Emergent Cooperation in Socio-Ecological Systems Under Resource Scarcity: An Agent-Based Analysis of Sustainability

A growing demand for resources that exceeds the capacity of the biophysical system to regenerate puts environmental resources under stress, and society faces uncertainties about their scarcity and climate change. In this context, understanding how interactions among environmental, social, and economic systems shape behavioural responses becomes essential for explaining the emergence of sustainable socio-ecological dynamics. Therefore, this research explores how interactions among environmental, social, and economic systems influence sustainability outcomes, where emergent behaviours, including cooperation, reveal the interaction mechanisms connecting environmental, social and economic subsystems. A simulation model is built using the agent-based model method for this goal. The simulations suggest that scarcity may reinforce non-cooperative behaviours and generate lock-in dynamics that hinder transitions toward more sustainable system states. Additionally, cooperative behaviours emerge from the interactions among heterogeneous agents embedded within environmental, social, and economic subsystems, highlighting cooperation as a key mechanism connecting these subsystems and supporting more sustainable socio-ecological dynamics.