Some slide-cascades in social-ecological systems viewed by spatially explicit and multi-scale models

Food security is a key aspect of a sustainable society, and some threats as climate change and food
riots may unsettle any social-ecological system such as the Dano’s region in Burkina Faso. Some
facets of food security such as food production and food distribution are inherently spatial, and
taking space into account may refine our region understanding. We developed both spatialized and
non-spatialized discrete event models to address food security dynamics in the Dano socialecological
system. The comparison of these two models allowed estimating the influence of
spatialization in modelling dynamics. Results showed that water cycle and soil components are
critical features of the landscape’s food security. Space refined the region’s understanding in
highlighting unexpected slide-cascades the system is exposed to and revealing high sensitivity of
the region’s food security to dam water presence. As food security spreading in space, to explicit
spatial processes in models appears critical to get a proper understanding of most processes in social
ecological systems.