Participatory modeling for collaborative landscape and environmental planning: From potential to realization

Participatory modeling is a collaborative approach to formalize shared representations of a problem and, through the joint modeling process, design, and test solutions. This approach is particularly well-suited to address complex socio-environmental problems like climate change and its implications on equitable and sustainable resource management and landscape planning. Despite its potential to inform landscape and environmental planning and policy, participatory modeling has yet to become a mainstream practice in our field. The reasons are several. First, it is hard to standardize the approach, as it must be heavily tailored to the characteristics and context of each planning problem, including the stakeholders engaged in the process. It is also onerous, requiring long-term commitment and a broad range of skills that can only be attained through extensive training and collaboration. These and other barriers are currently being addressed with a resurgence of knowledge co-production and ethical participation in scholarship, in practice, and in funding agendas. While most of the participatory modeling scholarship has focused on modeling tools and engagement techniques, multiple other dimensions must be recognized and articulated for impactful planning support. Grounding this perspective on a more fully integrated picture of participatory modeling, I identify some of these gaps and suggest an interdisciplinary research agenda to further evolve and scale up this practice for landscape and environmental planning and policy. The agenda highlights aspects of interface design and model biases, value elicitation and inclusion, management of diversity and innovation through facilitation, and the potential of novel computer-assisted assessment methodologies.