Developing Equitable Livelihood Transitions in Agriculture: Innovating Participatory Modelling in a Nigerian Wetland-Agricultural System

Effective and equitable environmental management of complex ecosystems like the Niger Delta requires a fundamental rethinking of how knowledge, power, and participation are organized. This innovative, interdisciplinary project reconceptualizes wetland degradation problem not as a failure of enforcement or awareness, but as a failure of design, where governance systems ignore local complexity and power asymmetries.Focusing on the Niger Delta - home to Africa’s largest wetland complex and critical to both: rural livelihoods and biodiversity - this research investigates how participatory modelling can support locally led sustainable solutions. By integrating systems thinking, participatory system dynamics, and the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus, it offers a novel framework for linking ecological decline and livelihood insecurity, providing fresh theoretical and methodological bases for research and policy.Agriculture is central to rural life in Nigeria and across Africa, and wetlands are crucial for food production, flood control, water purification, and cultural continuity. Yet rapid wetland degradation threatens fisheries, agriculture, flood protection, and community resilience. Existing research and interventions often attribute wetland degradation to unsustainable farming practices, ignoring the historical legacies of top-down colonial management and extractive production. This project addresses the critical gap in understanding wetlands as dynamic systems shaped by ecological, institutional, and political-economic forces, beyond their local misuse.Through co-developing dynamic models in Niger Delta communities, it advances theory on systemic drivers of degradation, identifies recurring unsustainability patterns, and refines socio-ecological frameworks. Grounded in participatory processes, it enriches debates on integrating local knowledge into systems modelling, offering a transferable approach for wetland governance and resilience theory across the Global So