Landscape Loopholes: Moments for Change

Social-ecological systems are breaking down at local, regional, and global scales, and sustainability seems an increasingly distant aspiration. Social harmony and economic systems are connected to ecological systems and climate, in multiple complex ways, at many scales. Adapting research practice to match integration opportunities within social-ecological systems could contribute foresight capabilities emerging from landscape change studies, which can be coupled with emerging policy transformation opportunities. The shaping of landscapes by human imagination and physical action creates meaningful contexts for building sustainability. However, the policy landscape is often dominated by circularity and “lock-in” to unsustainable pathways that are hard to escape. Moments for change emerge through timely convergence of circumstances, within a landscape context, that provide a window of opportunity—a “landscape loophole”—through which the transformation to more sustainable social-ecological relationships might be achieved. Creating future options redundancy (FOR) plans, a variety of possible pathways and alternative landscape futures within the characteristics and capacity of a region, could facilitate policy shifts and adaptive capacity, and reduce risk through reflexive future options. The convergence of circumstances providing loophole opportunities to escape existing lock-in might be understood, and even predicted, by closely coupling landscape sciences and policy research

Constructing futures, enhancing solutions: Stakeholder-driven scenario development and system modeling for climate-change challenges

Finding effective and practical solutions to climate change challenges in food-energy-water systems requires the integration of experts in local/regional social and biophysical systems, and these are commonly local community members. In the Magic Valley, Idaho we investigated the tensions between water used for energy and to irrigate cropland for food production, as well as, strategies for protecting water quantity and quality. Incorporating stakeholders with long-standing expertise allows the development of solutions to these challenges that are locally and regionally practical and consistent with the values of the social system into which they are incorporated. We describe a stakeholder-driven process used in a case study in the Magic Valley that incorporated local experts to develop plausible future scenarios, identify drivers of change, vet impact and hydrological modeling and map areas of change. The process described allowed stakeholders to envision alternative futures in their region, leading to development of enhanced context and place-based solutions and an anticipated time line for adoption of those solutions. The solutions developed by the stakeholders have been applied across many geographic areas. The described process can also be applied across a broad range of geographic levels. Most importantly, stakeholders should be involved in anticipating solutions and solution timing to the differing challenges posed by each scenario

Future Options Redundancy Planning: Designing Multiple Pathways to Resilience in Urban and Landscape Systems Facing Complex Change

Urban systems include complex interactions and interdependencies with adjoining landscapes and regions. The pressures of change are complex, constant, and increasing. Declining biodiversity, ecosystem function, social institutions, and climate change underwrite serious sustainability challenges across urban, peri-urban, and ‘natural’ landscapes. Urban and other human ‘development’ often results in environmental damage that drives the need for ecological regeneration and restoration. Integration of interdisciplinary urban sciences and landscape sciences can guide the design of regenerative pathways and nature-positive sustainability. Social perceptions, however, tend to promote a cast-back view that favors the old ‘locked-in’ policy that attempts to restore ‘what was’ the former environment or ecosystem. Often, however, these are no longer suitable to the circumstances and future pressures of change. If urban design and planning disciplines are to help society anticipate change, we need to move from primarily deterministic approaches to those that probabilistically explore trajectories to future landscapes. Urban science and landscape design can now provide future regenerative capacity for resilient and continuous adaptation. Ongoing sustainability requires urban and landscape designs that provide ongoing anticipatory, restorative, nature-positive capacity in the context of future change and pressures. Complexity, connectivity, and redundancy are important system attributes of social-ecological systems creating adaptive capabilities. A diversity of plausible future social-ecological system responses provide several response options and redundancy, with multiple pathways to alternative sustainable futures, enhancing our adaptive capacity. A diversity of feasible responses increases the likelihood of sustaining ecological processes under changing conditions. We propose Future Options Redundancy (FOR) plans as a useful tool for nature-positive design. FOR plans are a variety of possible pathways and alternative futures defined using the characteristics of a social-ecological landscape context. Foresight design capabilities recognize in advance, the accumulating circumstances, along with policy and design opportunities for social-ecological system transformation options in urban-landscape spaces, that are nature-positive—the mark of a sustainable regenerative society

Studying Kenai River Fisheries’ Social-Ecological Drivers Using a Holistic Fisheries Agent-Based Model: Implications for Policy and Adaptive Capacity

Alaska’s salmon fisheries are one of the more intensely managed natural resources in the world. The state’s salmon fisheries support recreational, subsistence, and commercial harvest with multiple billions of dollars flowing into the economy, and define the cultural identity of many Alaskans. Fishery management practices rely on historic records to set policies with two goals: to meet salmon escapement quota and to maximize salmon harvest. At the same time, rapid social and ecological changes to the sub-Arctic are already impacting salmon runs and fisheries management. Combined with the inability of fishery managers to test the outcome of proposed policy changes, an understanding of the role social and ecological drivers play in harvest and effort is required. To address the two-forked problem of understanding socio-ecological dynamics and potential policy responses to ecological and social changes, we (1) conducted stakeholder workshops to solicit key system drivers, (2) built an integrated agent based model (ABM) of the system’s socio-ecological dynamics, and (3) tested the impacts of alternative future scenarios of ecological, social, and policy changes on the system’s outcomes. We previously constructed and validated a high-fidelity, data-driven, agent-based model of the Kenai River, Alaska that simulates seasonal harvest of sockeye and Chinook salmon, the fishing activities of the personal use fishery, commercial drift, and set gillnet agents. We study the role of key stakeholder and ecological drivers, using the ABM decision support tool, and their implications for fisheries management policies. Analysis of the scenario based studies found resilience in management of commercial fisheries to changing salmon migration dynamics, a lack of adaptive capacity in recreational (personal use) dipnet users to altered sockeye salmon runs, and the possible utility of introducing management measures in the dipnet fishery to manipulate sockeye escapement levels. These findings represent the usefulness of this type of ABM in assisting fishery managers everywhere in investigating possible future outcomes of different management or ecological scenarios

