Translating stakeholder narratives for participatory modeling in landscape ecology
Not provided.
Environmental Sciences & Ecology↗
Engineering topics
Dale, Virginia
Publications and source records attributed to Dale, Virginia.
An Indicator-based Approach to Sustainable Management of Natural Resources (Chapter 12)
Assessing the sustainability of natural resource management choices for agricultural and forest lands requires quantification of potential changes to a set of environmental and socioeconomic indicators selected to characterize reference scenarios relative to projected future scenarios. Correctly framing the questions with local stakeholders is a critical first step in the sustainability assessment, and the questions that can be addressed are often limited by data availability. Selecting and prioritizing indicators with stakeholders to address their needs and concerns improves the likelihood of investment in monitoring and evaluation of those indicators over time. Computational techniques for analyzing interactions between the selected indicators are inherently affected by the scales and formats of the assembled indicator datasets. Data analytics have the potential to improve understanding of the potential synergies and tradeoffs involved with meeting multiple environmental and socioeconomic goals simultaneously, but timely and appropriate indicator datasets are not always available—even in this new era of “big data.” Continued improvements in data science and data analytics are needed to broaden understanding and acceptance of problems and to provide valuable information for natural resource management. Advances in these areas will enable society to design future landscapes that meet multiple objectives, including the provisioning of agricultural and forest resources along with a variety of ecosystem services (e.g., clean water and healthy soils).
Parish, Esther↗
Assessing Effects on Biodiversity from Wood Pellet Production in the Southeastern United States
Applying an approach to assess effects of forest management practices on species of concern identifies mitigation activities that can reduce or avoid impacts of bioenergy pellet production on gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus).
09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
Protecting Biodiversity through Forest Management: Lessons Learned and Strategies for Success
The strong links among biodiversity, forests, and climate change require that forces affecting them be addressed simultaneously. Here we summarize findings and lessons learned from decades of field work exploring ways to balance conservation with development, while effectively addressing drivers of deforestation and biodiversity loss. Examples are provided for approaches to forest management that support both biodiversity conservation and greenhouse gas mitigation. Causes of deforestation are reviewed and recommendations provided for specific steps that would slow the loss of high conservation-value forests.
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
Enhance indigenous agricultural systems to reduce migration
Changes in social and environmental conditions in the Western Highlands of Guatemala undermine food security and job opportunities. Here, we describe how targeted assistance can build upon traditional agricultural systems to increase adaptive capacity, improve nutrition, provide jobs and thereby reduce pressures to migrate.
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
The importance of reference conditions in assessing effects of bioenergy wood pellets produced in the southeastern United States
Documenting reference conditions is essential when assessing the effects of industrial wood pellet production. Reference conditions describe what is expected to occur in the absence of pellet production. Forests in the southeastern United States (SE US) are under pressure from development and other disturbances. Thus, reference conditions need to consider the alternate fates of the biomass used for pellets and the role international pellet markets can play to support retention of land in forests and good forest management practices that reduce risks of pest outbreaks, wildfires, and other disturbances.
09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
Simulation games that integrate research, entertainment, and learning around ecosystem services
Humans currently spend over 3 billion person-hours per week playing computer games. Most of these games are purely for entertainment, but use of computer games for education has also expanded dramatically. At the same time, experimental games have become a staple of social science research but have depended on relatively small sample sizes and simple, abstract situations, limiting their range and applicability. If only a fraction of the time spent playing computer games could be harnessed for research, it would open up a huge range of new opportunities. We review the use of games in research, education, and entertainment and develop ideas for integrating these three functions around the idea of ecosystem services valuation. This approach to valuation can be seen as a version of choice modeling that allows players to generate their own scenarios taking account of the trade-offs embedded in the game, rather than simply ranking pre-formed scenarios. We outline a prototype game called Lagom Island to test the proposition that gaming can be used to reveal the value of ecosystem services. Ultimately, our prototype provides a potential pathway and functional building blocks for approaching the relatively untapped potential of games in the context of ecosystem services research.
97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
ORNL Bioenergy Technologies
ORNL researchers discuss breakthroughs in biomass conversion, feedstocks, logistics and sustainability.
09 BIOMASS FUELS↗