Policy networks,stakeholder interactions and climate adaptation in the region of South East Queensland,Australia

The strategic use of science in regional policy-making forums often assumes collaborative interactions between stakeholders. However, other types of stakeholder interactions are possible. This paper uses the ecology of games to frame an investigation into stakeholder participation in the policy networks for regional climate change planning for South East Queensland, Australia. We tracked organisational participation in policy forums between 2008 and 2012. We then used a novel bipartite network theoretical approach to identify participation by different types of organisations across shared multiple forums, which we argue prefaces: cooperation, collaboration, support or advocacy. Network analysis was then combined with semi-structured interviews to access how scientific information was utilised across the regional network. Our results suggest that stakeholder interactions were predominately used to advocate for organisational agendas. Advocacy artificially narrows the scope of possible policy options and represents a biased, selective use of information. While advocacy is an important part of policy process, as a counter balance, explicit efforts are needed to recurrently expand the scope of policy options.     

Sketching sustainable land use in Europe by 2040: a multi-stakeholder participatory approach to elicit cross-sectoral visions

The continuously growing global demands on a finite land resource will require better strategic policies and management of trade-offs to avoid conflicts between different land-use sectors. Visions of the future can support strategic planning by stimulating dialogue, building a consensus on shared priorities and providing long-term targets. We present a novel approach to elicit stakeholder visions of future desired land use, which was applied with a broad range of experts to develop cross-sectoral visions in Europe. The approach is based on (i) combination of software tools and facilitation techniques to stimulate engagement and creativity; (ii) methodical selection of stakeholders; (iii) use of land attributes to deconstruct the multifaceted sectoral visions into land-use changes that can be clustered into few cross-sectoral visions, and (iv) a rigorous iterative process. Three cross-sectoral visions of sustainable land use in Europe in 2040 emerged from applying the approach in participatory workshops involving experts in nature conservation, recreation, agriculture, forestry, settlements, energy, and water. The three visions—Best Land in Europe, Regional Connected and Local Multifunctional—shared a wish to achieve a land use that is sustainable through multifunctionality, resource use efficiency, controlled urban growth, rural renewal and widespread nature. However, they differ on the scale at which land services are provided—EU-wide, regional or local—reflecting the land-sparing versus land-sharing debate. We discuss the usefulness of the approach, as well as the challenges posed and solutions offered by the visions to support strategic land-use planning.

     

Regional engagement and spatial modelling for natural resource management planning

Changing unsustainable natural resource use in agricultural landscapes is a complex social–ecological challenge that cannot be addressed through traditional reductionist science. More holistic and inclusive (or transdisciplinary) processes are needed. This paper describes a transdisciplinary project for natural resource management planning in two regions (Eyre Peninsula and South Australian Murray-Darling Basin) of southern Australia. With regional staff, we reviewed previous planning to gain an understanding of the processes used and to identify possible improvement in plan development and its operation. We then used an envisioning process to develop a value-rich narrative of regional aspirations to assist stakeholder engagement and inform the development of a land use management option assessment tool called the landscape futures analysis tool (LFAT). Finally, we undertook an assessment of the effectiveness of the process through semi-structured stakeholder interviews. The planning process review highlighted the opinion that the regional plans were not well informed by available science, that they lacked flexibility, and were only intermittently used after publication. The envisioning process identified shared values—generally described as a trust, language that is easily understood, wise use of resources, collaboration and inclusiveness. LFAT was designed to bring the best available science together in a form that would have use in planning, during community consultation and in assessing regional management operations. The LFAT provided spatially detailed but simple models of agricultural yields and incomes, plant biodiversity, weed distribution, and carbon sequestration associated with future combinations of climate, commodity and carbon prices, and costs of production. Stakeholders were impressed by the presentation and demonstration results of the software. While there was anecdotal evidence that the project provided learning opportunities and increased understanding of potential land use change associated with management options under global change, the direct evidence of influence in the updated regional plan was limited. This project had elements required for success in transdisciplinary research, but penetration seems limited. Contributing factors appear to be a complexity of climate effects with economic uncertainty, lack of having the project embedded in the plan revision process, limited continuity and capacity of end users and limited after project support and promotion. Strategies are required to minimise the controlling influence that these limitations can have.     

