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Summary Microbial technologies have provided solutions to key challenges in our daily lives for over a century. In the debate about the ongoing climate change and the need for planetary sustainability, microbial ecology and microbial technologies are rarely considered. Nonetheless, they can bring forward vital solutions to decrease and even prevent long‐term effects of climate change. The key to the success of microbial technologies is an effective, target‐oriented microbiome management. Here, we highlight how microbial technologies can play a key role in both natural, i.e. soils and aquatic ecosystems, and semi‐natural or even entirely human‐made, engineered ecosystems, e.g. (waste) water treatment and bodily systems. First, we set forward fundamental guidelines for effective soil microbial resource management, especially with respect to nutrient loss and greenhouse gas abatement. Next, we focus on closing the water circle, integrating resource recovery. We also address the essential interaction of the human and animal host with their respective microbiomes. Finally, we set forward some key future potentials, such as microbial protein and the need to overcome microphobia for microbial products and services. Overall, we conclude that by relying on the wisdom of the past, we can tackle the challenges of our current era through microbial technologies., Soil ecosystem services that are directly tied to microbial communities and that can be stimulated and engineered to reach the Sustainable Development Goals. Ecosystem services have been estimated to represent an economic value which equals, in the year 2021, at least up to 50% of the global gross domestic product.

In recent decades, scientists and practitioners have increasingly focused on identifying and codifying the best ways to manage activities in marine systems, leading to the development and implementation of concepts such as the social-ecological systems approach, ecosystem-based management, integrated management, marine spatial planning, participatory co-management, and the precautionary approach. To date, these concepts appear as separate entities: they have parallel literature streams; have been applied most often individually in attempts to improve governance and management; and in many ways, seem to be competing for attention. This patchwork of approaches may be hindering effective ocean governance. We propose that desirable features from these frameworks could be woven together to form the basis of more effective and equitable ocean governance arrangements across contexts, sectors, and scales. This article synthesizes the efforts of an IMBeR (Integrated Marine Biosphere Research Project) conference session and working group, that brought together experts in these diverse concepts with the objective of producing a synthesis of how they could be more effectively integrated for improved ocean sustainability outcomes. We reviewed and compared the concepts in terms of (a) the need to achieve a comprehensive suite of sustainability objectives, (b) similarities and differences in their scope, and (c) their place in practical management, policy and regulation. Achieving greater cross-sectoral integration, or a more holistic perspective on management for sustainability is at the core of each concept. All deal with aspects of governance and most, with improved participation in governance. The major differences in the origin and historical application of each concept are reflected in the degree of implicit or explicit focus given to different objectives of sustainability. Overall, the concepts are especially strong for ecological and institutional or governance considerations, moderately strong for economic aspects, and weakest for the social-cultural pillar of full spectrum sustainability. There is no panacea, and no emergent hierarchy among concepts. Some concepts fit better with top-down legislation-based efforts, others with more bottom-up stakeholder driven efforts. The selection of the core concepts for a situation will depend in a large part on which concepts are specified, or demand focus, in the legal and policy context of the situation (or area) of interest. No matter how influential or dominant a single concept might be, pragmatically, different concepts will be used in different areas, and there may always be the need for a combination of concepts and objectives woven together to achieve a cohesive quilt of sustainability.

Traditional medicinal plants play a central role in primary health care in most African communities, including that of the Maasai. Unfortunately, the local Maasai knowledge is under enormous pressure from introduction of agriculture, population growth, and climate change—all of which affect availability and regeneration of natural resources and ecosystem services which are accompanied by erosion of traditional knowledge. Loss of medicinal plants and the knowledge related to them would have devastating effects on the Maasai community. Therefore, it is important to document the plants and the traditional knowledge related to their use, and conservation and management. We interviewed 31 informants who were especially knowledgeable about medicinal plants. Based on these interviews, we document 62 plant species that the Loita Maasai use as medicine, and we describe the parts of the plant that are used, the methods of preparation, and how they are used. We rank them according to their importance to the people and discuss the management practices developed for these resources, and we evaluate the conservation status.

The most critical question for climate research is no longer about the problem, but about how to facilitate the transformative changes necessary to avoid catastrophic climate-induced change. Addressing this question, however, will require massive upscaling of research that can rapidly enhance learning about transformations. Ten essentials for guiding action-oriented transformation and energy research are therefore presented, framed in relation to second-order science. They include: (1) Focus on transformations to low-carbon, resilient living; (2) Focus on solution processes; (3) Focus on 'how to' practical knowledge; (4) Approach research as occurring from within the system being intervened; (5) Work with normative aspects; (6) Seek to transcend current thinking; (7) Take a multi-faceted approach to understand and shape change; (8) Acknowledge the value of alternative roles of researchers; (9) Encourage second-order experimentation; and (10) Be reflexive. Joint application of the essentials would create highly adaptive, reflexive, collaborative and impact-oriented research able to enhance capacity to respond to the climate challenge. At present, however, the practice of such approaches is limited and constrained by dominance of other approaches. For wider transformations to low carbon living and energy systems to occur, transformations will therefore also be needed in the way in which knowledge is produced and used.

Local initiatives that address environmental issues are determined by the shared territory, history and culture of community members, which can lead to common values and goals. This paper focuses on the role of community-based entrepreneurship in protecting and managing the natural environment that impacts directly life quality of local residents, as social and natural systems manifest and evolve in a dynamic interdependence. We apply a case study methodology to capture the richness of community-based entrepreneurship and evidence the diversity of these initiatives. By presenting and analyzing three case studies on different types of environmentally-driven initiatives – considering the natural environment as an object, context or resource of entrepreneurial activities, we identify the main elements of community entrepreneurship and the factors influencing its manifestations. These elements are integrated into a synthetic model, which maps the relationships between various components and success factors of environmentally-driven community initiatives. Our findings provide a better understanding of community-based entrepreneurship and of the hidden mechanisms of collective initiative and action.

