Integrating knowledge exchange and the assessment of dryland management alternatives – A learning-centered participatory approach

The adoption of sustainable land management strategies and practices that respond to current climate and human pressures requires both assessment tools that can lead to better informed decision-making and effective knowledge-exchange mechanisms that facilitate new learning and behavior change. We propose a learning-centered participatory approach that links land management assessment and knowledge exchange and integrates science-based data and stakeholder perspectives on both biophysical and socio-economic attributes. We outline a structured procedure for a transparent assessment of land management alternatives, tailored to dryland management, that is based on (1) principles of constructivism and social learning, (2) the participation of stakeholders throughout the whole assessment process, from design to implementation, and (3) the combination of site-specific indicators, identified by local stakeholders as relevant to their particular objectives and context conditions, and science-based indicators that represent ecosystem services of drylands worldwide. The proposed procedure follows a pattern of eliciting, challenging, and self-reviewing stakeholder perspectives that aims to facilitate learning. The difference between the initial baseline perspectives and the final self-reviewed stakeholder perspectives is used as a proxy of learning. We illustrate the potential of this methodology by its application to the assessment of land uses in a Mediterranean fire-prone area in East Spain. The approach may be applied to a variety of socio-ecological systems and decision-making and governance scales.The PRACTICE protocol was developed in the framework of the project PRACTICE: Prevention and Restoration Actions to Combat Desertification. An integrated Assessment, funded by the European Commission (GA226818). This research was also funded by the European project CASCADE (GA283068), and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Fellowship of the European Union (GA 629677) “S4S, Science for Society Solutions”, awarded to B.J.O

Doomed to repeat the successes of the past: History is best forgotten for repeated choices with nonstationary payoffs

Many everyday tasks involve repeated choices in which past outcomes are used to estimate payoffs but in which present payoffs may differ from past ones. Two experiments with 10 decision problems employing the decisions-from-feedback paradigm examined the choice between two risky options, wherein the payoff probabilities for one option could change over a sequence of trials. Participants either saw the outcomes associated with each option, or additionally were given a “history” summarizing the outcomes of previous trials. Participants adapted quickly to new problems, but adapted slowly to payoff changes. Providing a history improved initial choices, but had a null or negative impact on later ones—although, appropriately, the summary received less weight in later trials. An associative choice model captured changes in preference, but not initial patterns of choice. The findings emphasize the adaptive value of forgetting in unstable decision environments, but illustrate how providing additional relevant information may hinder this