Resource Management

Research profile

The Chair of Resource Management was established in October 2001 and was initially funded by the German Federal Environmental Foundation with the intention of promoting innovative, interdisciplinary areas of research and teaching.

Since its inception, the Chair has established an internationally leading interdisciplinary research program in the field of adaptive and integrative resource management of water resources and the role of social and societal learning. The research program is based on the principles of systems science, which explicitly emphasizes the complex and often unpredictable dynamics of systems.

The research group is concerned with innovative concepts in the management of transformation processes towards sustainability with an emphasis on improved understanding of the dynamics and management of actor networks. This implies the development of new methods for participatory model development and management strategies. Research activities in this area take place in close exchange with public institutions and other stakeholder groups.

One focus is the improved representation of the human dimension in integrated models and management processes. One promising method in this context is agent-based modeling. In this context, agents are to be understood as autonomous software systems that describe the behaviour of social entities (individuals and organizations). A major advantage of this method is that it allows a more realistic representation of social and cognitive processes. Consequently, this enables the exploration of complex spatio-temporal dynamics in human-technology-environment systems and thus the development of the foundations for the management of transformation processes in such systems. In particular, agent-based modeling is very well suited for participatory model development and for application in social learning processes with different stakeholder groups.

Another focus of the research is the development of comprehensive models to represent multi-layered control and management systems and the combination of innovative methods for comparative case study analyses.

The focus of application has been water resources governance and management at different scales and in different geographical contexts. New integrative approaches to water resources management need to take the human dimension more explicitly into account. Adaptive, integrative management concepts are more appropriate to deal with the complex resource management problems that society is facing. In recent years, the focus has increasingly shifted to the concept of the water-energy-food sector.

Last but not least, the development of general concepts for interdisciplinary work and integrative system approaches is an important part of research. The strengthening of innovative approaches in inter- and transdisciplinary research is of particular importance in international research networks.