To co-produce or not to co-produce

As part of the SESYNC project on "The science of knowledge use in decision-making" and led by Maria Carmen Lemos, we have published a piece in Nature Sustainability on the co-production of knowledge between scientistis and decision-makers.

To co-produce or not to co-produce

Researchers, stakeholders and funding organizations have embraced co-production of knowledge to solve sustainability problems. Research focusing on the practice of co-production can help us understand what works in what contexts and how to avoid potentially undesirable outcomes.

In this Comment, we discuss knowledge co-production as a focus of research and as a rapidly spreading practice among scientists, stakeholders and funders seeking to increase the role of science in solving society’s most pressing problems. We write as a group of researchers, stakeholders, funders and co-production practitioners operating at the intersection of knowledge production and use — a space that happily is becoming larger and more crowded. We believe in advancing co-production as an important approach to increasing the impact of science, but we also believe that doing so requires recognizing its limitations and grappling with problems that arise as the practice of co-production becomes more broadly taken up and institutionalized.

Lemos, M. C., Arnott, J. C., Ardoin, N. M., Baja, K., Bednarek, A. T., Dewulf, A., … Wyborn, C. (2018). To co-produce or not to co-produce. Nature Sustainability, 1(12), 722–724. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-018-0191-0

Nine lives of uncertainty in decision-making: strategies for dealing with uncertainty in environmental governance

Together with my colleague Robbert Biesbroek, I have published a paper on decision-making under uncertainty, in the journal Policy and Society.

Nine lives of uncertainty in decision-making: strategies for dealing with uncertainty in environmental governance

Governing complex environmental issues involves intensive interac- tion between public and private actors. These governance pro- cesses are fraught with uncertainties about, for example, the current state of environmental affairs, the relevant set of decision alternatives, the reactions of other actors to proposed solutions or the future developments likely to affect an issue. Uncertainty comes in different shapes and sizes and different strands in the literature, which has placed emphasis either on the substance of the issue (e.g. in environmental sciences) or on the decision-making process (e.g. policy sciences). In this paper, we bring together these different strands of literature on uncertainty to present a novel analytical framework. We build on the argument that the nature ofuncertainty consists of three types: epistemic uncertainty (involving the lack of knowledge about a particular system), ontological uncertainty (irre- ducible unpredictability due to inherently complex system beha- vior) and ambiguity (conflicts between fundamentally different frames about the issue at hand). Scholars have also argued the importance of differentiating between three different objects of uncertainty: substantive uncertainty (uncertainty about the content of decisions or policy issues), strategic uncertainty (uncertainty about the actions of other actors in the strategic game of deci- sion-making) and institutional uncertainty (uncertainty about the rules of the game in decision-making). The framework is useful for analyzing and addressing the nine lives of uncertainty in decision- making. Better understanding of the range of uncertainties is crucial to design more robust policies and governance arrangements and to deal with wicked environmental problems.

Dewulf, A., & Biesbroek, R. (2018). Nine lives of uncertainty in decision-making: strategies for dealing with uncertainty in environmental governance. Policy and Society, 37(4), 441–458. https://doi.org/10.1080/14494035.2018.1504484 (Open Access)

I presented this as a poster at the Annual Workshop of the Society for Decision Making under Deep Uncertainty at the University of  Oxford in November 2017:

Power in and over Cross-Sector Partnerships: Actor Strategies for Shaping Collective Decisions

As part of a special issue edited by Sandra Schruijer on Dynamics of Interorganisational Collaborative Relationships in the journal Administrative Sciences, our paper on power strategies in collaborative partnerships has been published.