Public trust in water managers is often considered an important precondition for the effective implementation of sustainable water-management practices. Although it is well known that general public trust in government institutions is under pressure, much less is known in the literature on water governance whether such distrust also affects general and task-specific trust of the wider public in water managers. In addition, empirical studies on the determinants of such trust seem to be scarce. To fill those gaps, this study aims to measure general and task-specific public trust in water managers in the Netherlands and to assess how a selected group of potential determinants is related to general- and task-specific trust in water managers. To this end, we employ an original survey among a representative sample of the Dutch population (N = 2262). We find that trust in water managers in the Netherlands is generally high, but that it also comes with some task-specific variations. People have more trust in the flood-protection capacities of the water managers than in the capacities to successfully manage surface-water quality, nature conservation, and drought management. Using linear regression models, we subsequently find that individual-level variations in trust in water managers are best explained by one's general level of political trust. Additionally, we also show that both risk perceptions and self-evaluations of how informed people feel themselves about water management are important factors with (curvilinear) relations with trust in water managers. Overall, we conclude that water managers are under specific conditions able to build themselves well-established reputations and relatively high trust levels based on their performances. Nevertheless, trust development is far from entirely in the hands of the water managers themselves as we also conclude that trust evaluations of water managers are not immune from negative generalized political evaluations and public perceptions on water related risks.

Este artículo contiene 1 página, 1 tabla, 1 figura y 1 apéndice con una tabla., Marine Recreational Fishing (MRF) is an important activity in Europe, with 9 million fishers and generating annually € 6 billion in direct expenditures. However, there is a lack of data and understanding of MRF in Europe, particularly in Southern countries, which prevents a number of fish stocks from being effectively assessed and managed. In November 2016, a participatory workshop on MRF was held in Vigo (Spain) to identify challenges and opportunities for data collection, and to diagnose key research gaps and management issues for MRF in the Southern European Atlantic. Experts from a wide range of disciplines (researchers, policy makers, fisheries managers and commercial and recreational fishers) highlighted that the management of MRF is a challenge due to complex and dispersed legal frameworks, with multiple administrations involved, and overlapping uses of space with commercial fishing, aquaculture, navigation and tourism, among others. The lack of strong and representative fishing associations hampers research and management initiatives. Effective communication between recreational fishers, researchers and fisheries managers is also lacking. Despite the ecological, social and economic relevance of MRF, there is no systematic and comprehensive collection of information on fishing effort, recreational catches, expenses, social profile and access conditions of European recreational fishers. These data would be useful to avoid biases in the assessment of recreational fisheries due to the great diversity of ecosystems, species and typologies of users. Strategic recommendations and research priorities were also identified to address knowledge gaps and are discussed in the context of the management of MRF across Europe., The 1st Workshop on Recreational Fishing on the Iberian Atlantic Coast was co-convened by the Federación Gallega de Pesca Marítima Responsible y Náutica de Recreo, WWF-Spain, the Federación Gallega de Actividades Subacuáticas, the International Forum for Sustainable Underwater Activities and the Universities of Santiago de Compostela, Minho and Aveiro. The workshop was also supported by the Confederación Española de Pesca Recreativa Responsible, the Federación Galega de Confrarías de Pescadores and the Autonomous Government of Galicia. The workshop was funded by the Autonomous Government of Galicia, RECREGES project under Grant [ED481B2014/034-0], by the conveners and through financial contributions of Baitra Accesorios Navales, Disvent Ingenieros, Jesús Betanzos Efectos Navales, Talleres Franinox and Yamaha. CP would also like to acknowledge FCT/MEC national funds and FEDER co-funding, within the PT2020 partnership Agreement and Compete 2020, for the financial support to CESAM, under Grant [UID/AMB/50017/2013].

Two payments for forest ecosystem services (PFES) schemes under one common legal-institutional coordination mechanism but different historical-institutional background and organizational design are analyzed to measure and explain their transaction costs (TC). Data on TC related to payment transfers and conditionality compliance are collected using a combination of in-depth interviews with local PFES scheme coordinators, site visits, and secondary data analysis. The two PFES schemes show substantial differences in TC despite the fact that they emerged from the same legal-institutional framework due to differences in participation rates, types of forest ecosystem services providers, and payment characteristics. (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier B.V.

The Cloud computing paradigm has revolutionised the computer science horizon during the past decade and has enabled the emergence of computing as the fifth utility. It has captured significant attention of academia, industries, and government bodies. Now, it has emerged as the backbone of modern economy by offering subscription-based services anytime, anywhere following a pay-as-you-go model. This has instigated (1) shorter establishment times for start-ups, (2) creation of scalable global enterprise applications, (3) better cost-to-value associativity for scientific and high performance computing applications, and (4) different invocation/execution models for pervasive and ubiquitous applications. The recent technological developments and paradigms such as serverless computing, software-defined networking, Internet of Things, and processing at network edge are creating new opportunities for Cloud computing. However, they are also posing several new challenges and creating the need for new approaches and research strategies, as well as the re-evaluation of the models that were developed to address issues such as scalability, elasticity, reliability, security, sustainability, and application models. The proposed manifesto addresses them by identifying the major open challenges in Cloud computing, emerging trends, and impact areas. It then offers research directions for the next decade, thus helping in the realisation of Future Generation Cloud Computing., Comment: 51 pages, 3 figures

