Environmental Science & Policy最新文献

A pragmatic concern guides this perspective piece: How might researchers charged with leading convergence research better plan, design, implement, and evaluate the integrative processes and products of their research? We use a self-evaluation approach to assess the integrative processes and products of the first two years of a five-year National Science Foundation Growing Convergence Research project on addressing inland freshwater salinization. To examine the linkages between integration approaches and products, we analyzed the integrative qualities of fifteen research products and the collaborative processes used to generate these products. We found that large, heterogeneous teams with a broad mix of disciplines and professional expertise produced more interdisciplinary research products, but they relied on skilled integration by the leader, more intensive forms of collaboration, and inclusive problem framing. Teams that relied on deliberation by experts and used more consultative or cooperative mechanisms for engagement produced research that was more uni- or multi-disciplinary. We consider the efficacy of the various knowledge integration approaches used in this research and share empirically derived recommendations for designing, implementing, and evaluating convergence research. Our findings and lessons provide researchers at the helm of large-scale convergence and transdisciplinary research projects that address complex socio-environmental problems guidance on: (1) the planning and designing of projects with the explicit goal of knowledge integration; (2) the selection and implementation of appropriate knowledge integration approaches and tools; and (3) how knowledge integration can be conceptualized and evaluated for socio-environmental problems.

Ecosystem services and Nature’s Contributions to People frameworks allow policymakers and other stakeholders to understand and value the different benefits received by society from processes in the natural environment. However, they face challenges when assessing cultural and/or non-quantifiable services and contributions, and their linked benefits. They can also fall short when incorporating plural conceptions of value and their knowledge frameworks, including those of Indigenous People and/or local communities. Finally, with regard to future ecosystem management, they tend to rely on linear rather than speculative, idealistic assessments of future human-ecosystem interactions. In this Perspective article, we show how these challenges can be met by developing a cross-disciplinary dialogue with the field of environmental humanities. We demonstrate that incorporating environmental humanities principles and methods can improve ecosystem services and Nature’s Contributions to People frameworks by making cultural and intangible services/contributions and their benefits amenable to more inclusive assessment, based on a relational, ecocentric (re-)evaluation of human-nature relationships. The environmental humanities encourage the use of both Indigenous Knowledges and grassroots knowledges and offer non-linear ways of thinking about future ecosystem management, for example using speculative imaginaries. In exchange, dialogue with ecosystem services and Nature’s Contributions to People frameworks offers a further pathway to impact for the environmental humanities. We conclude by recommending multiple instruments that put the dialogue between ecosystem services, Nature’s Contributions to People, and the environmental humanities into practice.

In the face of complex societal challenges, stakeholder participation/engagement and knowledge co-production have become increasingly important to the sustainability sciences. Why and how these stakeholders are identified frequently remains unclear, which raises concerns regarding rigor and procedural justice of research processes. Against this background, this paper seeks to contribute to a better understanding of how and why procedural justice issues materialize in stakeholder identification and assess the extent to which they can be addressed. We build on proposals for stakeholder identification in the academic literature that integrate three common approaches: analytical, sampling, and participant-based approaches. Further zooming into these approaches and related methods through a procedural justice lens, we show how the inclusion of stakeholders, the influence of stakeholders on the identification process, and the transparency of the overall identification process matter. We draw upon our own case study experiences to share the lessons learned, including the benefits of systematic mapping approaches for stakeholder identification. We conclude that stakeholder mapping facilitates accurate documenting of identification procedures and supports iterative refinement and adjustments of the stakeholders identified, whilst also creating reflexive potential to address intuitive and past experience-based practices, ultimately opening promising avenues to advance procedural justice in stakeholder identification.

Research and practice in climate risk reduction often view marginalized individuals through the lens of vulnerability. However, this perspective lacks specificity of which groups and needs should be incorporated, features narrow wealth-based conceptualization and provides insufficient operationalizable guidance for planning and implementation. This study highlights the theoretical and practical significance of a functional-based approach. It transcends the apparent differences among social groups, instead identifying their shared activity limitations and associated access and functional needs (AFNs) amid climate hazards. Those social groups generally include but not limited to people with disabilities, limited language proficiency, restricted mobility and economic disadvantage, pregnant women as well as children and seniors. We combine quantitative and qualitative analysis to investigate how and why local governments incorporate AFNs in their climate risk reduction. Based on hazard mitigation and climate adaptation plans across local governments in California, our results show that AFN inclusion is consistently predicted by AFN incorporation in higher-level plans, rather than the presence of AFN populations. Besides, plans embracing the functional-based approach achieve greater comprehensiveness and depth of AFN inclusion. We further highlight the commonalities and differences between the two types of plans and conclude with strategic and operational implications for risk reduction efforts.