Power in and over Cross-Sector Partnerships: Actor Strategies for Shaping Collective Decisions

While cross-sector partnerships are sometimes depicted as a pragmatic problem solving arrangements devoid of politics and power, they are often characterized by power dynamics. Asymmetries in power can have a range of undesirable consequences as low-power actors may be co-opted, ignored, over-ruled, or excluded by dominant parties. As of yet, there has been relatively little conceptual work on the power strategies that actors in cross-sector partnerships deploy to shape collective decisions to their own advantage. Insights from across the literatures on multiparty collaboration, cross-sector partnerships, interactive governance, collaborative governance, and network governance, are integrated into a theoretical framework for empirically analyzing power sources (resources, discursive legitimacy, authority) and power strategies (power over and power in cross-sector partnerships). Three inter-related claims are central to our argument: (1) the intersection between the issue field addressed in the partnership and an actor’s institutional field shape the power sources available to an actor; (2) an actor can mobilize these power sources directly in strategies to achieve power in cross-sector partnerships; and, (3) an actor can also mobilize these power sources indirectly, through setting the rules of the game, to achieve power over partnerships. The framework analytically connects power dynamics to their broader institutional setting and allows for spelling out how sources of power are used in direct and indirect power strategies that steer the course of cross-sector partnerships. The resulting conceptual framework provides the groundwork for pursuing new lines of empirical inquiry into power dynamics in cross-sector partnerships.

Dewulf, A., & Elbers, W. (2018). Power in and over Cross-Sector Partnerships: Actor Strategies for Shaping Collective Decisions. Administrative Sciences, 8(3), 43. https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci8030043 (Open Access!)

Special Issue on "Diagnostics of case studies on environmental virtual observatories for connective action"

In the Wageningen Journal of Life Science, a special issue has been published by the EVOCA project.

Environmental virtual observatories for connective action

According to the Preface for the issue:

This Special Issue of NJAS – Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences contains a coherent set of first reports of research carried out within the International Research and Education Funds (INREF) program Responsible life-sciences innovations for development in the digital age: Environmental Virtual Observatories for Connective Action (EVOCA), funded by Wageningen University and Research and its research partners. This program explores whether and how the increased availability of information and communication technologies (ICTs) may be leveraged to support collective management of crops, water resources, livestock, wildlife and (human, animal and plant) diseases in several countries of rural Africa. In relation to this, the programme has a special interest in the potential of new ICT to support the co-creation of relevant knowledge by making community-based environmental monitoring part and parcel of citizen science activities that add value to available information. In addition, it is interested in exploring whether increased connectivity may support new forms of collective mobilization (labeled ‘connective action’) to address environmental challenges. The program aims to develop and test digital platforms that can support such functions in close collaboration with stakeholders and users across six case studies in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya and Rwanda.

The special issue includes a introduction paper, led by Katarzyna Cieslik, and a concluding paper, led by Cees Leeuwis.

• Leeuwis, C., Cieslik, K. J., Aarts, M. N. C., Dewulf, A., Ludwig, F., Werners, S. E., & Struik, P. C. (2018). Reflections on the potential of virtual citizen science platforms to address collective action challenges: Lessons and implications for future research. NJAS - Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences, (July), 0–1. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.njas.2018.07.008
• Cieslik, K. J., Leeuwis, C., Dewulf, A., Lie, R., Werners, S. E., van Wessel, M., … Struik, P. C. (2018). Addressing socio-ecological development challenges in the digital age: Exploring the potential of Environmental Virtual Observatories for Connective Action (EVOCA). NJAS - Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences, (July), 0–1. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.njas.2018.07.006

My PhD student Andy Nyamekye has also contributed to two papers in the special issue:

• Nyadzi, E., Nyamekye, A. B., Werners, S. E., Biesbroek, R. G., Dewulf, A., Slobbe, E. Van, … Ludwig, F. (2018). Diagnosing the potential of hydro-climatic information services to support rice farming in northern Ghana. NJAS - Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences, (July), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.njas.2018.07.002
• Nyamekye, A. B., Dewulf, A., Van Slobbe, E., Termeer, C. J. A. M., & Pinto, C. (2018). Governance arrangements and adaptive decision-making in rice farming systems in Northern Ghana. NJAS - Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences, (April), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.njas.2018.07.001

Social media hypes about agro-food issues: Activism, scandals and conflicts

Some time ago, Tim Stevens has published a paper on social media hypes as part of his PhD research.