The field of systematic conservation planning has grown substantially, with hundreds of publications in the peer-reviewed literature and numerous applications to regional conservation planning globally. However, the extent to which systematic conservation plans have influenced management is unclear. This paper analyses factors that facilitate the transition from assessment to implementation in conservation planning, in order to help integrate assessment and implementation into a seamless process. We propose a framework for designing implementation strategies, taking into account three critical planning aspects: processes, inputs, and context. Our review identified sixteen processes, which we broadly grouped into four themes and eight inputs. We illustrate how the framework can be used to inform context-dependent implementation strategies, using the process of ‘engagement’ as an example. The example application includes both lessons learned from successfully implemented plans across the engagement spectrum, and highlights key barriers that can hinder attempts to bridge the assessment-implementation gap. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s13280-018-1067-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Ecosystem services are cited as one of the many reasons for conserving declining vulture populations in Africa. We aimed to explore how communal farmers in Namibia perceive vultures and the ecosystem services they provide, with special focus on cultural and regulating ecosystem services. We surveyed 361 households across Namibia’s communal farmlands and found that over two-thirds of households liked vultures and found them useful, stating that they were harmless and useful for locating dead livestock. The minority of households who disliked vultures believed that they were killing their livestock. Poisoning was the main cause of vulture mortalities reported by farmers. While poisoning appears to be a concern for vultures in the communal farmlands, it appears that cultural use of vulture body parts is a minimal threat. We found that few farmers knew of cultural beliefs about vultures or uses for body parts; most farmers believed these beliefs and practices to be outdated. It is further promising that communal farmers have an overall positive perception of vultures. This highlights the potential for communal conservancies to bring attention to vulture conservation in their constituencies.

Waste management represents a challenge for public authorities due to many reasons such as increased waste generation following urban population growth, economic burdens imposed on the municipal budget, and nuisances inevitably caused to the environment and local inhabitants. To optimize the system from a sustainability perspective, moving the transition towards a more circular economy, a better understanding of the different stages of waste management is necessary. A review of recently developed sustainability frameworks for waste management showed that no single framework captures all the instruments needed to ultimately provide a solid basis for comprehensive analyses of the potential burdens associated with urban waste management. Bearing this limitation in mind, the objective of this research is to propose a conceptual and comprehensive sustainability framework to support decision-making in waste management of European cities. The framework comprises a combination of methods capable of identifying future strategies and scenarios, to assess different types of impacts based on a life cycle perspective, and considers the value of waste streams, the actors involved, and possible constraints of implementing scenarios. The social, economic, environmental, technical and political domains are covered, and special attention is paid to impacts affecting foremost the local population.

The most critical question for climate research is no longer about the problem, but about how to facilitate the transformative changes necessary to avoid catastrophic climate-induced change. Addressing this question, however, will require massive upscaling of research that can rapidly enhance learning about transformations. Ten essentials for guiding action-oriented transformation and energy research are therefore presented, framed in relation to second-order science. They include: (1) Focus on transformations to low-carbon, resilient living; (2) Focus on solution processes; (3) Focus on ‘how to’ practical knowledge; (4) Approach research as occurring from within the system being intervened; (5) Work with normative aspects; (6) Seek to transcend current thinking; (7) Take a multi-faceted approach to understand and shape change; (8) Acknowledge the value of alternative roles of researchers; (9) Encourage second-order experimentation; and (10) Be reflexive. Joint application of the essentials would create highly adaptive, reflexive, collaborative and impact-oriented research able to enhance capacity to respond to the climate challenge. At present, however, the practice of such approaches is limited and constrained by dominance of other approaches. For wider transformations to low carbon living and energy systems to occur, transformations will therefore also be needed in the way in which knowledge is produced and used.

Although marine protected areas can simultaneously contribute to biodiversity conservation and fisheries management, the global network is biased toward particular ecosystem types because they have been established primarily in an ad hoc fashion. The optimization of trade‐offs between biodiversity benefits and socioeconomic values increases success of protected areas and minimizes enforcement costs in the long run, but it is often neglected in marine spatial planning (MSP). Although the acquisition of spatially explicit socioeconomic data is perceived as a costly or secondary step in MSP, it is critical to account for lost opportunities by people whose activities will be restricted, especially fishers. We developed an easily reproduced habitat‐based approach to estimate the spatial distribution of opportunity cost to fishers in data‐poor regions. We assumed the most accessible areas have higher economic and conservation values than less accessible areas and their designation as no‐take zones represents a loss of fishing opportunities. We estimated potential distribution of fishing resources from bathymetric ranges and benthic habitat distribution and the relative importance of the different resources for each port of total catches, revenues, and stakeholder perception. In our model, we combined different cost layers to produce a comprehensive cost layer so that we could evaluate of trade‐offs. Our approach directly supports conservation planning, can be applied generally, and is expected to facilitate stakeholder input and community acceptance of conservation.

Objective To investigate whether simulation-based obstetric team training in a simulation centre improves patient outcome. Design Multicentre, open, cluster randomised controlled trial. Setting Obstetric units in the Netherlands. Population Women with a singleton pregnancy beyond 24 weeks of gestation. Methods Random allocation of obstetric units to a 1-day, multi-professional, simulation-based team training focusing on crew resource management (CRM) in a simulation centre or to no such team training. Intention-to-treat analyses were performed at the cluster level, including a measurement 1 year prior to the intervention. Main outcome measures Primary outcome was a composite outcome of obstetric complications during the first year post-intervention, including low Apgar score, severe postpartum haemorrhage, trauma due to shoulder dystocia, eclampsia and hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy. Maternal and perinatal mortality were also registered. Results Each study group included 12 units with a median unit size of 1224 women, combining for a total of 28 657 women. In total, 471 medical professionals received the training course. The composite outcome of obstetric complications did not differ between study groups [odds ratio (OR) 1.0, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.80–1.3]. Team training reduced trauma due to shoulder dystocia (OR 0.50, 95% CI 0.25–0.99) and increased invasive treatment for severe postpartum haemorrhage (OR 2.2, 95% CI 1.2–3.9) compared with no intervention. Other outcomes did not differ between study groups. Conclusion A 1-day, off-site, simulation-based team training, focusing on teamwork skills, did not reduce a composite of obstetric complications. Tweetable abstract 1-day, off-site, simulation-based team training did not reduce a composite of obstetric complications.

