Effects of scale and the biophysical environment on sense of place in northeastern Wisconsin\u27s bioregions

Understanding individuals’ and groups’ sense of place can provide insights into how people interact with and treat both natural and built environments, and inform understandings of proenvironmental behavior, place-protective action, management of regional amenities, participatory landscape planning, and environmental education initiatives. Notwithstanding these invaluable contributions, the empirical place scholarship has paid relatively little attention to several key dynamics, including the existence and implications of broad-scale sense of place, whether sense of place occurs in low- or mixed-amenity areas, and the biophysical (and bioregional) dimensions of sense of place. Accordingly, this empirical, phenomenological study investigates the scale at which sense of place develops and operates among a subset of residents engaged in watershed conservation activities in northeastern Wisconsin’s mixed-amenity coastal communities. The following questions guided our 5 research: 1) How do mixed-amenity bioregions contribute to people’s sense of place? 2) What sorts of biophysical characteristics, meanings, and/or experiences affect their sense of place? 3) How does this sense of place impact their reported proenvironmental behaviors? In total, 22 semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted individuals whose primary residence was in the Fox River Valley bioregion, and who were vocationally or avocationally involved in water-quality improvement and/or broad-scale conservation activities in northeast Wisconsi

Interactive deep maps and spatial narratives for landscape conservation and public engagement

Landscape conservation science and practice has increasingly embraced a “people and nature” paradigm that recognizes the dynamic complexity and bidirectional relationships in social-ecological systems. Conservation research remains heavily biased toward the ecological dimensions of conservation, with socially focused research taking up a relatively small fraction. The digital revolution and accompanying geospatial web inspired platforms and methods that provide a significant opportunity for closing this divide. This article focuses on potential contributions to conservation science and practices from one such integrative platform—interactive deep maps and their resulting spatial narratives— that digitally combine the qualitative and experiential essence(s) of place with the quantitative capabilities of Cartesian space. By critically exploring emerging work, we propose that interactive deep maps and spatial narratives are uniquely positioned for integrating social and ecological dimensions of place-based conservation by linking the lived experiences of people with the spatially represented ecological characteristics of nature

Participatory mobile- and web-based tools for eliciting landscape knowledge and perspectives: introducing and evaluating the Wisconsin geotools project

Despite synergistic goals across a wide breadth of fields and modalities, coastal landscape conservation projects that engage the lay public and integrate narratives of place remain elusive. This paper addresses these needs by introducing and evaluating the Wisconsin Geotools, an integrated pair of mobile-and web-based applications that allow users to generate and share spatially defined multimedia observations — including photos, short textual descriptions (or journals), and audio and video clips — of their surrounding bioregional landscapes. We followed a participatory, user-centered design process to develop a mobile application that uses GPS capabilities to geolocate multimedia observations of landscapes and feed them into a web-based application, which displays content through the structure of an interactive story map. The applications were piloted with coastal community user groups in Green Bay (Lake Michigan), Wisconsin, USA. Over 800 observations were recorded by participants in our study area. Results from a user evaluation survey indicate the geotools effectively engaged participants in learning about and exploring their surrounding coastal landscapes. A spatial analysis revealed participants’ affinity for water-related features in landscapes. We close by suggesting a variety of ways in which these tools can support future projects and existing methodologies that are advancing transdisciplinary approaches to engaging the public in coastal conservation

Effects of Scale and the Biophysical Environment on Sense of Place in Northeastern Wisconsin’s Bioregions

Understanding individuals’ and groups’ sense of place can provide insights into how people interact with and treat both natural and built environments, but empirical-place scholarship has paid relatively little attention to several key dynamics, including the existence and implications of broad-scale sense of place, and the biophysical (and bioregional) dimensions of sense of place. Accordingly, this empirical, phenomenological study investigates the scale at which sense of place develops and operates among a subset of residents engaged in watershed conservation activities in northeastern Wisconsin’s mixed-amenity coastal communities. In total, 22 semi-structured interviews were conducted with individuals who were vocationally or avocationally involved in water-quality improvement and/or broad-scale conservation activities in northeast Wisconsin. Results indicate that biophysical landscape characteristics, particularly water, enable the sorts of meaningful social and sensory experiences that ultimately develop into a sense of place at varying geographic scales

Linking ecosystem services with landscape history

The concept of ecosystem services (ES) has become widely used because it bridges ecology and economics and links nature to society. ES may evolve over time in dynamic landscapes driven by myriad processes. However, the consequences of changes in key ES has not been considered adequately in current ES research. Here we propose a framework for linking ES with landscape history, which can help us better understand the evolution of ES over time. We illustrate the framework by a case study from Switzerland. Both the capacity of landscapes to supply ES and the realization and recognition of key ES are likely to change over time. This insight should have important implications for landscape sustainability and related scenario studies

State-and-transition simulation modeling to compare outcomes of alternative management scenarios under two natural disturbance regimes in a forested landscape in northeastern Wisconsin, USA

Comparisons of the potential outcomes of multiple land management strategies and an understanding of the influence of potential increases in climate-related disturbances on these outcomes are essential for long term land management and conservation planning. To provide these insights, we developed an approach that uses collaborative scenario development and state-and-transition simulation modeling to provide land managers and conservation practitioners with a comparison of potential landscapes resulting from alternative management scenarios and climate conditions, and we have applied this approach in the Wild Rivers Legacy Forest (WRLF) area in northeastern Wisconsin. Three management scenarios were developed with input from local land managers, scientists, and conservation practitioners: 1) continuation of current management, 2) expanded working forest conservation easements, and 3) cooperative ecological forestry. Scenarios were modeled under current climate with contemporary probabilities of natural disturbance and under increased probability of windthrow and wildfire that may result from climate change in this region. All scenarios were modeled for 100 years using the VDDT/TELSA modeling suite. Results showed that landscape composition and configuration were relatively similar among scenarios, and that management had a stronger effect than increased probability of windthrow and wildfire. These findings suggest that the scale of the landscape analysis used here and the lack of differences in predominant management strategies between ownerships in this region play significant roles in scenario outcomes. The approach used here does not rely on complex mechanistic modeling of uncertain dynamics and can therefore be used as starting point for planning and further analysis