Social media hypes about agro-food issues: Activism, scandals and conflicts

Abstract
Events and controversies in the agro-food domain frequently generate peak selective activity on social media. These social media hypes are a concern to stakeholders because they can affect public opinion and policy, and are almost impossible to predict. This study develops a model for analysing social media hypes and builds a typology to provide insights into the dynamics of social media hypes in the context of agro-food governance. Five cases of peak social media activity in the Dutch livestock sector are analysed along four dimensions: (1) peak patterns of activity, (2) issues and frames, (3) interaction of actors, and (4) media interplay. An analysis of the dimensions and the interrelations across cases shows that social media hypes revolve around activism, scandals, and conflicts – each with characteristic patterns of activity, framing, interaction and media interplay. Hypes do not just result from important events in the sector, but are generated through the use of organizing concepts with a hashtag to evaluate and establish occasions. Peak activity thus revolves around a few themes and is recurrent and judgmental. Moreover, stakeholders play an active role in instigating and framing social media hypes. Our results show the need to adopt a proactive and interactive approach that transcends the view of social media as a mere communication channel to respond in crisis situations.

Stevens, T. M., Aarts, N., Termeer, C. J. A. M., & Dewulf, A. (2018). Social media hypes about agro-food issues: Activism, scandals and conflicts. Food Policy, (February). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2018.04.009

A small wins framework to overcome the evaluation paradox of governing wicked problems

Over the summer our paper on small wins appeared on-line in the journal Policy and Society. Led by Katrien Termeer, and funded by the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, we are currently conducting an empirical study of the role of small wins in the governance of the transition towards a circular economy, so watch out for more!

A small wins framework to overcome the evaluation paradox of governing wicked problems

Katrien Termeer & Art Dewulf
Policy and Society

Abstract: The evaluation of policy strategies to tackle wicked policy problems inevitably involves a paradox of trying to judge solutions for problems that have no solutions and for which additional efforts might increase the chances of finding better responses. This paper analyzes how the concept of small wins can contribute to evaluating progress in wicked problem areas in a way that energizes a variety of stakeholders instead of paralyzing them and embraces complexity instead of reverting to taming and overestimation. It presents a small wins evaluation framework that is rooted in the underlying policy perspective of making progress through accumulating small wins. It comprises three steps: 1) identifying and valuing small wins; 2) analyzing whether the right propelling mechanisms are activated so as to accumulate into transformative change; 3) organizing that results feed back into the policy process to activate new small wins. This framework will inevitably clash with unrealistic expectations of addressing wicked problems rapidly, radically and comprehensively.

The paper is available open access at: https://doi.org/10.1080/14494035.2018.1497933

What makes long-term investment decisions forward looking: A framework applied to the case of Amsterdam's new sea lock

Earlier this year, Wieke Pot published the first paper of her PhD on forward-looking decisions on water infrastructure. Decisions on water infrastructure are long term decisions and often involve significant policy investments. But are these decisions necessarily forward-looking? In this paper, the concept of forward-looking decisions is proposed: decisions that anticipate and account for uncertain futures. The value of the framework is demonstrated in an analysis of decisions about a new sea lock at IJmuiden in the Netherlands.

What makes long-term investment decisions forward looking: A framework applied to the case of Amsterdam's new sea lock

Abstract: Long-term investments challenge decision makers to look into the far future. Existing future studies often build upon a rational idea of decision making that does not help to explain why decision makers anticipate the future. In addition, existing studies do not provide a clear definition of what is considered as “forward looking”. This article proposes a framework that can be used to evaluate and explain for what reasons and based on what criteria decision makers take forward-looking investment decisions. We apply this framework to a specific decision-making case about a Dutch sea lock, making use of interviews (n = 16) and a content analysis of primary documents (n = 430). We find that not all investment decisions are necessarily forward looking. Secondly, we conclude from our case that decisions became forward looking because administrators used scenarios, visions, and flexible solutions to build support, avoid political risks and comply to formal rules. Scenario developers and urban planners could therefore involve administrators in early stages of the decision-making process to increase their awareness of the future towards which they are steering and provide them with alternative future paths. Furthermore, they could identify and use relevant institutional rules with forward-looking features to stimulate forward-looking decisions.