Recent coastal planning measures in south-east Portugal (Algarve), where offshore aquaculture developments were set up in fishing areas aiming to maximize expected utility of seafood production activities, raised some discontentment. Public policies created to safeguard offshore aquaculture (OSA) producers and limit small-scale fishing (SSF) activities must be adjusted accordingly in order to maximize income and keep discontentment at a minimum. We collected primary data from stakeholders, fishers (n = 18) and offshore aquaculture operators (n = 3) through participatory workshops and interviews by eliciting problematic issues derived from the offshore area creation and their relative relevance. We used these data to populate conditional probability tables and construct a related influence diagram (Bayesian belief networks) to model the affected system. We selected nine scenarios based on navigability and aquaculture area size with the aim of finding the best expected utility combinations for the OSA SSF system. The inferred results show that maximizing employment and keep pollution at low levels were the most influential factors to keep the system at a satisfactory level. The best decision was not to enlarge the aquaculture area, but to condition the access to other operational stakeholders, namely SSF operators from nearby areas. The overall results of the Bayesian belief network can be used to recommend coastal planners and decision-makers to deal with the interaction between OSA and SSF activities.(c) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. FEDER Program through the project IAPAA "Avaliacao do impacto da area de producao aquicola da Armona no ecossistema costeiro e comunidades locais" (Portugal) [31-03-01-FEP-0014] info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

We identify four choice dimensions that determine the configuration and evolution of governance: formal-informal institutions, network-central steering, local-scientific knowledge and representation-participation. Choices on one dimension affect choices on the other dimensions, which naturally leads to historical dependency. We integrate these insights in a model of governance evolution that revolves around actor/institution configurations and power/knowledge configurations. In a case study of ice fishing villages on Minnesota's Lake Mille Lacs, we investigate one specific set of couplings between the choice dimensions. As we can study the local ice fishing tradition from its very beginning, the evolutionary paths of technology and institutions provide insights into how choices were made along the different dimensions and how they interacted. The case study illustrates how to apply the model, but also contributes to its further development as it draws attention to possible extensions: concepts of scale and identity. peerreview_statement: The publishing and review policy for this title is described in its Aims & Scope. aims_and_scope_url: http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=aimsScope&journalCode=cjep20 ispartof: Journal of Environmental Planning and Management vol:57 issue:8 pages:1122-1144 status: published

The application of the ecosystem services (ES) concept in land use planning has great potential to enhance the awareness of planning actors on their interactions. At the same time it can contribute to improve the linkage between the role of land use patterns and the understanding of land system functioning and its contribution to human well-being. The concept should be developed in a way that can be applicable in socio-ecological systems where nature and society are capable of enhancing their roles mutually. The objective of this paper is to suggest a standardized scheme and generalizable criteria to assess how successful the application of the ES concept contributed to facilitate participatory planning. We consider three potential advantages and three critical aspects for how to improve the applicability and relevance of the ES concept in planning. Hereon based, we present a balanced score card tool for which we broke down to advantages and risks into concrete questions. We illustrate the application of this approach with two case studies, representatives of two major governance schemes in relation to land use planning. We demonstrate that the balanced score card approach helps to reveal potential imbalances regarding the consideration of different ES groups. It supports testing the potential of the ES concept to enhance or not interactions of local and regional actors. We conclude that the framework should be reconsidered after a set of case studies to be developed into a monitoring tool for supporting planning practices.

We examine in discrete time the management of a flow pollutant that causes damage when it crosses a fixed but unknown threshold. The manager sequentially chooses a pollution level that allows learning about the threshold, thereby improving future decisions. If crossed, damage can be reversed at some cost. We analyze the conditions under which experimentation is optimal, and explore how experimentation depends on restoration costs, information about the threshold, and the discount rate. Our results suggest that the level of experimentation, defined as the difference between the optimal activity with and without learning, is non-monotonic in costs and decreasing in the discount rate. We identify two stopping boundaries for the experiment, depending on cost levels compared to the lower bound of the threshold’s interval. We show that when costs are high the stopping boundary under an infinite number of decisions is the same as when there are only two decision moments. A computational extension to more than two decisions suggests that an optimal sequence of experiments can cross the same threshold several times before experimentation ceases. These results shed light on a large class of environmental decision problems that has not been examined in the literature.

We use a new dataset from war-torn Burundi to explore how various institutional proxies affect investments in soil conservation. We “unbundle” institutions and distinguish between various proxies for tenure security and social norms. While we find significant correlations between certain proxies for tenure and social norms on the one hand, and investments in erosion management on the other, this is not true for all proxies. Using local conflict measures as instruments for institutional quality, we find tentative evidence of a causal effect of tenure security on erosion management, but not on investments improving short-term soil fertility.

This paper reports and reflects on the contributions of land use models to societal problem solving. Its purpose is to inform model development and application and thus to increase chances for societal benefit of the modelling work. The key question is: How, when, and for what reasons does land use modelling contribute to societal problem solving? Addressing this question, we rely on a synthesis of three studies, reported more extensively elsewhere. Our research experience, as demonstrated by the three studies used as examples, implies that the impacts of using land use models are diverse. These impacts are not limited to learning about a land system, but extend to learning about the views, norms and values of other actors. Also, land use modelling work may enhance mediation of conflicts between stakeholders and contribute to community-building. The synthesis suggests that we need to anticipate the relatively fluid and fuzzy features of social contexts and problem solving processes to harness land use modelling for societal problem solving. To capture these features, we developed a conceptual framework that links five important factors for understanding the contribution of modelling to societal change. Four contextual factors are distinguished and a set of processes that are important for these four factors to become fruitfully matched. The four contextual factors are: problem solving dynamics; model types; boundary arrangements; roles of models. The matching consists of contextualization and network building. In view of these findings we conclude that in designing a modelling strategy equal attention should be paid to the requirements for model development and the embedding of the work in a given/intended societal context. For those who pursue the use of science-based land use models, a number of activities seem particularly relevant: 1. Exploration of the possible and desired impacts of the land use model; 2. Network building of modellers, potential users and stakeholders; 3. Model contextualization, i.e. the explication of values and aspirations underlying the modelling work, fitting the model to a social and biophysical context and interpretation of modelling results in relation to other knowledge sources such as expert knowledge; 4. Fostering feelings of interdependency between the participants in the problem solving process.

