In: Economics
Choose a human-made, renewable resource which is subject to the Tragedy of the Commons. Has the problem been solved? If so, how? If not, why not?
Let us suppose there is an artificial lake, or a man-made lake which is used to store water for the use of a nearby community. Now, since the lake is a community resource, it will definitely suffer from the tragedy of commons as it has the characteristics of a public good: non-rivalrous and non-excludability. If one person is using the lake, it doesn't interfere with the second person's consumption. Also, being a public resource, no one community member can bar the other members from using the lake as a resource. Hence, the marginal benefit to each member far outweighs the marginal cost to each member since the benefit accrues to the user but the cost is borne not only by the user, but is divided among the community. This ultimately leads to over-using the lake and causes the tragedy of commons.
The problem arises due to insufficient property rights, which leads people to selfishly look at their private benefits and costs rather than consider the social benefits and costs of using a public/community resource.