The role of transdisciplinarity for mineral economics and mineral resource management: coping with fallacies related to phosphorus in science and practice

Abstract

Mineral economics is a genuine multidisciplinary field dealing with economic and policy matters related to the production, distribution, and consumption of mineral commodities. We discuss why the increasing complexity, ambiguity, ambivalence, and social contestation of subjects of mineral economics promote the participation of mineral economists in transdisciplinary processes. These processes relate (a) knowledge from targeted interdisciplinary processes and (b) mitigated discourses among different stakeholders to provide (c) a shared problem definition and to attain shared basic knowledge about problem transformation science and practice. We discuss known examples of misperceptions regarding minerals (phosphorus), such as an imminent scarcity threat, the incorrectly understood causations of the 2007/2008 price peak and present the phosphorus ore-grades increased by 3.2% between 1983 and 2013 fallacies (which is based on the Simpson’s paradox), and only few countries have mineable reserves fallacy. Here, we also illuminate motivations underlying several mineral economics–related misunderstandings. We argue that societally relevant questions require an honest mineral economics knowledge brokership. The example of the Global TraPs project, which targeted sustainable phosphorus management, is presented. Honest brokership to attain a clearinghouse function of science requires trust formation in society. We argue that this calls for increasing the understandability of relationships that are not well-understood, such as “if prices rise, so do stocks.” Wellmer and Becker-Platen’s feedback control cycle may be considered an example of how complex mineral economics can become and how challenging it is to be understandable to scientists from different disciplines and faculties as well as to practitioners whose knowledge may well be used to cope with the complexity of given problems. Thus, the present paper represents a plea for mutual learning between science and practice in order to understand the complex social and economic challenges of mineral resource dynamics.

Can ultimate recoverable resources (URRs) be assessed? Does analyzing declining ore grades help?

“…Nor can we know the price, i.e., the economic value, of a specific mineral in a socio-technological environment in a few hundred or even thousand years. We mention these long time frames-for example, in relation to the bioessential element phosphorus-because the concept of intergenerational justice demands that we do and calls for further discussion, particularly as there is an asymmetric relationship with future generations (Persson and Savulescu 2019;Scholz and Steiner 2022). While we can look back, we cannot see several centuries ahead.…”

Geopolitical deadlock and phosphate shortfall behind the price hike? Evidence from Moroccan commodity markets

“…While the turn of 2007 and 2008 marks a general misconception of the phosphor price peak, the span between 1983 and 2013 saw an annual increase in extracting phosphorites by about 3.2%. Economists try to correct these socially harmful fallacies to increase public knowledge and awareness (Scholz and Steiner 2022).…”