Chen, Qi

The impacts of property rights on the sustainable management of natural resources has been debated for long, yet no consensus has been reached. Empirical observations reveal puzzling inconsistencies, as similar property regimes produce varying outcomes, whereas different property regimes can lead to similar results. A key reason for this inconsistency is that previous studies have often examined the impacts of property rights from a linear, one-directional approach, overlooking the complex interactions and interplay between property rights and other social, economic and environmental factors in a dynamic social‒ecological system. Thus, this study focuses on pastoral areas in China and explores how grassland property rights, adaptive grassland management strategies, and other biophysical factors jointly shape grassland ecology. Using data from 129 villages across four major pastoral provinces, we employed fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to explore the diverse pathways leading to grassland sustainability or degradation and to investigate the complex causal relationships among factors. The paper offers the first empirical, village-level evidence on how property rights affect grassland quality, drawing on data from a nationwide village survey. The results reveal that the relationship between property right and grassland quality is not linear; instead, it varies depending on the complex interaction between property rights and broader socio-ecological context. Beyond the property right solution, the adaptive grassland management emerges as a crucial strategy, particularly in enhancing resilience and promoting sustainable grassland use under conditions of climate disaster or in communities where grassland size is limited.