The article is available (open access) at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2018.01.031

Pot, W. D., Dewulf, A., Biesbroek, G. R., Vlist, M. J. van der, & Termeer, C. J. A. M. (2018). What makes long-term investment decisions forward looking: A framework applied to the case of Amsterdam’s new sea lock. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 132(January), 174–190.

Does information on the interdependence of climate adaptation measures stimulate collaboration?

As a final result of the ECOMPRIS project, a paper has been published in Regional Environmental change. It is the result of an interdisciplinary collaboration between Merel van der Wal, Paul Opdam, Ingrid Coninx, Eveline Steingröver, Sven Stremke and myself, led by Claire Vos.

Does information on the interdependence of climate adaptation measures stimulate collaboration? A case study analysis

A key issue in implementing adaptation strategies at the landscape level is that landowners take measures on their land collectively. We explored the role of information in collective decision-making in a landscape planning process in the Baakse Beek region, the Netherlands. Information was provided on (a) the degree to which measures contribute to multiple purposes, (b) whether they are beneficial to stakeholders representing different sectors of land use, and (c) the need for landscape-level implementation of adaptation measures. Our analysis suggests that the negotiation process resulted in collective decisions for more collaborative adaptation measures than could be expected from individual preferences previous to the planning session. Based on the results, it is plausible that the provided information enhanced integrative agreements by leading stakeholders to realize that they were mutually interdependent, both in acquiring individual benefits as well as in implementing the measures at the landscape level. Our findings are significant in the context of the emerging insight that targeted information provision for climate adaptation of landscapes can support collaboration between the relevant stakeholders.

The paper is published Open Access and is freely available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-018-1306-x

Climate change communication in the Netherlands

Together with Daan Boezeman and Martijn Vink, I was asked to reconstruct the history of climate change communication in the Netherlands for the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science. Going back to the 1950s and covering two "climate change waves", we used the theoretical perspectives of framing and agenda setting, science-policy-society interactions, and online communication in the network society, to guide our analysis. National and international policy developments are both the objects and drivers of communication processes over time.

The paper can be accessed here: https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.013.455

Here's the abstract and the full reference:

Climate change communication in the Netherlands started in the 1950s, but it was not until the late 1970s that the issue earned a place on the public agenda, as an aspect of the energy problem, and in the shadow of controversy about nuclear energy. Driven largely by scientific reports and political initiatives, the first climate change wave can be observed in the period from 1987 to 1989, as part of a broader environmental consciousness wave. The Netherlands took an active role in international climate change initiatives at the time but struggled to achieve domestic emission reductions throughout the 1990s. The political turmoil in the early 2000s dominated Dutch public debate, until An Inconvenient Truth triggered the second climate change wave in 2006–2007, generating peak media attention and broad societal activity. The combination of COP15 and Climategate in late 2009 marked a turning point in Dutch climate change communication, with online communication and climate-sceptic voices gaining much more prominence. Climate change mitigation was pushed down on the societal and political agenda in the 2010s. Climate change adaptation had received much attention during the second climate change wave and had been firmly institutionalized with respect to flood defense and other water management issues. By 2015 a landmark climate change court case and the Paris Agreement at COP21 were fueling climate change communication once again.

Dewulf, A., Boezeman, D., & Vink, M. (2017). Climate Change Communication in the Netherlands. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science (pp. 1–35). Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.013.455

Results from the Mountain-EVO project: two publications on the social and hydrological aspects of water

Two publications resulting from the Mountain-EVO project have become available. They both address the social and hydrological aspects of water governance.

The paper by Feng Mao and others addresses the implications of how social and hydrological systems are conceptualized when studying their resilience. The paper by Julian Clark and others develops a theoretical framework on hydrosocialities and applies it to two remote mountain communities in the Mustang region in Nepal.

