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The Architecture of Ecology: Systems Design for Sustainable Agricultural Landscapes

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The Architecture of Ecology: Systems Design for Sustainable Agricultural Landscapes Kinkaid 1 The architecture of ecology: Systems design for sustainable agricultural landscapes A thesis presented to the Honors Tutorial College, Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation from the Honors Tutorial College with the degree of Bachelor of Science in Environmental and Plant Biology. Eden Kinkaid 2013 Kinkaid 2 Contents Introduction: The transformation of agriculture ............................................................................. 5 Chapter 1: The history and present state of modern industrial agriculture ................................... 10 Looking toward the past........................................................................................................ 10 The history of modern industrial agriculture .........................................................................11 Trends in modern industrial agriculture ................................................................................ 13 A vulnerable system? ............................................................................................................ 18 Looking toward the future .................................................................................................... 19 Chapter 2: Approaching agriculture as a socio-ecological system ............................................... 21 The Panarchy model ............................................................................................................. 24 Self-Organization .................................................................................................................. 28 Nonlinearity and thresholds .................................................................................................. 30 Understanding a panarchy as a whole ................................................................................... 31 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 33 Chapter 3: An agricultural panarchy ............................................................................................. 34 Criteria and parts of a system................................................................................................ 34 Constructing an agricultural panarchy .................................................................................. 37 Chapter 4: The patch ..................................................................................................................... 41 Soil as a landscape ................................................................................................................ 41 Soil organic matter as indicator of soil quality ..................................................................... 42 Soil organic matter dynamics as an adaptive cycle............................................................... 44 Patterns at the scale of the patch ........................................................................................... 46 Drivers at the scale of the patch ............................................................................................ 48 Summary and conclusion ...................................................................................................... 63 Chapter 5: The site ........................................................................................................................ 64 The farm as a landscape ........................................................................................................ 64 The annual cropping season as an adaptive cycle ................................................................. 66 Patterns at the scale of the site .............................................................................................. 68 Drivers at the scale of the site ............................................................................................... 78 Summary and conclusion ...................................................................................................... 84 Chapter 6: The landscape .............................................................................................................. 86 The agricultural landscape .................................................................................................... 86 The concept of the landscape ................................................................................................ 86 Land use history as an adaptive cycle ................................................................................... 90 Patterns at the scale of the landscape .................................................................................... 93 Drivers at the scale of the landscape ................................................................................... 106 Summary and conclusion .....................................................................................................110 Summary of Part I ................................................................................................................110 Chapter 7: Cross-scale interactions ..............................................................................................114 The nature of a panarchy......................................................................................................114 Making predictions of an uncertain future ...........................................................................115 Building scenarios ................................................................................................................117 The Reference Scenario ...................................................................................................... 120 The Agribusiness Wins Scenario ........................................................................................ 126 The Agricultural Deserts Scenario ...................................................................................... 127 The Just World Scenario ..................................................................................................... 129 Kinkaid 3 The Localization Scenario .................................................................................................. 130 Summary and conclusion .................................................................................................... 132 Chapter 8: The structure of the problem ..................................................................................... 134 Lessons from future scenarios ............................................................................................ 134 Adaptive vs. maladaptive systems ...................................................................................... 136 System traps ........................................................................................................................ 137 Redirecting a maladaptive system ...................................................................................... 141 Chapter 9: The synthesis of form ................................................................................................ 143 Deconstructing the problem ................................................................................................ 143 Understanding the context of design................................................................................... 144 The process of design.......................................................................................................... 146 Diagrams ............................................................................................................................. 149 The constructive diagram as a hypothesis .......................................................................... 153 The adaptive cycle as a constructive diagram ..................................................................... 154 Requirements of “Sustainable Agriculture” ........................................................................ 156 Synthesis ............................................................................................................................. 161 Form .................................................................................................................................... 163 (Re)designing agriculture .................................................................................................... 165 Creating physical form ........................................................................................................ 167 Conclusion: Design, intuition, and logic..................................................................................... 170 The logic of design.............................................................................................................. 170 Connecting science and design ........................................................................................... 172 Confronting an uncertain future .......................................................................................... 173 References ........................................................................................................................... 174 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. 186 Appendix ............................................................................................................................. 187 Kinkaid 4 Table of Figures Fig. 1: A sustainable
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