michaelschoon Michael Schoon's Personal Website

Hi All!

I wanted to share this recording of a recent webinar by Örjan Bodin.  A link to the recording is available here.

Title: Environmental governance and human-nature interactions: A network perspective

Abstract:

Achieving effective, sustainable environmental governance requires a better understanding of the causes and consequences of the complex patterns of interdependencies connecting people and ecosystems. Network thinking provides a way to make these patterns of interdependencies the subject of empirical enquiry. In this talk I will demonstrate how multilevel social-ecological network modeling has been used to study environmental outcomes in small-scale fisheries and agriculture. I will also show how this multilevel network approach can be applied studying how actors working with different tasks, or policy issues, choose to engage in collaboration (or not), and what the consequences of these choices can be.

Bio:
Assoc. Prof. Örjan Bodin is a principal researcher at the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University. He received his PhD from the Dept of Systems Ecology at Stockholm University 15 years ago, and has since been studying environmental governance in different contexts around the world. Most of his work is inherently interdisciplinary and he combines and integrates methods and theories (where applicable) from ecology, political science, sociology, behavioral economics, and network science.

This is the latest webinar on methodological approaches to studying collaborative governance and management of social-ecological systems as part of the Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS) working group on collaborative governance. All past webinars can be found at: https://www.incommonpodcast.org/series/pecs-webinars/

Hi All!

I wanted to share this recording of a recent webinar by Josie Chambers.  A link to the recording is available here.

Title: Opening up the co-production black box for ecosystem sustainability

Abstract:

Researchers and diverse societal actors increasingly co-produce knowledge and action to address complex sustainability challenges. These efforts span an increasingly rich and diverse body of terminologies and practices. However, there is poor clarity over the specific ways these approaches vary, and their practical implications. To explore this diversity, we analyzed 32 initiatives from six continents that co-produce diverse outcomes for ecosystem sustainability at local to global scales. The analysis revealed important ways that co-production initiatives vary in their purpose for utilizing co-production, understanding of power, approach to politics, and pathways to impact. This webinar will explore the implications of these differences and present a heuristic tool that helps navigate the potential benefits and risks of different approaches to co-producing knowledge and action for ecosystem sustainability.

Bio:
Josie Chambers is a Postdoctoral Researcher and Lecturer in the Forest and Nature Conservation Policy Group at Wageningen University, the Netherlands. Her research broadly examines the politics and implications of multi-scalar approaches to co-producing knowledge and transformative governance. In her current role, she organizes a university-wide dialogue process that connects diverse researchers to develop more transformative research pathways and foster institutional change. Josie was previously based at the University of Cambridge, completing an MPhil in Conservation Leadership, PhD in Geography, and two post-doctoral fellowships.

This is the latest webinar on methodological approaches to studying collaborative governance and management of social-ecological systems as part of the Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS) working group on collaborative governance. All past webinars can be found at: https://www.incommonpodcast.org/series/pecs-webinars/

Hi All!

I wanted to share this recording of a recent webinar by Ramiro Berardo on online education.  A link to the recording is available here.

Title: Tips for Increasing Student Engagement and Improving your Effectiveness as an Online Teacher

Abstract:

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the transition to online education has accelerated and educators all over the world have had to quickly adapt to the need to offering online courses. This has posed major disruptions in teaching practices but also created new, exciting opportunities to embrace new instructional approaches and update the ever changing “teaching toolkit.” In this presentation, I offer a number of simple tips that I have found to increase student engagement and improve my performance as an instructor in synchronous and asynchronous online courses. These lessons are drawn from individual experience, but they can at the very least enrich a conversation on ways in which instructional effectiveness can be improved in a context of rapidly evolving teaching (and learning!) styles. 

Bio:

Ramiro Berardo is Associate Professor of Environmental and Natural Resources Policy in the School of Environment and Natural Resources at The Ohio State University. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Florida State University.

This is the latest webinar on methodological approaches to studying collaborative governance and management of social-ecological systems as part of the Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS) working group on collaborative governance. All past webinars can be found at: https://www.incommonpodcast.org/series/pecs-webinars/

Hi All!

I wanted to share this recording of a recent webinar by Graham Epstein on using machine learning to better understand how to improve community-based natural resource management.  A link to the recording is available here.

