''Technology and the Commons'' 

The "commons" is a short form for "common property resources" (CPRs) - a term popularized by the Nobel prize-winning political economist, Elinor Ostrom. CPRs are resources that are used and managed by a community of users. Famous otherwise for trapping their users in Garrett Hardin's "Tragedy of the Commons", CPRs present a sustainable development challenge and a management opportunity. With examples of tragedies and successes, we can start getting a feel for the role of technologies for managing CPRs.Using the theoretical framework suggested by Ostrom, we will look at examples in surface water and groundwater, forestry, and energy to see how communities came together to develop solutions for the management of CPRs. The cases elucidate some basic principles with which a community can design and engineer adaptive systems that may last for a long time.