Transdisciplinary research in support of land and water management in China and Southeast Asia: evaluation of four research projects

Transdisciplinary research (TDR) aims at identifying implementable solutions to difficult sustainability problems and at fostering social learning. It requires a well-managed collaboration among multidisciplinary scientists and multisectoral stakeholders. Performing TDR is challenging, particularly for foreign researchers working in countries with different institutional and socio-cultural conditions. There is a need to synthesize and share experience among researchers as well as practitioners regarding how TDR can be conducted under specific contexts. In this paper, we aim to evaluate and synthesize our unique experience in conducting TDR projects in Asia. We applied guiding principles of TDR to conduct a formative evaluation of four consortium projects on sustainable land and water management in China, the Philippines, and Vietnam. In all projects, local political conditions restricted the set of stakeholders that could be involved in the research processes. The set of involved stakeholders was also affected by the fact that stakeholders in most cases only participate if they belong to the personal network of the project leaders. Language barriers hampered effective communication between foreign researchers and stakeholders in all projects and thus knowledge integration. The TDR approach and its specific methods were adapted to respond to the specific cultural, social, and political conditions in the research areas, also with the aim to promote trust and interest of the stakeholders throughout the project. Additionally, various measures were implemented to promote collaboration among disciplinary scientists. Based on lessons learned, we provide specific recommendations for the design and implementation of TDR projects in particular in Asia.     

Co-orientation of State Wildlife Agency Personnel and Wildlife Management Area Stakeholders Regarding Wildlife Habitat Management Activities in Virginia

Natural resource managers frequently make decisions in the public interest, yet research suggests managers often hold values and attitudes that differ from those of their stakeholders. Applying the co-orientation theory of communication, we contrasted beliefs of Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries managers (n = 77) with those of recreational users (n = 726) of Virginia's wildlife management areas (WMAs). Although managers and users both expressed support for many of the same land management practices, managers generally expressed stronger support. Managers also more accurately predicted WMA users' beliefs on land management, compared to users' predictions of managers' beliefs. Managers and WMA users held different views about timber harvesting, which suggests it is an area with high potential for controversy and needs improved communication efforts. Frequency-based and statistical co-orientation analysis yielded different, and potentially misleading, results; thus, policy-makers should use caution when interpreting communicative situations and designing subsequent public relations efforts.     

Participatory foresight analysis of the cash crop sector at the regional level: case study from southwestern France

Following the request of local stakeholders, a multidisciplinary group of experts was formed to implement a foresight analysis of the cash crop sector in the Midi-Pyrénées region. The group developed a four-step multidisciplinary and participatory methodology that defined the objectives, established a shared diagnosis of the issue raised in the regional cash crop sector, implemented a foresight analysis, and then created a graphical summary. Three types of working groups (steering, restricted, and expanded) were involved with well-assigned tasks. The dynamic interactions between the different groups of stakeholders and scientists and the use of graphics and maps as a medium to identify critical areas, such as zones in which production or environmental issues, are declining or evolving, enabled a shared view of regional problems. The main contribution of this paper is the presentation of a participative methodology that enabled co-construction of three shared scenarios based on the combination of five major uncertainties: (i) change in agricultural markets and international trade; (ii) urbanization and regional planning; (iii) changing patterns of consumption and product processing; (iv) environmental issues in public policies; and (v) ability of farmers to implement innovative tools and methods.     

Land-use portfolios and the management of private landholdings in south-central Indiana

In the study of land-use and land-cover change as an important contributor to regional environmental change, linking household level land-use decisions to particular land-cover patterns has been an enduring challenge. The frequent conflation of land use and land cover has been appropriate and fruitful in regions where extractive activities are common, but the decoupling of household characteristics from land-cover choices in exurban landscapes may require that the two be treated separately. This research employs the concept of a land-use portfolio, defined as a unique combination of land use types, and land cover derived from remote sensing to examine the relationship between land use and land cover at the parcel scale. Data on the type and spatial organization of land use were collected for individual parcels through sketch maps constructed by land owners and then described quantitatively using GIS and spatial metrics from landscape ecology. The results of this analysis suggest that in the naturally forested region of south-central Indiana, parcels are frequently managed as multiple types of land use thereby supporting the portfolio approach. Generally, land-management complexity is related to land-cover fragmentation, but the strength of this relationship varies across portfolio types. In addition, substantial amounts of forest land cover occur in non-forest land uses further supporting the need to treat the two separately to accurately link land use intentions and land cover outcomes.     