Mao, F., Clark, J., Karpouzoglou, T., Dewulf, A., Buytaert, W., & Hannah, D. (2017). HESS Opinions: A conceptual framework for assessing socio-hydrological resilience under change. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 21(7), 3655–3670. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-3655-2017

Clark, J., Gurung, P., Chapagain, P. S., Regmi, S., Bhusal, J. K., Karpouzoglou, T., … Dewulf, A. (2017). Water as Time-Substance: The Hydrosocialities of Climate Change in Nepal. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 4452(July), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2017.1329005

User-driven design of decision support systems for polycentric environmental resources management

Another result from the Mountain-EVO project has been published in Environmental Modelling and Software. The paper was led by Zed Zulkafli, former postdoc at Imperial College and now Lecturer at Universiti Putra Malaysia. The paper presents and a participatory framework for designing decision-support systems that builds on understanding the decision making processes and on iterative design of the user interface. The framework is illustrated with a Peruvian case study.

User-driven design of decision support systems for polycentric environmental resources management

Open and decentralized technologies such as the Internet provide increasing opportunities to create knowledge and deliver computer-based decision support for multiple types of users across scales. However, environmental decision support systems/tools (henceforth EDSS) are often strongly science-driven and assuming single types of decision makers, and hence poorly suited for more decentralized and polycentric decision making contexts. In such contexts, EDSS need to be tailored to meet diverse user requirements to ensure that it provides useful (relevant), usable (intuitive), and exchangeable (institutionally unobstructed) information for decision support for different types of actors. To address these issues, we present a participatory framework for designing EDSS that emphasizes a more complete understanding of the decision making structures and iterative design of the user interface. We illustrate the application of the framework through a case study within the context of water-stressed upstream/downstream communities in Lima, Peru.

Zulkafli, Z., Perez, K., Vitolo, C., Buytaert, W., Karpouzoglou, T., Dewulf, A., … Shaheed, S. (2017). User-driven design of decision support systems for polycentric environmental resources management. Environmental Modelling & Software, 88, 58–73. 

The is open access and can be downloaded from http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2016.10.012

Coping with the wicked problem of climate adaptation across scales: The 5-R Governance Capabilities

As part of a special issue on Working with wicked problems in socio-ecological systems a paper based on a collaborative effort between members of the Public Administration and Policy (Wageningen University) has been published in the journal Landscape and Urban Planning. The paper builds on and extends the Governance Capabilities framework developed earlier by our group (see Termeer et al., 2013), and applies to the analysis of the governance of climate change adaptation. Each of the governance capabilities addresses a particular dimension of wicked problems, and absence of the capability leads to particular risks (see the table below).

This is the abstract of the paper:

Adapting social-ecological systems to the projected effects of climate change is not only a complex technical matter but above all a demanding governance issue. As climate change has all the characteristics of a wicked problem, conventional strategies of governance do not seem to work. However, most conventional governance institutions are poorly equipped to enable, or at least tolerate, innovative strategies. This paper analyses the various strategies used to cope with the wicked problem of climate adaptation across scales, and the institutional conditions that enable or constrain such strategies. For this, it relies on a theoretical framework consisting of five governance capabilities that are considered crucial for coping with wicked problems: reflexivity, resilience, responsiveness, revitalization and rescaling. This framework is used to analyse the governance of adaptation to climate change at three different levels: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its activities to assist adaptation; the European Union and its climate adaptation strategy; and the Netherlands and its Delta Program. The results show that conventional governance strategies are rather absent and that mixtures of reflexive, resilient, responsive, revitalizing and rescaling strategies were visible at all levels, although not equally well developed and important. In contrast to the literature, we found many examples of enabling institutional conditions. The constraining conditions, which were also present, tend to lead more to postponement than to obstruction of decision-making processes.

Termeer, C. J. A. M., Dewulf, A., Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen, S. I., Vink, M. J., & Vliet, M. van (2016). Coping with the wicked problem of climate adaptation across scales: The Five R Governance Capabilities. Landscape and Urban Planning, 154, 11–19.

