The interplay of top-down planning and adaptive self-organization in an African floodplain

Natural floodplains are complex social-ecological systems in which human livelihoods are tightly coupled with flooding dynamics. In this paper, we argue that hydraulic planning in such systems, including to mitigate extreme floods, must consider three key features of adaptive self-organizing systems...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Human ecology : an interdisciplinary journal 2018-04, Vol.46 (2), p.171-182
Main Authors: Laborde, Sarah, Mahamat, Aboukar, Moritz, Mark
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptive systems
Anthropology
Case studies
Environmental aspects
Environmental Management
Ethnography
Flooding
Floodplains
Floods
Geography
Hydraulic control
Hydraulics
Hydrology
Local population
Original Research
Planners
Resilience
Self organizing systems
Social Sciences
Social systems
Social-ecological systems
Sociology
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Summary:Natural floodplains are complex social-ecological systems in which human livelihoods are tightly coupled with flooding dynamics. In this paper, we argue that hydraulic planning in such systems, including to mitigate extreme floods, must consider three key features of adaptive self-organizing systems in floodplains - connectivity, learning feedbacks, and rhythms - to support the resilience of floodplain communities to extreme floods. We illustrate this argument with a case study of the Logone Floodplain, Cameroon. Based on hydrological data, ethnographic research and a series of focus group interviews with floodplain villagers, we analyze the interplay of top-down planning and adaptive self-organization in response to two extreme floods in 2012 and 2015. We show that recent top-down strategies of hydraulic control in the floodplain have led to more hydraulic uncertainty for local populations, and curtailed the conditions for sustainable self-organization in the floodplain.
ISSN:0300-7839
1572-9915
DOI:10.1007/s10745-018-9977-y