Title: The Commons Synthesis Project: Applying machine learning to synthesize knowledge on community-based natural resource management

Abstract:

There is an emerging paradox in the literature on the commons in which rapid growth in the availability of information about community-based natural resource management is coupled with the relatively slow advances in terms of theory and practice.  This paradox stems from a number of important factors, including practical constraints in terms of the time and cognitive abilities of researchers to read and synthesize knowledge from hundreds of potentially relevant papers, as well as a growing consensus that social and environmental outcomes depend upon interactions among a wide range of social, ecological and institutional factors.  The Commons Synthesis Project, established at the University of Central Florida, aims to respond to this challenge by leveraging advances in natural language processing and machine learning to develop insights from the literature and legacy large-n databases of community-based natural resource management.  This webinar will provide an introduction to these approaches, the underlying motivation for using them, and discuss recent applications.

Bio:

Graham Epstein is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the School of Politics, Security and International Affairs at the University of Central Florida.  His research examines a number of questions at the intersections of society, the environment and institutions with the aim of developing a better understanding of collective action, compliance and sustainable natural resources management.  He completed a PhD in Public Policy at Indiana University and has also held teaching and research positions at the University of Waterloo, and has worked in policy practice with the Government of Ontario.     

This is the latest webinar on methodological approaches to studying collaborative governance and management of social-ecological systems as part of the Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS) working group on collaborative governance. All past webinars can be found at: https://www.incommonpodcast.org/series/pecs-webinars/

Hi All!

I wanted to share this recording of a recent webinar by Micaela Trimble on adaptive water governance in Latin America.  A link to the recording is available here.

Title: Learning from water crises in South America: towards adaptive water governance?

Abstract: Similar to the whole world, South America faces numerous water-related crises and challenges (e.g. water quantity and quality scarcity) due to climate change, land use, governance systems, and other such factors. Based on the GovernAgua research project, this webinar focuses on adaptive water governance in contexts of crisis in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. The objective is to analyse the recent water crises affecting drinking water supply in three watersheds—turbidity in the Chubut river (Patagonia, Argentina) in 2017, drought in the Piracicaba-Capivari-Jundiaí river basins (São Paulo, Brazil) in 2014-2015, and algal blooms in the Laguna del Sauce lake (Maldonado, Uruguay) in 2015. The role of Basin committees (involving government and nongovernment actors) in their response to water crises is also analyzed. The methods used included semi-structured interviews, virtual workshops, participant observation, and document analysis. The findings show that the consequences of the crises were diverse, including enhanced communication among actors at multiple levels (Argentinian and Uruguayan cases), incorporation of climate components in the basin management plan (Brazilian case), and emergence of social mistrust regarding the quality of drinking water (Uruguayan case). In addition, limitations faced by Basin committees in addressing water-related crises were identified.

Bio: 

Micaela Trimble holds a Doctoral degree in Natural Resources and Environmental Management from the University of Manitoba (Canada). She was a postdoctoral fellow of the Centre for Marine Studies – Federal University of Parana (Brazil), and at the Environmental Sustainability Research Centre – Brock University (Canada). She is currently an Associate at the South American Institute for Resilience and Sustainability Studies (SARAS), in Uruguay, where she is PI of two research projects on water governance. She is also a member of the National System of Researchers of Uruguay. Her areas of expertise include public participation, adaptive governance, and adaptive co-management of social-ecological systems, such as small-scale fisheries and watersheds.

This is the latest webinar on methodological approaches to studying collaborative governance and management of social-ecological systems as part of the Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS) working group on collaborative governance.

Hi All!

I wanted to share this recording of a recent webinar by Astrid Dannenberg on lab experimentation and cooperation.  A link to the recording is available here.

Title: Cooperation and institution formation in the lab

Abstract: This lecture will summarize what we have learned about cooperation and institutions formation through running lab experiments. Specifically, we will talk about people’s abilities to cooperate and form institutions to solve cooperation problems. Lab experiment are somewhat artificial, but they have the advantage of eliciting real (non-hypothetical) decisions under highly controlled conditions, allowing researchers to identify causal effects in a clean way. The results of this literature show that standard economics theory, based on rational and self-interested actors, often is too pessimistic when it comes to human cooperation, but sometimes is too optimistic when it comes to choosing the best institution.

Bio: Astrid Dannenberg is Professor of Environmental and Behavioral Economics at the University of Kassel, Germany. Her research focuses on human decision making, the drivers and barriers of cooperation, and how institutions can be designed to promote cooperation. Astrid received her M.Sc. in economics at the University of Mannheim and her PhD at the Otto-von-Guericke-University of Magdeburg. She previously was a Research Fellow at the Centre for European Economic Research in Mannheim, the University of Gothenburg, and Columbia University in New York City.

This is the latest webinar on methodological approaches to studying collaborative governance and management of social-ecological systems as part of the Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS) working group on collaborative governance.

Hi All!