The paper can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2016.01.007 or downloaded here

Governing adaptation to climate change through continuous transformational change?

UKCIP report on transformational adaptation

In an attempt to contribute to the debate on incremental and transformational adaptation to climate change (see e.g. Kates et al. 2012 or UKCIP report on transformational adaptation), Katrien Termeer, Robbert Biesbroek and myself have revisited the transformational change debate in organisational sciences, and come up with an alternative conceptualization of 'continuous transformational change'. The resulting article has been published on-line in the Journal of Environment Planning and Management.

Transformational change: governance interventions for climate change adaptation from a continuous change perspective

This is the abstract: 

Although transformational change is a rather new topic in climate change adaptation literature, it has been studied in organisational theory for over 30 years. This paper argues that governance scholars can learn much from organisation theory, more specifically regarding the conceptualisation of change and intervention strategies. We reconceptualise the divide between transformational change and incremental change by questioning the feasibility of changes that are concurrently in-depth, large scale, and quick; and the assumption that incremental change is necessarily slow and can only result in superficial changes. To go beyond this dichotomy, we introduce the conceptualisation of continuous transformational change. Resulting intervention strategies include (1) providing basic conditions for enabling small in-depth wins; (2) amplifying small wins through sensemaking, coupling, and integrating; and (3) unblocking stagnations by confronting social and cognitive fixations with counterintuitive interventions. These interventions necessitate a modest leadership. Governing transformational change thus requires transformation of the governance systems themselves.

The article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09640568.2016.1168288 or downloaded here




Termeer, C. J. A. M., Dewulf, A., & Biesbroek, G. R. (2016). Transformational change: governance interventions for climate change adaptation from a continuous change perspective. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, on-line first. doi:10.1080/09640568.2016.1168288

Systematic literature review on adaptive governance of social-ecological systems (open access)

The result of a systematic review on adaptive governance has been published in the journal Environmental Science and Policy. The review has been conducted as part of the Mountain-EVO project, by Timos Karpozouglou, Julian Clark and myself. The review identifies adaptive capacity, collaboration, knowledge/learning, and scaling as key dimensions of adaptive governance scholarship, and explores the value of theoretical multiplicity for advancing adaptive governance ideas.

Advancing adaptive governance of social-ecological systems through theoretical multiplicity

This is the abstract:

In recent years there has been rising scientific and policy interest in the adaptive governance of social-ecological systems. A systematic literature review of adaptive governance research during the period 2005–2014, demonstrates a vibrant debate taking place that spans a variety of empirical and theoretical approaches. The particular strength of adaptive governance is that it provides a theoretical lens for research that combines the analyses of novel governance capacities such as adaptive capacity, collaboration, scaling, knowledge and learning. As a way to give greater depth and analytical rigour to future studies over the next decade and beyond, we highlight the added value of theoretical multiplicity (i.e., focusing on the combination of theories to address complex problems). We argue that theoretical multiplicity can encourage stronger synergies between adaptive governance and other theoretical approaches and can help address epistemologically grey areas in adaptive governance scholarship, such as power and politics, inclusion and equity, short term and long term change, the relationship between public policy and adaptive governance.

This open access paper can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2015.11.011 or downloaded here.

Social media as a new playing field for the governance of agro-food sustainability

Tim Stevens has published his first paper as part of his PhD project in the Informational Governance programme at Wageningen University!

Social media as a new playing field for the governance of agro-food sustainability

The paper is based on a literature review and puts forward three different patterns in social media activities in relation to the governance of agro-food sustainability. It has been published in the first 2016 issue of Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability.

This is the abstract:

Social media bring various stakeholders of the agro-food system together into a new playing field. This article reveals the dynamics of this playing field and the ways in which this can influence the governance of agro-food sustainability. We delineate three pathways that highlight the ways in which social media can have implications for the governance of agro-food sustainability; firstly, hypes on agro-food sustainability issues, secondly, opportunities for the self-organization of food movements, and thirdly, data for new forms of agro-food governance. We conclude that while mass self-communication on social media forms an emergent force that disrupts agro-food governance, it also generates data that forms a resource for powerful players to regain control.