An integrated methodological framework for ex-ante evaluation and planning of public policies for sustainable agriculture at agro-landscape level is proposed. The components of the framework are to: (1) determine the private, i.e. farmers’, and public benefits associated to agro-landscapes, consisting of an agricultural land-use system, according to its performance for several market and non-market functions. Market forces determine the market benefits and preferences of society the non-market benefits; (2) explore and select potential sustainable agro-landscapes based on the private and public benefits associated with possible land-use alternatives; (3) define efficient public policy mechanisms for improving social net benefit of agro-landscapes. The framework is illustrated with a case study in a small dairy farming dominated agro-landscape in The Netherlands, with gross margin, landscape quality, nature value and environmental health as the analysed ecosystem functions. Alternative landscapes consisting of hedgerow configurations and grassland management practices were explored, yielding a set of alternatives representing the solution space in terms of change in private and public benefits. Policy mechanisms were defined to move from the current to a desired landscape based on changes in social net benefits. Moreover, the necessity of a modification in the current agri-environmental support was analysed for each landscape. The analysis considered all farmers in the agro-landscape jointly. The results for the case study showed potential prototypes of landscapes and their performance compared to the current landscape. Extension was the most efficient policy mechanism to promote the change to the socially optimum landscape alternative.

Decision support systems can be helpful tools in wetland planning and management. Decision support systems can contribute to efficient exchange of information between experts, stakeholders, decision makers and laypeople. However, the achievements of decision support systems are repeatedly being reported as modest. The objective of this article is to specify the roles and requirements of decision support tools in wetland planning. Why do such tools often fail and how can they be improved? Too often, systems are developed from a technological developers' push (supply-driven) rather than through a demand-driven process where the need for certain technologies to effectively support decision processes is being specified. It is questioned whether (often technocratic) tools are still equipped to support the complex planning and management process where different stakeholders interact. Two tools are described, which have been developed to facilitate negotiations in wetland planning and both tend to be less data-driven and more directed to play a role in participatory processes. From experiences with the development of the two decision support efforts we derive suggestions for improvement. The first tool uses spatial multi-criteria analysis techniques, to enable a structured analysis of the diversity of the water management issues. The second tool focuses on interactive design and spatial negotiation. It is concluded that application of this category of tools can be promising in early phases of decision-making. Their main contribution is to help to overcome unnecessary conflicts, to stimulate collaborative planning, to structure the problem and to provide insight in values and preferences of stakeholders involved. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

When the stakes of stakeholders are not properly incorporated during early phases of a planning process, it may later give rise to severe conflicts. The issue of how to deal with stakeholders in regional water management has been a subject of ongoing debate in the Netherlands. This paper promotes a 'platform' approach where stakeholders collectively attempt to develop plans for regional water management. Ideas for this platform approach are based on a review of research on groups governing common-pool resources. We argue that simple negotiation and mediation support tools can offer useful support and can serve to facilitate platform negotiations. We present a simple mediation and negotiation tool to support the early phases of such a land use planning process. The tool translates stakeholder preferences on the use of the landscape into spatially explicit value maps. Proposed plans can be evaluated and potential conflicts can be identified. The use of such a tool enables stakeholders and mediators to formulate explicitly the problems that need to be addressed in the decision-making process. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Within the ecological assessment of running waters based on benthic macroinvertebrates different levels of taxonomic resolution (species, genus, family and higher) are in use. Although assessment systems are often developed with detailed data on species level, water managers and other end-users could like to use data on higher taxonomic levels to assess the ecological quality of a water body because of limited human or money resources. The question that arises is, if an assessment system built with species level data is also applicable using data with a higher taxonomic resolution. Within the AQEM project a multimetric assessment system was developed to evaluate the ecological quality classes (from bad (1) to high (5) ecological quality) of different stream types throughout Europe. The present study focuses on the question whether the resulting water quality class changes using the AQEM Assessment Software (AAS) with different taxonomic resolutions and if yes, how large the deviations of ecological quality classes from the original classes are and if the deviations are unidirectional. For analyses data from four Austrian and two Dutch stream types were used. It is demonstrated that the assignment of a site to an ecological quality class may change if different taxonomic levels are used. Deviations in both directions (higher/lower ecological quality class) were observed. In most cases the divergence was only one ecological quality class, but also larger deviations occasionally occurred. The causes of changes in the assessment were investigated by separately looking into the underlying metrics of the multimetric system. Some of the evaluated metrics rely on autecological information on species level and are simply not applicable on higher taxonomic levels. Other metrics worked on higher taxonomic levels as well and showed more or less good distinctions between ecological quality classes. It is concluded that the AQEM Assessment Software is not applicable if data on higher taxonomic levels are used. As the deviations were not unidirectional and ranged from one to three ecological quality classes, it is not possible to include a correction factor for using the software with higher taxonomic resolution data.

