Integration of social and ecological sciences for natural resource decision making: challenges and opportunities

The last 25 years have witnessed growing recognition that natural resource management decisions depend as much on understanding humans and their social interactions as on understanding the interactions between non-human organisms and their environment. Decision science provides a framework for integrating ecological and social factors into a decision, but challenges to integration remain. The decision-analytic framework elicits values and preferences to help articulate objectives, and then evaluates the outcomes of alternative management actions to achieve these objectives. Integrating social science into these steps can be hindered by failing to include social scientists as more than stakeholder-process facilitators, assuming that specific decision-analytic skills are commonplace for social scientists, misperceptions of social data as inherently qualitative, timescale mismatches for iterating through decision analysis and collecting relevant social data, difficulties in predicting human behavior, and failures of institutions to recognize the importance of this integration. We engage these challenges, and suggest solutions to them, helping move forward the integration of social and biological/ecological knowledge and considerations in decision-making.

[1]  Richard C. Stedman,et al.  Sense of place and forest science: Toward a program of quantitative research : Sense of place , 2003 .

[2]  R. Gregory.  The Troubling Logic of Inclusivity in Environmental Consultations , 2017 .

[3]  H. Possingham,et al.  Optimizing disturbance management for wildlife protection: the enforcement allocation problem , 2016 .

[4]  J. Louviere,et al.  Combining Revealed and Stated Preference Methods for Valuing Environmental Amenities , 1994 .

[5]  D. Hensher,et al.  Stated Choice Methods: Analysis and Applications , 2000 .

[6]  Angela K. Fuller,et al.  Addressing wild turkey population declines using structured decision making , 2017 .

[7]  Tommy L. Brown,et al.  2007 Statewide Deer Hunter Survey: Participation During the ’06 Seasons, Opinions about Hot-Button Issues, and Trends in Characteristics of Hunters , 2008 .

[8]  F. Johnson,et al.  Multilevel Learning in the Adaptive Management of Waterfowl Harvests: 20 Years and Counting , 2015 .

[9]  John Fieberg,et al.  Design and Analysis of Simple Choice Surveys for Natural Resource Management , 2010 .

[10]  William F. Siemer,et al.  Hunter Satisfactions with Deer Harvest Opportunities in New York State , 2015 .

[11]  A. Getis.  The Analysis of Spatial Association by Use of Distance Statistics , 2010 .

[12]  Justin A. Gude,et al.  Using structured decision making to manage disease risk for Montana wildlife , 2013 .

[13]  C. S. Holling.  Understanding the Complexity of Economic, Ecological, and Social Systems , 2001, Ecosystems.

[14]  L. Alessa,et al.  Social–ecological hotspots mapping : A spatial approach for identifying coupled social–ecological space , 2008 .

[15]  Garry D. Peterson,et al.  Perceived Barriers to Integrating Social Science and Conservation , 2006, Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology.

[16]  James D. Nichols,et al.  Analysis and Management of Animal Populations: Modeling, Estimation and Decision Making , 2002 .

[17]  Justin A. Gude,et al.  Structured decision making for managing pneumonia epizootics in bighorn sheep , 2016 .

[18]  Howard Raiffa,et al.  Decision analysis: introductory lectures on choices under uncertainty. 1968. , 1969, M.D.Computing.

[19]  Mark W. Brunson,et al.  A Framework for Understanding Social Science Contributions to Ecosystem Management , 1998 .

[20]  T. Heberlein,et al.  Navigating Environmental Attitudes , 2012, Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology.

[21]  E. Milner‐Gulland,et al.  Hunting Down the Chimera of Multiple Disciplinarity in Conservation Science , 2014, Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology.

[22]  I. Ajzen.  The theory of planned behavior , 1991 .

[23]  Alan Hastings,et al.  A typology of time‐scale mismatches and behavioral interventions to diagnose and solve conservation problems , 2016, Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology.

[24]  Sarah J. Converse,et al.  Special Issue Article: Adaptive management for biodiversity conservation in an uncertain world Which uncertainty? Using expert elicitation and expected value of information to design an adaptive program , 2011 .