Policy narrative analyses provide important insight to understand mechanisms and dynamic of policy change but also to explore how narratives shape or bind coalitions in a policy subsystem. The overall aim of our analysis was to check what are the dominant narratives about nature conservation manifested in public debate and who generates them. We applied a Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) that allowed for a systematic analysis of narratives generated in public debate on conservation in Poland. We collected and analyzed over 1200 sources of policy narratives published in the most popular nationwide newspapers in Poland between 2004 and 2020.

Our results illustrate that the public discussion on conservation is focused on policy actors and their actions and beliefs rather than on scientific evidence. While wild nature itself is barely discussed, it is often positioned as an important, active actor in generated narratives. We identified two main coalitions that present different beliefs on nature and human role in natural systems maintenance. Both mutualists coalition and the coalition of traditionalists describe themselves as heroes, knowing the right solutions for conservation challenges, and their opponents as villains - impeding the effective conservation actions.

The study illustrates the applicability of the NPF to explore beliefs and values expressed in policy narratives. The results highlight a polarization of conservation debate in a country in transition.

Gray literature is increasingly considered to complement evidence and knowledge from peer-reviewed literature for science-policy processes and applied research. On the one hand, science-policy assessments need to consider a diversity of worldviews, knowledge types and values from a variety of sectors and actor groups, and synthesize policy-relevant findings that are salient, legitimate and credible. On the other hand, practitioners and scholars conducting applied research are affected by the time lag and biases of academic publication processes. Gray literature holds diverse perspectives informative for science-policy processes as well as practical evidence unfiltered by commercial publication processes. However, its heterogeneity has made it challenging to access through conventional means for a literature review. This paper details one endeavor within the Values Assessment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) to review gray literature using Google’s Programmable Search Engine. In the absence of a standardized approach, we build on the limited experiential knowledge base for reviewing gray literature and report on the potential applicability of our strategy for future reviews. Gray literature review results contrast findings of our parallel review of academic literature, underlining the importance of mobilizing different knowledge bases in science-policy assessments, evidence-based practices, and applied research.

This is the first global empirical study that specifically explores the perspectives of Indigenous peoples, people working for Indigenous Peoples’ Organisations (IPOs) and people working in other relevant roles (e.g., conveners of large environmental NGOs) on the barriers to meaningful and effective participation in global environmental governance forums. A total of 30 key informant participants were interviewed for this study. Participants were invited based on their engagement with and/or their interest in Indigenous participation and leadership related to environmental governance. Inductive analysis of the interview data revealed that ‘capacity barriers’, ‘representation, grouping and disconnect’, ‘inclusion and exclusion’, and ‘insights for how to proceed in the future’ to be important primary themes for discussion. Secondary themes were also determined for each primary theme to highlight the key issues and to develop implications and recommendations for enhancing meaningful Indigenous leadership and collaboration in international governance forums.

The energy modelling community’s analysis of net zero often relies on approaches that hide the extent of uncertainty. Meanwhile the extent of uncertainty involved in the realisation of net zero is proliferating. Conventional consolidative modelling approaches lack of transparency is distorting decision making and policy design around net zero. This contribution uses the UK’s Committee on Climate Changes 6th Carbon Budget as a case study. An exploratory, Robust Decision-Making approach is used to highlight the fragility of conventional UK modelling approaches in shaping national climate policy. A new suite of tools, orientation of analysis and mixed approaches are needed to address the extent of complexity, uncertainty and emergence in possible net zero futures. Only then will robust, inclusive and realisable climate policy be designed.

This paper undertakes a comprehensive comparative analysis of policy challenges and opportunities for the deployment of low-carbon DH. Through literature review and complementary qualitative analysis of interviews with key institutional stakeholders in the heating sector (n= 20) of Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the UK, the paper draws some important lessons on preconditions for successful roll-out of DH. We find that more governments must create appropriate conditions, provide more support, and speed up actions to enhance the role of DH in heat decarbonisation, to educate, encourage the adoption, and involve citizens, politicians, and other key stakeholders in the heat transition to DH. Amid the current energy price crisis, slow adopters must act fast to develop low-carbon DH networks to ensure the supply of secure, sustainable, and affordable heating sources. They would have to create appropriate conditions to reduce fossil-fuel path dependence, lock-out fossil fuel-based infrastructure and lock-in the diffusion and adoption of low-carbon DH.

To properly address the polycrisis we need to tackle the underlying causes and thereby transition to a long-term sustainable and just society. The current mainstream proposed pathways out of our predicament focus mainly on climate change, and heavily utilise technological solutions. Although addressing the polycrisis holistically is not often the aim of these pathways, the fact that they often transgress other planetary boundaries means they cannot be used to inform us what a truly sustainable society looks like. The widespread assumptions of technological optimism also do not hold up to scrutiny when we consider the equity of their assumptions at the global level, yet are frequently relied on to construct policy. It is vital we acknowledge and then begin to address the knowledge gap left by ruling out incompatible transition scenarios.