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Influence of sea level rise on discounting, resource use and migration in small-island communities: an agent-based modelling approach

Part of: Humans and Island Environments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2017

ADAM DOUGLAS HENRY ,
ANDREAS EGELUND CHRISTENSEN ,
REBECCA HOFMANN ,
IVO STEIMANIS  and
BJÖRN VOLLAN
ADAM DOUGLAS HENRY
Affiliation:
School of Government and Public Policy, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
ANDREAS EGELUND CHRISTENSEN
Affiliation:
Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
REBECCA HOFMANN
Affiliation:
Ludwigs-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany
IVO STEIMANIS
Affiliation:
Marburg Centre for Institutional Economics (MACIE), School of Business and Economics, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Marburg, Germany
BJÖRN VOLLAN*
Affiliation:
Marburg Centre for Institutional Economics (MACIE), School of Business and Economics, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Marburg, Germany
*
*Correspondence: Prof Dr Björn Vollan email: bjoern.vollan@wiwi.uni-marburg.de
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Summary

Time discounting – the degree to which individuals value current more than future resources – is an important component of natural resource conservation. As a response to climate change impacts in island communities, such as sea level rise, discounting the future can be a rational response due to increased stress on natural resources and uncertainty about whether future generations will have the same access to the same resources. By incorporating systematic responses of discount rates into models of resource conservation, realistic expectations of future human responses to climate change and associated resource stress may be developed. This paper illustrates the importance of time discounting through a theoretical agent-based model of resource use in island communities. A discount rate change can dramatically change projections about future migration and community-based conservation efforts. Our simulation results show that an increase in discount rates due to a credible information shock about future climate change impacts is likely to speed resource depletion. The negative impacts of climate change are therefore likely to be underestimated if changes in discount rates and emerging migration patterns are not taken into account.

Keywords

conservationcommon-pool resourcesclimate changemigrationsmall islandstime discounting
Type
Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 44 , Issue 4: Thematic section: Humans and Island Environments , December 2017 , pp. 381 - 388
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 2017 

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Footnotes

Supplementary material can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1017/S0376892917000339

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