A framework for co‐designing decision‐support systems for policy implementation: The LANDSUPPORT experience

Abstract

This work proposes a framework for co‐designing decision‐support tools for sustainable land management and soil protection at multiple scales. Geospatial dashboards, due to their key capabilities in the use of spatial or geospatial information, are quickly gaining traction for planning and policymaking. Developing the decision‐support system (DSS) as a transversal system capable of capturing trends in land and soil properties at the local, regional, national, and EU levels has been co‐designed with policy stakeholders. This work seeks to link (i) the main goal of the Soil Mission and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to raise awareness and knowledge on soil conditions (ii) and the LANDSUPPORT (LS) project cross‐evaluation on how the spatial decision‐support system (SDSS) can support policy‐related stakeholders and help them to take evidence‐based decisions. To achieve this objective, we present the user engagement process to ensure broad testing and evaluation of the LS SDSS's ability to support selected EU policies and soil‐related SDGs by testing the LS platform's European scale tools, including an analysis and conformity check of the data delivered by the LS tools and a critical review of results. The indicators were assessed via direct contact with end users, such as semi‐structured interviews (SSI) and 184 questionnaires. Results of the test series have been analyzed by the spatial scale per respective tool and performance indicators. We present a unique, integrated, science‐based approach to co‐create data‐driven decision‐making with the stakeholders to promote sustainable land management practices. This methodology strives to involve many stakeholders in scientific research, empowering them to participate in the decisions on topics that directly affect them. Public bodies responsible for land policy implementation, environmental stakeholders, spatial planners, and other users have engaged in the process to ensure broad testing of the LS platform from 2020 to 2022. A strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis provided a synthesis of the performance of the LS tools. The testing phase proved the utmost importance of usability, underlining that the mixed method of testing allowing quantitative and qualitative analyses based on the same key indicators proved essential for co‐designing SDSS tools to be used by a wide range of stakeholders.