The net ecosystem carbon exchange of human-modified environments in the Australian Capital Region

As part of a larger study to quantify and map ecosystem services in southeast Australia, we estimated carbon stored in biomass and soils and the net ecosystem carbon exchange between the land surface and the atmosphere in the Australian Capital Region (ACR). Our aim was to understand and quantify how different human-modified landscapes provide an essential ecosystem service: the exchange and storage of carbon in the landscape. Using a remote sensing based modelling methodology, we obtained values of Net Primary Productivity (NPP), total carbon in soil and biomass and carbon turnover from meteorological and terrain inputs and vegetation attributes. We obtained a set of maps of NPP, total carbon (C) storage and C-turnover for the ACR. We superimposed a land use/cover map to assign the uptake, storage and release of carbon to different land use/cover types. Our results support the hypothesis that human-intensive land uses significantly affect the ability of terrestrial ecosystems to provide an important ecosystem service in the form of carbon storage.     

Changes in the spatial patterns of human appropriation of net primary production (HANPP) in Europe 1990–2006

Understanding patterns, dynamics, and drivers of land use is crucial for improving our ability to cope with sustainability challenges. The human appropriation of net primary production (HANPP) framework provides a set of integrated socio-ecological indicators that quantify how land use alters energy flows in ecosystems via land conversions and biomass harvest. Thus, HANPP enables researchers to systematically and consistently assess the outcome of changes in land cover and land-use intensity across spatio-temporal scales. Yet, fine-scale HANPP assessments are so far missing, an information important to address site-specific ecological implications of land use. Here, we provide such an assessment for Europe at a 1-km scale for the years 1990, 2000, and 2006. The assessment was based on a consistent land-use/biomass flow dataset derived from statistical data, remote sensing maps, and a dynamic global vegetation model. We find that HANPP in Europe amounted to ~43 % of potential productivity, well above the global average of ~25 %, with little variation in the European average since 1990. HANPP was highest in Central Europe and lower in Northern and Southern Europe. At the regional level, distinct changes in land-use intensity were observed, most importantly the decline of cropland areas and yields following the breakdown of socialism in Eastern Europe and the subsequent recovery after 2000, or strong dynamics related to storm events that resulted in massive salvage loggings. In sum, however, these local dynamics cancelled each other out at the aggregate level. We conclude that this finding warrants further research into aspects of the scale-dependency of dynamics and stability of land use.     

Uncertainty in the difference between maps of future land change scenarios

It is essential to measure whether maps of various scenarios of future land change are meaningfully different, because differences among such maps serve to inform land management. This paper compares the output maps of different scenarios of future land change in a manner that contrasts two different approaches to account for the uncertainty of the simulated projections. The simpler approach interprets the scenario storyline concerning the quantity of each land change transition as assumption, and then considers the range of possibilities concerning the value added by a simulation model that specifies the spatial allocation of land change. The more complex approach estimates the uncertainty of future land maps based on a validation measurement with historic data. The technique is illustrated by a case study that compares two scenarios of future land change in the Plum Island Ecosystems of northeastern Massachusetts, in the United States. Results show that if the model simulates only the spatial allocation of the land changes given the assumed quantity of each transition, then there is a clearly bounded range for the difference between the raw scenario maps; but if the uncertainties are estimated by validation, then the uncertainties can be so great that the output maps do not show meaningful differences. We discuss the implications of these results for a future research agenda of land change modeling. We conclude that a productive approach is to use the simpler method to distinguish clearly between variations in the scenario maps that are due to scenario assumptions versus variations due to the simulation model.     

Advancing climate compatible development: lessons from southern Africa

Climate compatible development (CCD) has emerged as a new concept that bridges climate change adaptation, mitigation and community-based development. Progress towards CCD requires multi-stakeholder, multi-sector working and the development of partnerships between actors who may not otherwise have worked together. This creates challenges and opportunities that require careful examination at project and institutional levels and necessitates the sharing of experiences between different settings. In this paper, we draw on the outcomes from a multi-stakeholder workshop held in Mozambique in 2012, the final in a series of activities in a regional project assessing emerging CCD partnerships across southern Africa. The workshop involved policymakers, researchers and representatives from NGOs and the private sector. We employ a content analysis of workshop notes and presentations to identify the progress and challenges in moving four case study countries (the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe) towards CCD pathways, by exploring experiences from both project and policy levels. To advance institutional support for the development of successful CCD policies, practices and partnerships, we conclude that there is a need for: (a) institutional development at the national level to strengthen coordination and more clearly define roles and responsibilities across sectors, based on the identification of capacity and knowledge gaps; (b) partnership development, drawing on key strengths and competences of different stakeholders and emphasising the roles of the private sector and traditional authorities; (c) learning and knowledge-sharing through national and regional fora; and (d) development of mechanisms that permit more equitable and transparent distribution of costs and benefits. These factors can facilitate development of multi-stakeholder, multi-level partnerships that are grounded in community engagement from the outset, helping to translate CCD policy statements into on-the-ground action.     

