irrigation (Jethi Kulo) is water for irrigating fields in the Argali Village Panchayat in Palpa District in the Lumbini Zone of southern Nepal. The irrigation system consists of a network of canals that receives its water supply from the Kurung Khola stream via another canal. There are strategic points within the resource where the main flow of the water can be controlled, but not considerable variation over space in the availability of water... | 09 Aug 2016 |
Artisanal green turtle fishery in eastern (Caribbean) Nicaragua | Case |
| The artisanal green turtle fishery is operated by the indigenous Miskito along Nicaragua's eastern (Caribbean) coast between the city of Bluefields in the south and Puerto Cabezas in the north. The original case study focused on the village of Tasbapauni which is located approximately 40 miles north of the capital Bluefields on a narrow beach separating Pearl Lagoon from the ocean. The initial report covers a time period from approximately 1968 to 1969, as well as part of 1971, and... | 09 Aug 2016 |
Ascension Bay Lobster Fishery | Case |
| Ascension Bay is located in Quintana Roo State, Mexico. The resource appropriated from the Ascension Bay Lobster Fishery is lobster. In this case, the fisheries are organized by co-ops or firms. Institutional arrangements are such that members of the Ascension Bay Lobster Fishery co-op can trade or sell lobster territories since members own the territories that they fish from. This case was part of the original CPR database developed in the 1980s by Edella Schlager and Shui Yan Tang at... | 09 Aug 2016 |