I wanted to share this recording of a webinar by Tom Evans on geospatial analysis and environmental social science.  A link to the recording is available here.

Title: Application of Geospatial Analysis to Investigate Community-Level Water Governance in Kenya

Bio: Tom Evans is a professor in the School of Geography, Development and Environment at the University of Arizona (USA). He investigates climate impacts and adaptation processes in smallholder agroecosystems as related to food and water security. Recent projects have investigated the spatial and temporal characteristics of drought events in Zambia and Kenya and the mechanisms utilized by farmers in rainfed and irrigated systems to mitigate those impacts. This work involves investigation of household level decision-making dynamics, institutional analysis/environmental governance, and integration of social-environmental data. Newer work is investigating the teleconnections between rural food production and urban food security through analysis of urban food systems. 

This is the latest webinar on methodological approaches to studying collaborative governance and management of social-ecological systems as part of the Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS) working group on collaborative governance.

Hi All!

I wanted to share this recording of a webinar by Eduardo Araral on quantitative analysis and vulnerability assessments in environmental social science.  A link to the recording is available here.

Title: The effects of migration on collective action in the commons: Evidence from rural China

Abstract: Over the past three decades, scholars have studied the effects of more than three dozen factors on collective action in the commons but little is known about the effects of rural to urban migration. We examine this question with the case of China, which has the world’s most extensive levels of rural to urban migration. Using OLS, Logit and Probit models and data from a survey of 1,780 households from 18 provinces, we find that migration has a statistically significant adverse effect on collective irrigation controlling for a large number of theoretically relevant variables. The effects of migration on collective action in the commons are possibly mediated by a number of factors frequently identified in the literature, including leadership, social capital, sense of community, economic heterogeneity, and dependence on resources. We speculate that massive out migration partly explains the significant drop in the use of collective canal irrigation and exacerbated the significant increase in groundwater irrigation since the start of reforms in 1980s. These findings have important policy implications for commons governance in China given that massive rural to urban migration will continue in the next decade. Because of the increasing rural to urban migration worldwide especially in developing countries, the findings could also partly explain the deteriorating state of rural village infrastructure, natural common pool resources and ecological systems in many developing countries.

Bio: Ed is a practitioner and academic with 30 years of experience in academia, government, consulting and executive education for governments, corporations and donors in Asia. He holds a PhD Degree in Public Policy from Indiana University-Bloomington on a Fulbright PhD Scholarship with Elinor Ostrom (2009 Nobel Laureate in Economics) as his supervisor.

He specializes in the study of collective action for public goods and the commons. He has 70 papers in journals, books and working papers on foreign aid, infrastructure PPP and regulation, water governance, supply and sanitation, irrigation, telecommunications, COVID-19, housing, urban governance, land use policy, climate change and adaptation, digital nudging, cloud computing, smart cities, policy reform, corruption, bureaucracy, civil service reform and regional cooperation. He has published in policy, development and governance journals including World Development, Public Administration Review, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Governance, Policy Science, Policy and Society, Environmental Science and Policy, Land Use Policy, Telecommunications Policy, Water Policy, Water Resources Research, Cities, Geoforum, Human Ecology, International Journal of the Commons and Journal of Rural Studies. He has also presented in more than 50 international conferences.

His awards and recognitions include fellowships from the research centers of 3 Nobel Laureates in Economics (Coase, Ostrom, Stigler); the 2013 Ostrom Prize for the Governance of the Commons, a Fulbright PhD award and the Pamana ng Lahi Presidential Award for Outstanding Overseas Filipinos. His work has been cited by the President of the National University of Singapore as an example of research with both academic and practical significance.

As a practitioner, Ed has a large and active portfolio of government advisory, consultancy, executive education and media engagement. He served as adviser to the Deputy Prime Minister, Finance Minister, Central Bank Governor and Chairman of the Civil Service and Anti-Corruption Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan. He has also advised senior government officials from Vietnam, Myanmar, Philippines, UAE, Armenia, Uzbekistan, among others. He has consulted for the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, UNDP, Microsoft, Amazon, General Electric, local governments and NGOs. He has lectured in more than 230 Executive Education Programs for more than 5,000 participants – Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, Directors, City Mayors, NGO leaders, CEOs of multinationals and ranking military officers – from more than 50 countries throughout Asia, Russia and Africa. He has been interviewed / quoted at least 220 times in the media including BBC, CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, China Daily, Al Jazeera, Straits Times, Channel News Asia, Insight, South China Morning Post, Washington Post, Voice of America, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, among others.

This is the latest webinar on methodological approaches to studying collaborative governance and management of social-ecological systems as part of the Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS) working group on collaborative governance.