Human–environment interactions: towards synthesis and simulation

Leaders of the PAGES Focus 5 programme ‘Past Ecosystem Processes and Human–Environment Interactions’ identify key issues for research on human–environment interactions for wider discussion. These include the need for long-term perspectives, the opportunities for maximising palaeoenvironmental research, the need for integration and regionalisation and the challenge of developing dynamic simulation models. A new organisational matrix for regional studies is outlined, based on a series of zonal/azonal regions and on the degree of human impact. Future priorities for palaeoenvironmental research include new studies in degraded human-dominated landscapes, highly-valued ecosystems and sites relevant to other IGBP Core Projects. Simulation of future human–environment interactions using modelling approaches that have been tested against long records lags behind global climate modelling, but cellular approaches for biogeophysical and multi-agent systems show promise.     

Land use and cover dynamics in Africa since the nineteenth century: warped terrestrial photographs of North Ethiopia

Quantitative research on land use and land cover (LUC) in Africa usually addresses the second half of the twentieth century, by using remote sensing data. Terrestrial photographs, which are available since 1868 in Ethiopia, are seldom used in a quantitative way. This paper presents a methodology that allows to produce land use and land cover (LUC) maps on the basis of old terrestrial photographs. Therefore, land use and land cover was investigated on historical and present-day photographs, and these interpretations were warped to the horizontal plane of the map. The resulting maps allow to gain better insights into LUC changes over a period of 140 years. The results show that woody vegetation increased strongly, together with an increase in built-up area. This occurred especially at the expense of bushland. The study validates pervious findings and shows that improved land management strategies in one of the world’s most degraded areas can lead to environmental rehabilitation.     

开发区土地集约利用的区域效应分析——以吉林省中部开发区为例

从集约评价的角度研究开发区土地集约利用对区域经济社会发展的效应,不仅可以掌握开发区与区域经济社会发展的协调性以及开发区土地利用情况,还可以为政府相关部门、土地管理及规划等部门提供有力的决策工具,对推进吉林省开发区土地利用方式转变,提高开发区土地利用效率,促进区域经济结构调整,加快区域经济发展和城市化进程都具有重大的现实意义。本文以吉林省中部为研究对象,选取12个开发区,运用数据包络分析方法(DEA)对开发区土地集约利用的区域效应进行分析,得出结论:(1)长春市开发区土地集约利用的区域效应已达到最优状态,对区域经济发展带动有效性较好,而吉林市和四平市均处于规模效益递减状态;(2)有国家级开发区的市,其开发区土地集约利用状况的区域效应更好;(3)吉林省中部地区开发区总体发展不均衡:省级开发区与国家级开发区差距大,省级开发区中也呈现发展不平衡的现象。     

Power asymmetries and institutions: landscape conservation in central India

Understanding the importance of cross-sectoral implications of climate and socio-economic change in Scotland is essential for adaptation policy. This study explored the direct and indirect sectoral impacts of future change using the CLIMSAVE Integrated Assessment Platform. There is great spatial diversity in projected impacts across Scotland, and increasing uncertainty in the direction of change of impacts from the national to regional scale associated with climate uncertainty. Further uncertainty associated with socio-economic change results in 6 out of 13 indicators (artificial surfaces, biodiversity vulnerability, forest area, land-use intensity, irrigation usage and land-use diversity) with robust directions of change at the national scale and only three (artificial surfaces, forest area and irrigation usage) that are robust across all regions of Scotland. Complex interactions between socio-economic scenario assumptions (e.g. food imports, population and GDP), climatic suitability and agricultural productivity and profitability lead to significant national and regional changes in the distribution and extent of land cover types, with resultant cross-sectoral interactions with water, forestry and biodiversity. Consequently, stakeholders characterised robust adaptation policy options, within the CLIMSAVE participatory process, as those beneficial to society (and the country) in all scenarios, irrespective of the direction of change of the impacts. The integration in CLIMSAVE of a participatory scenario development process and an integrated participatory modelling framework has allowed the exploration of future uncertainty in a structured approach and better represented the importance of qualitative information and the social and institutional contexts within adaptation research.     