This is the full reference: Stevens, T., Aarts, N., Termeer, C. J. A. M., & Dewulf, A. (2016). Social media as a new playing field for the governance of agro-food sustainability. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 18, 99–106. doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2015.11.010

The paper can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2015.11.010 or downloaded here

Citizen Science for Water Resources Management: Toward Polycentric Monitoring and Governance?

A position paper has been published recently in the Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, entitled "Citizen Science for Water Resources Management: Toward Polycentric Monitoring and Governance?". The author team reflects the collaboration through the Mountain-EVO project.

The paper develops ideas about polycentric governance of water resources, supported by a polycentric monitoring landscape, as an alternative to tightly integrated and centralized water management systems.



The full reference is Buytaert, W., Dewulf, A., De Bièvre, B., Clark, J., & Hannah, D. M. (2016). Citizen Science for Water Resources Management: Toward Polycentric Monitoring and Governance? Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 01816002. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)WR.1943-5452.0000641

The paper can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)WR.1943-5452.0000641 or downloaded here.

Understanding industrial symbiosis from a change perspective

In the first issue of the International Journal of Sustainable Development of 2016, a paper has been published by Veerle Verguts on "Industrial symbiosis as sustainable development strategy: adding a change perspective".

This is the abstract:

Industrial symbiosis (IS) is the coordination of energy and material flows among geographically proximate firms to increase economic performance while reducing environmental impact. Although IS is gaining popularity as a sustainability strategy, implementation is proving difficult. In an attempt to understand these roadblocks to implementation, we analyse the development and realisation of IS systems as complex change processes. Based on insights from organisational change literature we introduce the dual-perspective framework as an additional way to look at these IS change processes. Our framework combines two different but complementary perspectives to analyse IS: episodic change, meaning occasional and radical change driven by exogenous factors or interventions; and continuous change, meaning ongoing changes resulting from constant micro-adaptations. By adding insights on the nature of change, this framework extends the analytical reach and identifies situation-adapted intervention strategies. The framework is applied to a case of Flemish (Belgian) eco-industrial greenhouse park development.

The paper can found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1504/IJSD.2016.073650 or downloaded here



Verguts, V., Dessein, J., Dewulf, A., Lauwers, L., Werkman, R., & Termeer, C. J. A. M. (2016). Industrial symbiosis as sustainable development strategy: adding a change perspective. International Journal of Sustainable Development, 19(1), 15. doi:10.1504/IJSD.2016.073650

Framing ecosystem services at the landscape scale: two publications from the ECOMPRIS project

As part of strategic research programme of Wageningen University on Informational Governance for Sustainability, several research projects are on-going. I'm involved in the interdisciplinary ECOMPRIS project that has come to an end in December 2015. Two more publications have resulted from this project.

Framing ecosystem services: Affecting behaviour of actors in collaborative landscape planning?

Land Use Policy, 46 (2015) 223-231

Paul Opdam, Ingrid Coninx, Art Dewulf, Eveliene Steingröver, Claire Vos, Merel van der Wal

The concept of ecosystem services shifts the human–nature relationship from a conservation-oriented into a utility-oriented one. Advocates of the concept assume that it can alter the attitude and behaviour of human actors with respect to nature. The ecosystem services concept has so far received little attention in scientific literature about collaborative landscape planning. Consequently the potential of information about ecosystem services to influence landscape planning processes is unknown. In this paper we address the impact of different storylines about ecosystem services on actor behaviour. In these storylines, we distinguish three frames on ecosystem services: a social–cultural frame (emphasizing social–cultural services), an economic frame (emphasizing production services) and a sustainability frame (highlighting regulation services). We propose a conceptual framework in which we connect the concept of framing to attitudinal, sender–receiver and contextual factors. The framework is illustrated by a spatial planning experiment with academic students and by a case of collaborative landscape planning. The student exper- iment illustrates how attitudinal factors may intervene in the impact frames on actor behaviour. The case analysis shows how researchers who facilitated collaborative landscape planning used various frames as they attempted to build up the actor network to create collaborative relations in different phases of the planning process. The significance of our paper is that we provide an approach to investigate how information on ecosystem service benefits is processed by multiple actors in collaborative landscape planning processes. Our exploration implies that planners who facilitate a collaborative planning pro- cess have to be aware that purposively using ecosystem service frames stimulates engagement of actors with diverging backgrounds

This publication can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2015.02.008 or downloaded here

Does information on landscape benefits influence collective action in landscape governance?

Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 18 (2016), 107-114

Paul Opdam, Ingrid Coninx, Art Dewulf, Eveliene Steingröver, Claire Vos, Merel van der Wal

There is general understanding that collaboration is a key element in the governance for a sustainable environment. In this context knowledge utilization has become a popular research topic. However, the role of information content in enhancing collaboration has been rarely addressed. We consider two types of information on mutual dependencies between actors that result from ecological interdependencies in the landscape: information on landscape sites providing multiple benefits to a range of stakeholders, and information on how these benefits depend on coordinated landscape–level management. Our survey of recent literature indicates that although there is a sound theoretical basis for the assumption that such information would enhance collaboration, the issue has been the subject of little empirical research thus far. We found some supporting studies demonstrating social network building and collective action, but none of them separated the effect of the information content from the effect of the organized social learning process. To increase understanding of the potential for informational governance of landscapes resources, we argue there is a need to integrate recent advances in the analysis of social network building in environmental management with emerging insights in knowledge utilization and spatial interdependencies of landscape benefits.

This publication can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2015.12.006 or downloaded here

What does policy-relevant global environmental knowledge do? The cases of climate and biodiversity

A paper by Esther Turnhout (Wageningen University), Mike Hulme (King's College London) and myself has been published on-line in the journal Current Opinion on Environmental Sustainability.

What does policy-relevant global environmental knowledge do? The cases of climate and biodiversity

There is a surge in global knowledge-making efforts to inform environmental governance. This article synthesises the current state of the art of social science scholarship about the generation and use of global environmental knowledge. We focus specifically on the issues of scale — providing globalized representations of the environment — and relevance — providing knowledge in a form that is considered usable for decision-making. Using the examples of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services and the Millennium Assessment, the article discusses what policy relevant global knowledge does: how it represents the environment, and how this specific form of knowledge connects with governance and
policy.

The paper can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2015.09.004 or downloaded here

EVOs, knowledge and resilience in the digital age

As a result of the Mountain-EVO project, an article has appeared on-line in the journal Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability on Environmental Virtual Observatories (EVOs). It has been written by scholars from Imperial College, Birmingham University and Wageningen University, led by the project postdocs Timothy Karpouzoglou and Zed Zulkafli.

Environmental Virtual Observatories (EVOs): prospects for knowledge co-creation and resilience in the Information Age

Timothy Karpouzoglou, Zed Zulkafli, Sam Grainger, Art Dewulf, Wouter Buytaert, David M Hannah

Developments in technologies are shaping information access globally. This presents opportunities and challenges for understanding the role of new technologies in sustainability research. This article focuses on a suite of technologies termed Environmental Virtual Observatories (EVOs) developed for communicating observations and simulation of environmental processes. A strength of EVOs is that they are open and decentralised, thus democratising flow and ownership of information between multiple actors. However, EVOs are discussed rarely beyond their technical aspects. By evaluating the evolution of EVOs, we illustrate why it is timely to engage with policy and societal aspects as well. While first generation EVOs are primed for scientists, second generation EVOs can have broader implications for knowledge co-creation and resilience through their participatory design.

The article is Open Access and can be found at  http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2015.07.015

Karpouzoglou, T., Zulkafli, Z., Grainger, S., Dewulf, A., Buytaert, W., & Hannah, D. M. (2016). Environmental Virtual Observatories (EVOs): prospects for knowledge co-creation and resilience in the Information Age. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 18, 40–48. doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2015.07.015