Expectations about ecosystem based management (EBM) differ due to diverging perspectives about what EBM should be and how it should work. While EBM by its nature requires trade-offs to be made between ecological, economic and social sustainability criteria, the diversity of cross-sectoral perspectives, values, stakes, and the specificity of each individual situation determine the outcome of these trade-offs. The authors strive to raise awareness of the importance of interaction between three stakeholder groups (decision makers, scientists, and other actors) and argue that choosing appropriate degrees of interaction between them in a transparent way can make EBM more effective in terms of the three effectiveness criteria salience, legitimacy, and credibility. This article therefore presents an interaction triangle in which three crucial dimensions of stakeholder interactions are discussed: (A) between decision makers and scientists, who engage in framing to foster salience of scientific input to decision making, (B) between decision makers and other actors, to shape participation processes to foster legitimacy of EBM processes, and (C) between scientists and other actors, who collaborate to foster credibility of knowledge production. Due to the complexity of EBM, there is not one optimal interaction approach; rather, finding the optimal degrees of interaction for each dimension depends on the context in which EBM is implemented, i.e. the EBM objectives, the EBM initiator’s willingness for transparency and interaction, and other context-specific factors, such as resources, trust, and state of knowledge.

This study investigated the effects of legal and societal punishment on fishermen's compliance behaviour, according to fishermen's age and level of dependency on fisheries, through the use of interviews and scenarios. Ninety-five fishermen living in a coastal park (Ponta do Tubardo Sustainable Development Reserve) in the Brazilian northeast, where controlled exploitation of natural resources is allowed, took part in this study. The results showed that age alone would not affect compliance, regardless of the level of enforcement. However, it was noticed that the fishermen who claimed to depend on the money provided by fisheries, regardless of their age, were more likely to say that they would not comply, even if enforcement were stricter. The scenario analysis showed that increased monitoring and punishment (including societal pressure) could enhance compliance, especially among younger fishermen, who claimed not to depend solely on fisheries. Therefore, fisheries management should also consider differences in social groups, and not focus solely on the enforcement and punishment mechanisms, assuring that livelihood options that consider different social needs are provided. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

peer-reviewed. NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Marine Policy. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Marine Policy, [Volume 42, 56-67, (2013)] doi: doi:10.1016/j.marpol.2013.01.023 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165783612002032, Interaction with ecological models can improve stakeholder participation in fisheries management. Problems exist in efficiently communicating outputs to stakeholders and an objective method of structuring stakeholder differences is lacking. This paper aims to inform the design of a multi-user communication interface for fisheries management by identifying functional stakeholder groups. Intuitive categorisation of stakeholders, derived from survey responses, is contrasted with an evidence-based method derived from analysis of stakeholder literature. Intuitive categorisation relies on interpretation and professional judgement when categorising stakeholders among conventional stakeholder groups. Evidence-Based categorisation quantitatively characterises each stakeholder with a vector of four management objective interest strength values (Yield, Employment, Profit and Ecosystem Preservation). Survey respondents agreed little in forming intuitive groups and the groups were poorly defined and heterogeneous in interests. In contrast the Evidence-Based clusters were well defined and largely homogeneous, so more useful for identifying functional relations with model outputs. The categorisations lead to two different clusterings of stakeholders and suggest unhelpful stereotyping of stakeholders may occur with the Intuitive categorisation method. Stakeholder clusters based on literature-evidence show a high degree of common interests among clusters and is encouraging for those seeking to maximise dialogue and consensus forming.

Assessing the sustainability of a regional agricultural system is complex, because in different decision-making contexts stakeholders can use different criteria and methodologies, thus arriving at different and contrasting judgments. One way of dealing with the complexity of measuring the concept of sustainability is to adopt a multidimensional perspective, which recognizes the presence of an economic dimension which requires feasibility, a social dimension which requires acceptability, and an environmental dimension which requires carrying capacity. Many approaches for measuring sustainability face the difficulty to reconcile this multidimensional perspective with the necessity to come up with a "synthetic" and one-dimensional assessment measure that could be used for both policy-making and methodological purposes. The goal of this paper is to contribute to the development of a methodological approach that can simplify the assessment procedure of sustainability of agricultural systems, while considering the multidimensional perspective. We used the three dimensions of sustainability to define two economic indicators, two social indicators, and four environmental indicators of sustainability. Then we used Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to partition 252 European agricultural regions into a subset of DEA-efficient regions and a subset of non-efficient regions under five scenarios. The scenarios reflect preferences with respect to the importance of the three dimensions of sustainability. Impact of model choices such as constant versus variable returns to scale, input versus output orientation, and balancing constraints is shown. The combination of multidimensional perspective and DEA allowed to operationalize the complex and sophisticated concept of sustainability. Applying DEA at the EU regional level enabled analysis of the heterogeneity of performances within each EU Member State and among them. This heterogeneity is a fundamental research topic in the domain of assessment of sustainability of agricultural systems. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Drought and water scarcity are keywords for river basin management in water-stressed regions. “Drought” is a natural hazard, caused by large-scale climatic variability, and cannot be prevented by local water management. “Water scarcity” refers to the long-term unsustainable use of water resources, which water managers can influence. Making the distinction between drought and water scarcity is not trivial, because they often occur simultaneously. In this paper, we propose an observation-modeling framework to separate natural (drought) and human (water scarcity) effects on the hydrological system. The basis of the framework is simulation of the situation that would have occurred without human influence, the “naturalized” situation, using a hydrological model. The resulting time series of naturalized state variables and fluxes are then compared to observed time series. As second, more important and novel step, anomalies (i.e., deviations from a threshold) are determined from both time series and compared. We demonstrate the use of the proposed observation-modeling framework in the Upper-Guadiana catchment in Spain. Application of the framework to the period 1980–2000 shows that the impact of groundwater abstraction on the hydrological system was, on average, four times as high as the impact of drought. Water scarcity resulted in disappearance of the winter high-flow period, even in relatively wet years, and a nonlinear response of groundwater. The proposed observation-modeling framework helps water managers in water-stressed regions to quantify the relative impact of drought and water scarcity on a transient basis and, consequently, to make decisions regarding adaptation to drought and combating water scarcity.

