Radosavljevic, Sonja
- Department of Energy and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Abstract
Despite the promise of inland small-scale aquaculture for improving food security and alleviating poverty, the long-term sustainability of such production systems remains poorly understood, particularly in contexts where economic and ecological processes reinforce each other. This paper develops a stylized social-ecological model that captures feedbacks between producer wealth, fish biomass, and nutrient dynamics in inland pond-based small-scale aquaculture systems. The model reveals how these intertwined feedbacks shape the long-term dynamics of the system and lead to monostability, bistability, or multistability. These regimes correspond to a collapse, a high-yield but high-risk, and a sustainable equilibrium in fish production. Using bifurcation and stability analysis, we identify six dynamic scenarios: Balanced efficiency, Overload, Flux, Knife-edge, Tipping pond and Decay, that represent qualitatively different long-term outcomes. Rather than predicting specific outcomes, the model gives a structural understanding of small-scale aquaculture system dynamics and highlights the importance of local context and producers' heterogeneity in shaping the outcomes. It also provides a theoretical foundation for scenario-based management and empirical model development.
Keywords
Bifurcation; Bistability; Dynamical system; Social-ecological system; Pond aquaculture; Sustainable intensification
Published in
Ecological Modelling
2026, volume: 512, article number: 111416
Publisher: ELSEVIER
SLU Authors
UKÄ Subject classification
Ecology
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2025.111416
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/145292