Dynamics of resilience-equity interactions in resource-based communities

Despite the growing focus on understanding how to build resilience, the interaction between resilience and equity, particularly in the context of power asymmetries like those in communities reliant on resource-based industries, or resource-based communities, is not well understood. Here we present a stylized dynamical systems model of asymmetric resource access and control in resource-based communities that links industrial resource degradation, community well-being, and migration in response to economic and resource conditions. The model reveals a mechanism of collapse due to these dynamics in which over-extraction and resource degradation trigger irreversible population decline. Regulating resource extraction can increase resilience (in the sense of persistence) while also shifting the sustainable equilibrium and the implications for equity. Resilience does not guarantee equity at equilibrium, and this misalignment is more pronounced in the transient interactions between short term equity and long term resilience. The misalignment between resilience and equity demonstrates how equity considerations change the policy design process in important ways. Regulation improves resilience in resource-based communities but resilience does not guarantee community wellbeing, according to mathematical modeling of resource exploiting industries-community interactions.

Automated summary

Research indicates that regulating resource extraction can enhance resilience in resource-based communities, yet it does not ensure community wellbeing. There is a disconnect between long-term resilience and short-term equity in the interactions between resource industries and communities.