From Uncertainties to Solutions: A Scenario-Based Framework for an Agriculture Protection Zone in Magic Valley Idaho

As growth in the western U.S. continues to lead to the development of land, pressure is being exerted on agricultural production, and could lead to the loss of prime agricultural land. A wide array of perspectives concerning agricultural protection requires a variety of possible solutions. Diverse and plausible scenarios, driven by stakeholders, can be modeled by researchers to guide potential solutions to address key challenges within a region. This paper addresses one stakeholder-defined social-ecological system (SES) solution in the context of southern Idaho, one of the fastest-growing states in the U.S.: agricultural protection zoning. This project demonstrates a method for incorporating an Agriculture Protection Zone (APZ) within a suite of scenarios showing land protection opportunities across a range of future conditions and challenges. The results, by way of a Geodesign framework, entail suitability analyses through a series of weighted raster overlays to analyze scenario-based solutions. The suite of scenario solutions was compared to demonstrate effective proportions of the APZ. The analysis of the results, as a solution gradient, aim to inform policy makers, planners, and developers about the efficiencies of various APZ delineations as well as a methodology to demonstrate the impact of solutions based on assumptions of stakeholder-informed future scenarios

Images to Evoke Decision-Making: Building Compelling Representations for Stakeholder-Driven Futures

Contemporary landscape planning challenges require an increasingly diverse ensemble of voices, including regional stakeholders, physical scientists, social scientists, and technical experts, to provide insight into a landscape’s past trends, current uses, and desired future. To impactfully integrate these disparate components, stakeholder-driven research must include clear lines of communication, share data transparently, and slowly develop trust. Alternative future scenario representations aim to generate conversations through discourse, evoke scenario-based stakeholder input, and ensure stakeholder-based revisions to research models. The current literature lacks a metric for gauging effectiveness and a framework for optimal evaluation for future scenario representations. We have developed and applied a metric for a ranked set of compelling scenario representations using stakeholder input from an active research project. Researchers surveyed stakeholders through a case study in Idaho’s Magic Valley to gauge the effectiveness of each representational approach. To improve future stakeholder-driven geodesign projects and gaps in the research literature, this project provides a ranking of graphic strategies based on the stakeholder survey. Additionally, we provide examples and evaluate graphic representation strategies that can stimulate meaningful conversations, create common understandings, and translate research processes and findings to a variety of audiences. The results of this study intend to provide landscape architects, landscape planners, and geodesign specialists with a framework for evaluating compelling future scenario representations for a stakeholder group

Stream temperature data collection standards for Alaska: Minimum standards to generate data useful for regional-scale analyses

AbstractStudy focusStatewide interest in thermal patterns and increasing data collection efforts provides Alaska’s scientific and resource management communities an opportunity to meet broader regional-scale data needs. A basic set of stream temperature monitoring standards is needed for Alaskans to begin building robust datasets suitable for regional analyses. The goal of this project is to define minimum (base) standards for collecting freshwater temperature data in Alaska that must be met so that observations can support regional assessment of status and recent trends in freshwater temperatures and predictions of future patterns of change in these aquatic thermal regimes using downscaled climate projections.New hydrological insights for the regionWe defined 10 minimum data collection standards for continuous stream temperature data in Alaska. The standards cover data logger accuracy and range, data collection sampling frequency and duration, site selection, logger accuracy checks, data evaluation, file formats, metadata, and data sharing. We hope that the adoption of minimum standards will encourage rapid, but structured, growth in comparable stream temperature monitoring efforts in Alaska that will be used to understand current and future trends in thermal regimes

Geospatial analysis of groundwater depth for manual well drilling suitability in the Zinder Region, Niger

Manual and low-tech well drilling techniques have potential to assist in reaching the United Nations' millennium development goal for water in sub-Saharan Africa. This study used publicly available geospatial data in a regression tree analysis to predict groundwater depth in the Zinder region of Niger to identify suitable areas for manual well drilling. Regression trees were developed and tested on a database for 3681 wells in the Zinder region. A tree with 17 terminal leaves provided a range of ground water depth estimates that were appropriate for manual drilling, though much of the tree's complexity was associated with depths that were beyond manual methods. A natural log transformation of groundwater depth was tested to see if rescaling dataset variance would result in finer distinctions for regions of shallow groundwater. The RMSE for a log-transformed tree with only 10 terminal leaves was almost half that of the untransformed 17 leaf tree for groundwater depths less than 10 m. This analysis indicated important groundwater relationships for commonly available maps of geology, soils, elevation, and enhanced vegetation index from the MODIS satellite imaging system