There is emerging agreement that sustainability challenges require new ways of knowledge production and decision-making. One key aspect of sustainability science, therefore, is the involvement of actors from outside academia into the research process in order to integrate the best available knowledge, reconcile values and preferences, as well as create ownership for problems and solution options. Transdisciplinary, community-based, interactive, or participatoryresearch approaches are often suggested as appropriate means to meet both the requirements posed by real-world problems as well as the goals of sustainability science as a transformational scientific field. Dispersed literature on these approaches and a variety of empirical projects applying them make it difficult for interested researchers and practitioners to review and become familiar with key components and design principles of how to do transdisciplinary sustainability research. Starting from a conceptual model of an ideal–typical transdisciplinary research process, this article synthesizes and structures such a set of principles from various strands of the literature and empirical experiences. We then elaborate on them, looking at challenges and some coping strategies as experienced in transdisciplinary sustainability projects in Europe, North America, South America, Africa, and Asia. The article concludes with future research needed in order to further enhance the practice of transdisciplinary sustainability research. There is emerging agreement that sustainability challenges require new ways of knowledge production and decision-making. One key aspect of sustainability science, therefore, is the involvement of actors from outside academia into the research process in order to integrate the best available knowledge, reconcile values and preferences, as well as create ownership for problems and solution options. Transdisciplinary, community-based, interactive, or participatory research approaches are often suggested as appropriate means to meet both the requirements posed by real-world problems as well as the goals of sustainability science as a transformational scientific field. Dispersed literature on these approaches and a variety of empirical projects applying them make it difficult for interested researchers and practitioners to review and become familiar with key components and design principles of how to do transdisciplinary sustainability research. Starting from a conceptual model of an ideal-typical transdisciplinary research process, this article synthesizes and structures such a set of principles from various strands of the literature and empirical experiences. We then elaborate on them, looking at challenges and some coping strategies as experienced in transdisciplinary sustainability projects in Europe, North America, South America, Africa, and Asia. The article concludes with future research needed in order to further enhance the practice of transdisciplinary sustainability research. © 2012 Springer.

To contribute to the development of strategies for sustainable agricultural land use and biodiversity conservation in landscapes without formal protection status, we investigated the local use and management of noncultivated plants as important ecosystem functions of inland valleys in south Benin and Togo, and local perceptions on changes in plant biodiversity and causes for these changes. Local users of noncultivated plants perceived agriculture and construction as major factors contributing to the reduction of (noncultivated) plant biodiversity. However, they also collect many useful species from agricultural fields and the village. A small community forest reserve and a 2-ha community garden were the only organized forms of conservation management. Observed ad hoc conservation initiatives were selective harvesting of plant parts, preserving trees during land clearing, and allowing useful weed species in the field. Future development and conservation efforts in unprotected landscapes with multiple ecosystem functions should acknowledge knowledge, interests, and needs of local communities.

In Critical Systems Thinking, the notion of boundary judgements represents a constructionist view on knowing as the bounding of components of reality into knowable objects. Cognitive boundary judgements determine observations (facts) and evaluations (values), which knowers appreciate and act in relation to. Werner Ulrich’s method of dialogical boundary critique and the framework of Critical Systems Heuristics (CSH) are intended to enable citizen participation in Western democracies through acknowledgement of legitimate competencies in public and corporate dialogues. This paper investigates the application of this methodology in Philippine coastal resource management. The conclusions are based on stakeholder-based action planning carried out between November 2007 and May 2008 in the Babuyan group of islands, bounded by the Balintang and Babuyan Channels. It argues that dialogical boundary critique requires significant adaptation if it is to provide a liberating language for participants in Philippine resource management dilemmas shaped by multiple and conflicting knowledge claims under conditions of significant controversy

"Scale issues are an increasingly important feature of complex sustainability issues, but they are mostly taken for granted in policy processes. However, the scale at which a problem is defined as well as the scale at which it should be solved are potentially contentious issues. The framing of a problem as a local, regional, or global problem is not without consequences and influences processes of inclusion and exclusion. Little is known about the ways actors frame scales and the effect of different scale frames on decision making processes. This paper addresses the questions that different scale frames actors use and what the implications of scale frames are for policy processes. It does so by analyzing the scale frames deployed by different actors on the establishment of a so-called new mixed company or mega farm and the related decision making process in a Dutch municipality. We find that actors deploy different and conflicting scale frames, leading to scale frame mismatches. We conclude that scale frame mismatches play an important role in the stagnation of the decision making process."

In the Philippines, Integrated Coastal Management (ICM) represents the dominant response to narratives of ecosystem decline. However, there are persistent challenges to implementation, manifested in continued resource degradation, questioning of the exercise of stakeholder involvement and rising resource conflicts. This paper examines the implementation process and how the assumptions embodied in the ICM regime meet the local reality in one group of islands in the Philippine archipelago. The evidence shows how the transformation towards a supposed equilibrium state of coastal ecosystems is undermined in the face of diverging stakeholder agendas. Expected actors are disempowered by the incoherence between the policy owners' worldview and reality, paving the way for unethical influence from elite alliances. This is coupled with a deepening of the dominance of state, international development banks, foreign aid agencies, and NGOs in promoting their respective interests. In localities such as the Babuyan Islands, when assumptions of ICM collapse it has destructive consequences for fisherfolk and the coastal environment. We conclude that if ICM is to foster an effective and equitable correction of current unsustainable exploitation patterns, then there is a need to institute improved accountability mechanisms in the devolved governance system as well as taking seriously the espoused commitment to stakeholder involvement in determining the goals and assumptions of ICM.