[25]  Andrew J Tyre,et al.  Evaluating the efficacy of adaptive management approaches: is there a formula for success? , 2011, Journal of environmental management.

[26]  Angela K. Fuller,et al.  Participatory Modeling and Structured Decision Making , 2017 .

[27]  David R. Smith,et al.  Implementation of a framework for multi-species, multi-objective adaptive management in Delaware Bay , 2015 .

[28]  Ralph L. Keeney,et al.  MAKING SMARTER ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT DECISIONS , 2002 .

[29]  M. Conroy,et al.  Using structured decision making with landowners to address private forest management and parcelization: balancing multiple objectives and incorporating uncertainty , 2015 .

[30]  R. Gregory,et al.  Creating policy alternatives using stakeholder values , 1994 .

[31]  F. H. Barron,et al.  SMARTS and SMARTER: Improved Simple Methods for Multiattribute Utility Measurement , 1994 .

[32]  Ralph L. Keeney,et al.  Value-Focused Thinking , 1996 .

[33]  R. Moss,et al.  Ecosystems and human well-being: a framework for assessment , 2003 .

[34]  Angela K. Fuller,et al.  Structured decision making as a framework for large‐scale wildlife harvest management decisions , 2016 .

[35]  Robin Gregory,et al.  Decision-Pathway Surveys: A Tool for Resource Managers , 1997 .

[36]  Joffre Swait,et al.  Stated Choice Methods: Relaxing the IID assumption – introducing variants of the MNL model , 2000 .

[37]  Robin Gregory,et al.  Structured Decision Making: A Practical Guide to Environmental Management Choices , 2012 .

[38]  R. Gregory,et al.  Science, Uncertainty, and Values in Ecological Restoration: A Case Study in Structured Decision‐Making and Adaptive Management , 2013 .

[39]  S. Schroeder,et al.  Discrete choice modeling of season choice for Minnesota turkey hunters , 2018 .

[40]  W. Haider,et al.  Hearing Voices from the Silent Majority: A Comparison of Preferred Fish Stocking Outcomes for Lake Huron by Anglers from Representative and Convenience Samples , 2010 .

[41]  C. T. Moore,et al.  Native Prairie Adaptive Management: a multi region adaptive approach to invasive plant management on Fish and Wildlife Service owned native prairies , 2013 .

[42]  P. Stern.  New Environmental Theories: Toward a Coherent Theory of Environmentally Significant Behavior , 2000 .

[43]  H Raiffa,et al.  Decision Analysis: Introductory Lectures on Choices under Uncertainty. , 1969 .

[44]  M. N. Andalecio,et al.  Multi-criteria decision models for management of tropical coastal fisheries. A review , 2010, Agronomy for Sustainable Development.

[45]  G. Long,et al.  Structured Decision Making , 2020 .

[46]  M. C. Runge,et al.  Non-native fish control below Glen Canyon Dam - Report from a structured decision-making project , 2011 .

[47]  Greg Brown,et al.  Testing a place-based theory for environmental evaluation: an Alaska case study , 2002 .

[48]  Tara L. Teel,et al.  Conservation social science: Understanding and integrating human dimensions to improve conservation , 2018 .

[49]  Robin Gregory,et al.  Valuing Environmental Policy Options: A Case Study Comparison of Multiattribute and Contingent Valuation Survey Methods , 2000 .

[50]  Hadi Dowlatabadi,et al.  A value-based framework for risk management decisions involving multiple scales: a salmon aquaculture example , 2006 .

[51]  Ralph L. Keeney,et al.  Book Reviews : Scientific Opportunities and Public Needs: Improv ing Priority Setting and Public Input at the National Institutes of Health. Institute of Medicine. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1998, 136 pages, $26.00 , 1998 .

[52]  R. Gregory,et al.  Decision Aiding, Not Dispute Resolution: Creating Insights through Structured Environmental Decisions , 2001 .

[53]  Paul Goodwin,et al.  Decision Analysis for Management Judgment , 1998 .

[54]  Ralph L. Keeney,et al.  Value-Focused Thinking: A Path to Creative Decisionmaking , 1992 .

[55]  L. Alessa,et al.  A comparison of perceptions of biological value with scientific assessment of biological importance , 2004 .