Experiences with a Transdisciplinary Research Approach for Integrating Ecosystem Services into Water Management in Northwest China

Siew, Tuck Fatt; Döll, Petra; Yimit, Hamid

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-07548-8_20

Cited by 4 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Due to strong political constraints in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region that suffers from ethnic tensions and violent conflicts, it was not possible to involve non-governmental or private organizations in SuMaRiO. Most governmental stakeholders were reluctant to be involved officially because according to them the project was not officially endorsed by the Chinese central government (Siew et al 2014 ).…”

Section: Evaluation Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transdisciplinary research in support of land and water management in China and Southeast Asia: evaluation of four research projects

et al. 2016

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Transdisciplinary research (TDR) aims at identifying implementable solutions to difficult sustainability problems and at fostering social learning. It requires a well-managed collaboration among multidisciplinary scientists and multisectoral stakeholders. Performing TDR is challenging, particularly for foreign researchers working in countries with different institutional and socio-cultural conditions. There is a need to synthesize and share experience among researchers as well as practitioners regarding how TDR can be conducted under specific contexts. In this paper, we aim to evaluate and synthesize our unique experience in conducting TDR projects in Asia. We applied guiding principles of TDR to conduct a formative evaluation of four consortium projects on sustainable land and water management in China, the Philippines, and Vietnam. In all projects, local political conditions restricted the set of stakeholders that could be involved in the research processes. The set of involved stakeholders was also affected by the fact that stakeholders in most cases only participate if they belong to the personal network of the project leaders. Language barriers hampered effective communication between foreign researchers and stakeholders in all projects and thus knowledge integration. The TDR approach and its specific methods were adapted to respond to the specific cultural, social, and political conditions in the research areas, also with the aim to promote trust and interest of the stakeholders throughout the project. Additionally, various measures were implemented to promote collaboration among disciplinary scientists. Based on lessons learned, we provide specific recommendations for the design and implementation of TDR projects in particular in Asia.

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Section: Evaluation Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transdisciplinary research in support of land and water management in China and Southeast Asia: evaluation of four research projects

et al. 2016

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“…Initially it was planned to conduct interviews individually with representatives of relevant stakeholders who should also participate in a series of five workshops (Siew et al, 2014). Their problem perceptions should be elicited and integrated in a causal network (a perception graph).…”

Section: Transdisciplinary Research and Stakeholder Participationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable management of river oases along the Tarim River in North-Western China under conditions of climate change

Rumbaur¹,

Thevs²,

Disse³

et al. 2014

Preprint

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Abstract. The Tarim River Basin, located in Xinjiang, NW China, is the largest endorheic river basin of China and one of the largest in whole Central Asia. Due to the extremely arid climate with an annual precipitation of less than 100 mm, the water supply along the Aksu and Tarim River solely depends on river water. This applies for anthropogenic activities (e.g. agriculture) as well as for the natural ecosystems so that both compete for water. The on-going increase of water consumption by agriculture and other human activities in this region has been enhancing the competition for water between human needs and nature. Against this background, 11 German and 6 Chinese universities and research institutes formed the consortium SuMaRiO (www.sumario.de), which aims at gaining a holistic picture of the availability of water resources in the Tarim River Basin and the impacts on anthropogenic activities and natural ecosystems caused by the water distribution within the Tarim River Basin. The discharge of the Aksu River, which is the major tributary to the Tarim, has been increasing over the past 6 decades due to enhanced glacier melt. Alone from 1989 to 2011, the area under agriculture more than doubled. Thereby, cotton became the major crop and there was a shift from small-scale farming to large-scale intensive farming. The major natural ecosystems along the Aksu and Tarim River are riparian ecosystems: Riparian (Tugai) forests, shrub vegetation, reed beds, and other grassland. Within the SuMaRiO Cluster the focus was laid on the Tugai forests, with Populus euphratica as dominant tree, because the most productive and species-rich natural ecosystems can be found among those forests. On sites with groundwater distance of less than 7.5 m the annual increments correlated with river runoffs of the previous year. But, the further downstream along the Tarim River, the more the natural river dynamics ceased, which impacts on the recruitment of Populus euphratica. Household surveys revealed that there is a considerable willingness to pay for conservation of those riparian forests with the mitigation of dust and sandstorms considered as the most important ecosystem service. This interdisciplinary project will result in a decision support tool (DST), build on the participation of regional stakeholders and models based on results and field experiments. This DST finally shall assist stakeholders in balancing the water competition acknowledging the major external effects of any water allocation.

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“…5 and 6). In these catchments, water use involves trade-offs between irrigation, hydropower production, and maintaining minimum ecological flow for sustaining natural ecosystems that provide habitat for biodiversity and mitigate desertification (e.g., Siew et al 2014). In contrast, the projects SuLaMa in Madagascar and LEGATO in Vietnam target farmers who make decisions on crop and livestock production ranging from a few hectares up to regional scales within mosaic landscapes (areas of 7500 km² and 225 km²).…”

Section: Scoping Phase (A)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The decision support tool developed by the SuMaRiO project in China supports institutions at the national and provincial level in testing different scenarios of land and water use (Siew et al 2014). The tool has mainly educational purpose and allows the involved institutions to better understand possible impacts of land-use decisions on ES.…”

Section: Implementation Phase (C)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing ecosystem services for informing land-use decisions: a problem-oriented approach

Förster¹,

Barkmann²,

Fricke³

et al. 2015

E&S

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ABSTRACT. Assessments of ecosystem services (ES), that aim at informing decisions on land management, are increasing in number around the globe. Despite selected success stories, evidence for ES information being used in decision making is weak, partly because ES assessments are found to fall short in targeting information needs by decision makers. To improve their applicability in practice, we compared existing concepts of ES assessments with focus on informing land use decisions and identified opportunities for enhancing the relevance of ES assessments for decision making. In a process of codesign, building on experience of four projects in Brazil, China, Madagascar, and Vietnam, we developed a step-wise approach for better targeting ES assessments toward information needs in land use decisions. Our problem-oriented approach aims at (1) structuring ES information according to land use problems identified by stakeholders, (2) targeting context-specific ES information needs by decision makers, and (3) assessing relevant management options. We demonstrate how our approach contributes to making ES assessments more policy relevant and enhances the application of ES assessments as a tool for decision support.

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Experiences with a Transdisciplinary Research Approach for Integrating Ecosystem Services into Water Management in Northwest China

Cited by 4 publications

References 34 publications

Transdisciplinary research in support of land and water management in China and Southeast Asia: evaluation of four research projects

Transdisciplinary research in support of land and water management in China and Southeast Asia: evaluation of four research projects

Sustainable management of river oases along the Tarim River in North-Western China under conditions of climate change

Assessing ecosystem services for informing land-use decisions: a problem-oriented approach

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