New Thinking in Sustainability: A System Dynamics Approach

System dynamics could be considered as a new approach to deal with sustainability issues. I examined this approach in the watershed as a complex system or unit with different indicators and drivers within Triple Bottom Line (TBL) framework including environmental, social, economic, policy, and institutional subsystems. Much research has been carried out piece by piece on different aspects of a watershed. However to extract drivers and dynamics of change in this complex system, we need to put these pieces together and analyze the system as a whole. In this study I applied a qualitative model of the watershed socio-economic and ecological system. I then investigated the model system through loop analysis and finally examined effects of changes on the system state and structure. This model allowed us to investigate system-wide chain reactions resulting from disturbances. I found that in different sub-systems including environmental, socio-economic, and institutions there are disturbing parameters which are related together when we see them as an integrated system.