Resource management for sustainable development: a community- and GIS-based approach

A combined approach utilizing GIS, Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and Focus Group Discussion (FGD) has been developed for resource mapping in a rural poverty-prone area of Bangladesh. This model integrated GIS and participatory tools to include the voices of the stakeholders in assessing available resources and needs. The resource mapping framework, developed using PRA with local community people and community gatekeepers, was aimed at sustainable resource management, and ArcView GIS was used to digitize the resource maps as a Decision Support System (DSS). A detailed assessment and analysis of the quality, quantity and physical status of resources was first mapped in the field and then digitized using GIS. FGD-based interaction with community people at each union in a subdistrict of Bangladesh revealed stakeholders’ opinions on land and water body management. The present paper demonstrates the power of this model as a policy-making tool for sustainable development and poverty eradication. It also recognized the need for collaboration between interdisciplinary policy planners and researchers to develop and implement a policy on agricultural resource management for poverty-prone areas.     

ICT applications in the research into environmental sustainability: a user preferences approach

Whether information and communication technology (ICT) constitutes a threat or a cure to environment??s deterioration is controversially discussed. Empirical evidence on the impacts of ICT is rare, so that generalizable lessons can hardly be drawn. This study provides empirical results on the role of ICT in research for environmental sustainability, but instead of ascertaining the impact of ICT on environmental protection, we conduct an analysis of the use of ICT in sustainability research. We assess the preferences of experts in different thematic sustainability fields for applying ICT tools, and we investigate ways to improve the application of these tools in order to augment their returns with respect to environmental protection research. This analysis is based on a set of surveys that were administered to international experts to evaluate the importance of ICT in environmental sustainability research and the research demands in key environmental sectors, such as climate change, natural resources, energy and biodiversity. The methodological framework is built on the analysis of users?? preferences for future developments in ICT tools using stated preferences techniques. Overall results suggest that ICT tools need to be developed in specific contexts, taking into account users?? needs and expectations. Our analysis shows that the use of ICT in environmental research is of great importance in the scientific community, but it can also play a crucial role in the policy context.     

关于“十五”期间区域发展战略的建议

我国区域发展面临的的主要问题包括：地区发展差距扩大,国土整治和促进区域可持续发展的工作需要加强,失业高发地区的就业压力亟需缓解,扶贫开发工作仍需坚持等。在制定地区发展战略时,应当灾行”效率与公平兼顾”,加快规范的财政转移支付制度的建立,充分运用金融工具,实行地区差别的金融调控政策,尽快着手地区发展立法,选准西部大开发重点开发区,以大河流域作为重要切入点重视开展国土整治工作,抑制人口数量增长,提高人     

Land use changes and its impacts on water resources in Nile Delta region using remote sensing techniques

Sustainable water resources management plans depend on reliable monitoring of land use –land cover (LULC) changes. The use of the remote sensing techniques in LULC changes detection brings consistency and reliability to the decision maker at regional scale. Three temporal data sets of images were used to obtain the land cover changes in this study: Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper (TM) acquired in 1984, and Landsat-7 enhanced Thematic Mapper acquired in 2000 and 2005 consequently. Each temporal data set consists of four Landsat scenes, which were mosaicked to cover the whole Nile Delta. Two different supervised classification algorithms were implemented to produce classification maps in thematic form. Support vector machine showed higher classification accuracies in comparison with maximum likelihood classification. The results indicated that the rapid imbalance changes occurred among three land cover classes (urban, desert, and agricultural land). These changes powered the land degradation and land fragmentation processes over the agricultural land exclusively due to urban encroachment. Slight land cover changes were detected between fish farms and surface water land cover classes.     

Transdisciplinarity as a real-world challenge: a case study on a North–South collaboration

Transdisciplinarity (TD) has become a buzzword, promoted as a suitable approach to address today’s urgent challenges in human-environment interactions. Looking at its practical implementation, however, challenges still remain to be met. Despite the concept’s popularity, it seems difficult to reconcile the idea of knowledge co-production with research realities. Taking a TD research project dealing with sustainable land management in Southern Africa (Angola, Botswana, and Namibia) as a case study, we aim to provide empirically based insights into the real-world application of this collaborative research approach to improve the general understanding of TD research in the making. Based on semi-structured interviews with project partners and stakeholders, we reveal the underlying interests, mismatching institutions and structures of power shaping the TD research process in this North–South collaboration. We identified TD as falling victim to a kind of “tragedy of the commons”, paralysed between existing power structures and conflicting interests, and being considered as extra work instead of an integral task with an inherent value in itself. By demonstrating some of the underlying causes of the challenging practice of TD, we reveal starting points for changes and provide recommendations that aim to set the base for a more reflexive and fruitful TD knowledge co-production.