Abstract
Context
Engaging stakeholders in research is needed for many of the sustainability challenges that landscape ecologists address. Involving stakeholders’ perspectives through narratives in participatory modeling fosters better understanding of the problem and evaluation of the acceptability of tradeoffs and creates buy-in for management actions. However, stakeholder-driven inputs often take the form of complex qualitative descriptions, rather than model-ready numerical or categorical inputs.
Objectives
Translating narratives into models, model parameters, or scenarios is essential for leveraging stakeholder knowledge and engagement. Drawing from varied experiences to identify lessons learned and pitfalls, we address the practice of translating narratives into models and using those narratives to interpret and communicate results.
Methods
We drew from seven participatory landscape ecology projects across North America to synthesize lessons for the inclusion of stakeholder narratives in modeling studies.
Results
We offer 8 lessons as practical guidance for other landscape ecologists to move the science beyond a unilateral focus on ecological systems and to maximize the benefits of landscape sustainability science.
Conclusions
These lessons are starting points, as real projects are complex, nuanced, and sometimes contradictory. Translating narratives into models is important for addressing complex sustainability challenges; we hope that these starting points are helpful to those foraying into this type of research.
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Funding
The Johns Island Community Conservation Initiative was funded by the Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation. The Spaces between the Bases project was funded by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (F20AC00042). The Central Valley Futures project was funded by the NASA Applied Sciences Ecological Forecasting Program (#NNX17AG81G) and the U.S. Geological Survey Land Change Science Program. The Rio Grande/Bravo project was supported by the U.S. Geological Survey (#G15AP00132). The Great South Woods Complex Planning project was funded by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. The Sustainable Agriculture in Northwestern Mexico and the Western Highlands of Guatemala project was funded by support provided to Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) by the Office of U.S. Agency for International Development Bureau for Food Security, under the terms of Contract No. MTO 069018 “The multi-donor trust fund for the CGIAR” as well as through the financial support from the CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs) on Wheat Agri-Food Systems (WHEAT) and Maize Agri-Food Systems (MAIZE), and the Smith Center for International Sustainable Agriculture, University of Tennessee, Knoxville. ORNL is managed by the UT-Battelle, LLC, for DOE under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725. VHD’s contributions were developed as part of the research supported by the National Science Foundation project #1856059. The Companion modelling with serious game project was funded by Quebec Ministry of Economy, Innovation and Exportation, MiTACS Acceleration, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation,U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, F20AC00042, F20AC00042, U.S. Geological Survey, G15AP00132, G15AP00132, Office of U.S. Agency for International Development Bureau for Food Security,MTO 069018,MTO 069018,CGIAR Research Programs, Smith Center for International Sustainable Agriculture,University of Tennessee, National Science Foundation, 1856059, U.S. Geological Survey Land Change Science Program, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Ministère de l'Économie, de l’Innovation et des Exportations du Québec, MiTACS Acceleration, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
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Vukomanovic, J., Smart, L.S., Koch, J. et al. Translating stakeholder narratives for participatory modeling in landscape ecology. Landsc Ecol 38, 2453–2474 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-023-01724-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-023-01724-9