scholarly journals Operationalizing ecosystem service bundles for strategic sustainability planning: A participatory approach

AMBIO ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 314-331
Author(s):  
Katja Malmborg ◽  
Elin Enfors-Kautsky ◽  
Cibele Queiroz ◽  
Albert Norström ◽  
Lisen Schultz
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Ecosystem Service ◽  
Shared Understanding ◽  
Participatory Process ◽  
Southern Sweden ◽  
Sustainability Planning ◽  
Sense Of Ownership ◽  
Local Decision ◽  
Multifunctional Landscape ◽  
Local Decision Making

AbstractThe ecosystem service concept is recognized as a useful tool to support sustainability in decision-making. In this study, we collaborated with actors in the Helge å catchment, southern Sweden, in an iterative participatory ecosystem service assessment. Through workshops and interviews, we jointly decided which ecosystem services to assess and indicators to use in order to achieve a sense of ownership and a higher legitimacy of the assessment. Subsequently, we explored the landscape-level interactions between the 15 assessed services, and found that the area can be described using three distinct ecosystem service bundles. The iterative, participatory process strengthened our analysis and created a shared understanding and overview of the multifunctional landscape around Helge å among participants. Importantly, this allowed for the generated knowledge to impact local strategic sustainability planning. With this study, we illustrate how similar processes can support local decision-making for a more sustainable future.

An Experimental Study Using SDS Tools for a Participatory Approach to Local Land Use Planning

2011 ◽  
pp. 150-166
Author(s):  
Piotr Jankowski ◽  
Milosz Stasik
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Decision Support ◽  
Land Use Planning ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Shared Understanding ◽  
Spatial Understanding ◽  
Analytical Thinking ◽  
Local Decision ◽  
Local Decision Making

Participatory geographic information systems (PGIS) have been touted as a technology to democratize local decision making. The promise of PGIS has been largely pinned on the assumption that maps as tools of communication are rich in informational content, and capable of fostering shared understanding and analytical thinking. Whether maps alone can indeed be the medium for supporting shared understanding and analytical thinking in participatory decision making is still an open question. Much of our knowledge in this area is still anecdotal, and there is a need for empirical work to supply the evidence. In an attempt to test the applicability of maps, decision models, and Internet-based communication tools for PGIS, software called spatial understanding and decision support system (SUDSS) was built using asynchronous spatiotemporal environment, and tested in a realistic setting representing public land-use planning debate. This chapter provides a description of the software and the experiment, followed by the discussion of its results and their significance for the future development of similar public participation spatial-decision support tools.

The Veil of Bureaucracy: How Officials Evade Partisan Politics in Participatory Settings

2021 ◽  
pp. 232949652110288
Author(s):  
Meaghan Stiman
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Partisan Politics ◽  
Community Voice ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Local Decision ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
The Veil ◽  
Local Decision Making ◽  
Do So

In theory, participatory democracies are thought to empower citizens in local decision-making processes. However, in practice, community voice is rarely representative, and even in cases of equal representation, citizens are often disempowered through bureaucratic processes. Drawing on the case of a firearm discharge debate from a rural county’s municipal meetings in Virginia, I extend research about how power operates in participatory settings. Partisan political ideology fueled the debate amongst constituents in expected ways, wherein citizens engaged collectivist and individualist frames to sway the county municipal board ( Celinska 2007 ). However, it was a third frame that ultimately explains the ordinance’s repeal: the bureaucratic frame, an ideological orientation to participatory processes that defers decision-making to disembodied abstract rules and procedures. This frame derives its power from its depoliticization potential, allowing bureaucrats to evade contentious political debates. Whoever is best able to wield this frame not only depoliticizes the debate to gain rationalized legitimacy but can do so in such a way to favor a partisan agenda. This study advances gun research and participatory democracy research by analyzing how the bureaucratic frame, which veils partisanship, offers an alternative political possibility for elected officials, community leaders, and citizens to adjudicate partisan debates.

Allocating HIV prevention resources: A tool for state and local decision making

Health Policy ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 87 (3) ◽  
pp. 342-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anke Richter ◽  
Katherine A. Hicks ◽  
Stephanie R. Earnshaw ◽  
Amanda A. Honeycutt
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Hiv Prevention ◽  
Local Decision ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Local Decision Making

scholarly journals Social work in municipalities

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-94
Author(s):  
Rolv Lyngstad
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Wide Sense ◽  
Professional Discretion ◽  
Local Decision ◽  
Local Discretion ◽  
Specific Meaning ◽  
Local Decision Making ◽  
Context Specific ◽  
The Relationship

The point of departure of this article is contemporary changes in the relationship between national and local decision making in the Norwegian political system. The last decades’ centralization tendencies seem to be challenged by a “new” emphasis on local discretion, and the article discusses how this will affect social work in municipalities. The changes are contested and controversial and allude to questions such as how much discretion should be given to local decision makers in the name of local democracy, and how much difference should be accepted in the name of diversity? The article argues that professional social work must be context-specific, meaning that in a wide sense local knowledge is a prerequisite for good social work. Devolution and local political and professional discretion are necessary in many cases, but not sufficient in themselves as conditions for success. Professional social workers will encounter a lot of difficult dilemmas arousing from issues related to the equality/liberty debate and the diversity/difference/equality debate in social work discourses. In order to approach these dilemmas, more of a focus on local deliberation and place shaping, in combination with a social work focus on democratic professionalism, is necessary. If this is done successfully, devolution and a recapturing of local discretion and decision-making power will empower clients as well as professionals. Thus, current changes in the relationship between different levels of decision making will enlarge the possibilities for professional social work in the municipalities.

Estimating Local Decision-Making Behavior in Complex Evolutionary Systems

2014 ◽  
Vol 136 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhenghui Sha ◽  
Jitesh H. Panchal
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Systems Engineering ◽  
Choice Model ◽  
Preferential Attachment ◽  
Network Evolution ◽  
System Structure ◽  
Statistical Regression ◽  
Evolutionary Systems ◽  
Local Decision ◽  
Local Decision Making

Research in systems engineering and design is increasingly focused on complex sociotechnical systems whose structures are not directly controlled by the designers, but evolve endogenously as a result of decisions and behaviors of self-directed entities. Examples of such systems include smart electric grids, Internet, smart transportation networks, and open source product development communities. To influence the structure and performance of such systems, it is crucial to understand the local decisions that result in observed system structures. This paper presents three approaches to estimate the local behaviors and preferences in complex evolutionary systems, modeled as networks, from its structure at different time steps. The first approach is based on the generalized preferential attachment model of network evolution. In the second approach, statistical regression-based models are used to estimate the local decision-making behaviors from consecutive snapshots of the system structure. In the third approach, the entities are modeled as rational decision-making agents who make linking decisions based on the maximization of their payoffs. Within the decision-centric framework, the multinomial logit choice model is adopted to estimate the preferences of decision-making nodes. The approaches are illustrated and compared using an example of the autonomous system (AS) level Internet. The approaches are generally applicable to a variety of complex systems that can be modeled as networks. The insights gained are expected to direct researchers in choosing the most applicable estimation approach to get the node-level behaviors in the context of different scenarios.

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