Modeling has emerged as a key technology in analysis of social–ecological systems. However, the tendency for modeling to focus on the mechanistic materiality of biophysical systems obscures the diversity of performative social behaviors and normative cultural positions of actors within the modeled system. The fact that changes in the biophysical system can be culturally constructed in different ways means that the perception and pursuit of adaptive pathways can be highly variable. Furthermore, the adoption of biophysically resilient livelihoods can occur under conditions that are subjectively experienced as the radical transformation of cultural systems. The objectives of this work are to: (1) highlight the importance of understanding the place of culture within social–ecological systems, (2) explore the tensions between empirical and normative positions in the analysis of social–ecological resilience, and (3) suggest how empirical modeling of social–ecological systems can synergistically interact with normative aspects of livelihoods and lifeways.

Modeling has emerged as a key technology in analysis of social–ecological systems. However, the tendency for modeling to focus on the mechanistic materiality of biophysical systems obscures the diversity of performative social behaviors and normative cultural positions of actors within the modeled system. The fact that changes in the biophysical system can be culturally constructed in different ways means that the perception and pursuit of adaptive pathways can be highly variable. Furthermore, the adoption of biophysically resilient livelihoods can occur under conditions that are subjectively experienced as the radical transformation of cultural systems. The objectives of this work are to: (1) highlight the importance of understanding the place of culture within social–ecological systems, (2) explore the tensions between empirical and normative positions in the analysis of social–ecological resilience, and (3) suggest how empirical modeling of social–ecological systems can synergistically interact with normative aspects of livelihoods and lifeways.

Commonage represents land held under common property that incorporates a system of local cooperative arrangements and rules to conserve and manage the Irish uplands. We analyze the institutional and economic factors that influence the behavior of commonage farmers under a common property regime using a recursive bivariate probit model. Results show that (1) cooperation has a positive and important impact on commonage conservation; (2) agricultural policies by way of livestock premia increase the level of degradation; while (3) farm financial support through agrienvironment measures positively affects commonage conservation and encourages cooperation between farmers.

Adaptive management has the potential to make environmental management more democratic through the involvement of different stakeholders. In this article, we examine three case studies at different scales that followed adaptive management processes, critically reflecting upon the role of stakeholder participation in each case. Specifically, we examine at which stages different types of stakeholders can play key roles and the ways that each might be involved. We show that a range of participatory mechanisms can be employed at different stages of the adaptive cycle, and can work together to create conditions for social learning and favorable outcomes for diverse stakeholders. This analysis highlights the need for greater reflection on case study research in order to further refine participatory processes within adaptive management. This should not only address the shortcomings and successes of adaptive management as a form of democratic environmental governance, but should also unpack the links between science, institutions, knowledge, and power.

Different fields within a farm have been observed to have different soil fertility status and this may affect the response of a maize crop to applied N, P, and K fertiliser. A limiting nutrient trial was carried out at six farms each, in three districts of Western Kenya. In each of the farms, the following treatments were laid out in three fields with different soil fertility status at different distances from the homestead (close, mid-distance, remote fields): no inputs, application of NPK, NP, NK, or PK fertiliser (urea, triple super phosphate, KCl) to maize. Total soil N decreased at all sites with distance to the homestead (from 1.30 to 1.06 g kg−1), as did Olsen-P (from 10.5 to 2.3 mg kg−1). Grain yields in the no-input control plots reflected this decrease in soil fertility status with distance to the homestead (from 2.59 to 1.59 t ha−1). In the NPK treatments, however, this difference between field types disappeared (from 3.43 to 3.98 t ha−1), indicating that N and P are the major limiting nutrients in the target areas. Response to applied N was related to the soil total N content in Aludeka and Shinyalu, but not in Emuhaia, probably related to the high use of partially decomposed organic inputs with limited N availability. Consequently, response to applied N decreased with distance to the homestead in Aludeka (from 0.95 kg kg−1 relative yield to 0.55 kg kg−1) and Shinyalu (from 0.76 kg kg−1 to 0.47 kg kg−1), but not in Emuhaia (from 0.75 kg kg−1 to 0.68 kg kg−1). Response to applied P was related to the soil Olsen-P content at all sites. While for farms with a relatively high Olsen-P gradient, response to applied P decreased with distance to the homestead (from 0.99 kg kg−1 to 0.68 kg kg−1), large variability in Olsen-P gradients across field types among farms within a specific site often masked clear differences in response to P between field types for a specific site. Clear scope for field-specific fertiliser recommendations exists, provided these are based on local soil knowledge and diagnosis. Scenario analysis, using farm-scale modelling tools, could assist in determining optimum allocation strategies of scarcely available fertiliser for maximum fertiliser use efficiency.

Mainstream opinions put forward the idea that changes in water policies should be moving toward Integrated Water Resources Management at the level of the river basin (or watersheds). For its implementation, participation by river basin organizations (river basin authorities, river basin committees, communities of users, multi-stakeholder platforms, etc.) and by stakeholders is promoted. Multi-Stakeholder Platforms (MSPs) are presented as neutral spaces for negotiations in order to solve water conflicts among different (multiple) actors, who are all invited to participate in the discussion. Evidence from this case study suggests that even where water is put forward as the main issue to be tackled, in the background there may be far more sensitive issues at stake that shape the arenas of negotiation of policy design and implementation. MSPs can be used to bring to the fore issues that are easy to address, but can also be the background for wider social and political complexities. This is pursued using technical language to justify political definitions of boundaries, stakeholders and processes of participation. The `Watershed as a unit of planning¿ approach is also presented as a neutral way of using a technical definition to set the boundaries for resource management. However, this study shows that the definition of boundaries is not necessarily as natural as it appears but is much more of a political decision that defines which resources are involved and which actors are considered or left out. The `multiple¿ in MSPs is not only about `stakeholders¿, but the different constructions of boundaries, scales and political interests, which include and exclude stakeholders. In the implementation of an MSP, the Multiple is rhetorical and not a representation of realties