Hi All!

I wanted to share the recording of a webinar by J.T. Erbaugh on quantitative analysis and vulnerability assessments in environmental social science.  A link to the recording is available here.

Title: Local vulnerability to climate change in Indonesia: Using hierarchical clustering to scale-up vulnerability profiles

Abstract: Climate vulnerability is comprised of a community’s exposure, sensitivity, and ability to adapt to future climate hazards. Measurements of climate vulnerability often collapse these distinct yet interrelated components into a single index. Though indices provide a method for comparing vulnerability, they often depend on arbitrary cut-off points, and they do not provide sufficient information to guide communities or governments in the design of local adaptation to climate change (LACC). In contrast, vulnerability profiles provide information on the magnitude and combination of climate exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. To date, vulnerability profiles have not been scalable, and thus cannot provide regional information required for coordinating local investment in climate-smart development or assisting policymakers in addressing specific climate vulnerabilities. In this research, use hierarchical agglomerative clustering to generate regional vulnerability profiles across 80,736 Indonesian villages. Within six sub-regions across Indonesia, we find 61 vulnerability clusters that identify regional vulnerability according to predicted climate, land-cover change, population trends, and village-level development variables. Our initial consultations with village-leaders have thus far validated cluster assignments. Understanding how villages and regions are vulnerable to climate change, rather than focusing solely on the level of vulnerability they face, promises to better direct climate funding and support local adaptations to climate change.

Bio: James (J.T.) Erbaugh is a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow in Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences at Dartmouth College. He draws upon political theory, political ecology, and methods in causal inference to conduct research on environmental policy and governance. He specializes in the study of decentralized forest management, forest restoration and its contribution to local livelihoods, and local adaptations to climate change. His research has been published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, Environmental Research Letters, World Development, and Forest Policy and Economics, among other outlets. 

This is the latest webinar on methodological approaches to studying collaborative governance and management of social-ecological systems as part of the Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS) working group on collaborative governance.

Hi All!

I wanted to share the recording of a webinar by Michael Cox and Sergio Villamayor-Tomas on qualitative meta-analyses in environmental social science.  A link to the recording is available here.

Title:  Meta-analyses and case studies in the social-environmental sciences

Abstract:

In the last 10 years, qualitative meta-analyses (QMA) have gained momentum in the environmental social sciences. These are motivated by the abundance of single case studies in the field, which by themselves don’t produce generalizable knowledge. This situation under-leverages the knowledge of individual researchers for collective learning, and hinders knowledge accumulation . QMA can fill this gap by coding important features of case studies to facilitate analytical comparisons between them. Conditions and resources to carry meta-analyses have notably improved in recent years due to increasing internet availability, open access publications, and big data management techniques. This presentation will cover the basic protocols for implementing a QMA, using examples from research on community-based natural resource management and socio-ecological systems. It will also discuss the connection between QMA and newly proposed protocols for conducting and reporting the case studies themselves.

Bios:

Michael Cox is a professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College. He is an environmental social scientist who studies community-based natural resource management as well as path dependence and technological transitions. He has conducted empirical fieldwork-based analyses of irrigation systems in the Southwest United States, Peru and Kenya. His current empirical work is focused on community-based fisheries and rice farming systems in the Dominican Republic, as well as collaborative watershed management in South Africa. For the past several years he has led a synthetic project on social-ecological governance, the details of which can be found at http://sesmad.dartmouth.edu/. More recently he has been developing the Environmental Social Science Network with Stefan Partelow, with the two co-hosting the Finding Sustainability Podcast (https://essnetwork.net/podcast/) along with Courtney Hammond-Wagner.

Sergio Villamayor-Tomas is currently Ramon y Cajal Research Fellow at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA-UAB), at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He is also affiliated with the Ostrom´s Workshop (Indiana University) and the Berlin Workshop in Institutional Analysis of Socio-Ecological Systems (WINS).  His research areas are climate change adaptation, community-based natural resource management, and polycentric governance. Specific topics include adaptation to droughts and other disturbances in the irrigation sector, bottom-up management solutions to the water-energy-food nexus, transboundary river management, and the interaction of social movements and commons management. He has carried fieldwork research in Spain, Colombia, Mexico, and Germany with grants from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the Canadian Social Science Research Council (SSHRC), the Latin-American Association of Environmental Economists (LACEEP), the BiodivERsA/FACCE-JPI network and the Government of Balearic Islands, among others.

This is the latest webinar on methodological approaches to studying collaborative governance and management of social-ecological systems as part of the Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS) working group on collaborative governance.