Feedback loop analysis in the Encyclopedia Project

Description of systemic loops in Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Po9tential.

Anthony Judge and Nadia McLaren

Extract from the final report on Information Context for Biodiversity Conservation (2000).
See also

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Introduction

In parallel with the work on individual data elements in the Strategies and of the workpackage), UIA undertook to advance its explorations of feedback loops (both self-reinforcing and self-damping), specifically for this project in the fields of environment and conservation. The specifications for this work were to:

Develop, refine and seek to dynamically display the self-sustaining, interlocking loops of conservation issues and solutions. In the event that on-the-fly generation and visualisation of loops is feasible during web server access, such dynamic displays would be developed as a means of shifting the level of analysis beyond seemingly isolated environmental Problems and Strategies. The visualization tools would then be adapted to assist editorial and error detection processes. The key issue here is speed of detection and generation of loops. This will be explored as a combination of machine capacity, algorithm logic and display design.

The significance of this work is that there has long been recognition of how one problem can aggravate another and of how several Problems can reinforce each other. The UIA data register many relationships between Problems in complex networks. Clearly such relationships may form chains or pathways linking many Problems. But hidden in the data as presented is also the existence of chains that loop back on themselves. The UIA data offer a unique opportunity to identify such feedback relationship loops or cycles through which several Problems constantly reinforce one another.

The notion of "loops", and its relevance to this project, requires some further explanation. As defined by the authors of Making Strategy in describing the value of Decision Explorer (Section 16.2.4: Decision Explorer): a loop represents a description of a chain of consequences that produces a dynamic outcome by feeding off itself (positive feedback = "vicious" or "virtuous" loops), or by controlling itself (negative feedback). Typically a feedback loop will be an important strategic issue in its own right. The purpose of detecting feedback loops is to raise the level of analysis of individual issues to a higher, systematic level. It is a technique which has the potential to add extra meaning to basic data, particularly relevant for policy makers (one significant user group for this product) and others concerned with understanding the interrelationships and root causes of environmental problems, notably those relevant to biological conservation. This is one perspective on the title of this project: Information Context for Biodiversity Conservation.

A self-reinforcing ("vicious") problem loop, then, is a chain of Problems, each aggravating the next, and with the last looping back to aggravate the first in the chain. An example is:

Man-made disasters > Vulnerability of ecosystem niches > Natural environment degradation > Shortage of natural resources > Unbridled competition for scarce resources > Man-made disasters.

Such cycles are "vicious" because they are self-sustaining problem cycles. organisational strategies and programmes that focus on only one problem in a chain may fail because the cycle has the capacity to regenerate itself. Individual "vicious problem cycles" also tend to interlock, forming tangled skeins of interlinked global Problems which implicate single environmental problems in chains and complexes of multi-sectoral issues. Without the means to untangle the relationships, the response to a conservation challenge may be ineffective, self-defeating or, even, harmful.

Before commenting on the project work in detecting vicious cycles, it is important to recognise that it is precisely through the detection of such loops that attention can be drawn to defects in the pattern of relationships in the data. It is possible for some loops to be the result of incorrect relationships rather than being representative of genuine feedback, and so "accidental" loops appear. Detection of loops is therefore in the first place an editorial tool for hyperlinkage within a relational database. It raises questions as to the appropriateness of certain links which otherwise may go unquestioned. It also sharpens the discussion on how distinctions are made, using verbal categories and definitions, and how system boundaries are drawn grouping what is represented in this way. The results indicate this is a very interesting area for further exploration.

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