Organising evidence for environmental management decisions: a ‘4S’ hierarchy

Dicks, Lynn V.; Walsh, Jessica C.; Sutherland, William J.

doi:10.1016/j.tree.2014.09.004

Cited by 211 publications

(156 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…Dicks et al, 2014;Land et al, 2016). However, our sample of reviews suggests that many published evidence reviews are of low methodological reliability which increases the risk that they will not adequately reflect current knowledge.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, reviews that relate to decision-making more broadly should also aim to accurately represent the primary evidence base and report their methodology as clearly as possible. If decision-making is to be informed by evidence, it is important to ensure that this evidence is a good representation of the whole evidence base (Dicks et al, 2014).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The reliability of evidence review methodology in environmental science and conservation

O‘Leary

Kvist

Bayliss

et al. 2016

Environmental Science & Policy

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Given the proliferation of primary research articles, the importance of reliable environmental evidence reviews for informing policy and management decisions is increasing. Although conducting reviews is an efficient method of synthesising the fragmented primary evidence base, reviews that are of poor methodological reliability have the potential to misinform by not accurately reflecting the available evidence base. To assess the current value of evidence reviews for decision-making we appraised a systematic sample of articles published in early 2015 (N=92) using the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence Synthesis Assessment Tool (CEESAT). CEESAT assesses the methodology of policy-relevant evidence reviews according to elements important for objectivity, transparency and comprehensiveness. Overall, reviews performed poorly with a median score of 2.5/39 and a modal score of zero (range 0-30, mean 5.8), and low scores were ubiquitous across subject areas. In general, reviews that applied meta-analytical techniques achieved higher scores than narrative syntheses (median 18.3 and 2.0 respectively), as a result of the latter consistently failing to adequately report methodology or how conclusions were drawn. However, some narrative syntheses achieved high scores, illustrating that the reliability of reviews should be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Given the potential importance of reviews for informing management and policy, as well as research, it is vital that overall methodological reliability is improved. Although the increasing number of systematic reviews and meta-analyses highlight that some progress is being made, our findings suggest little or no improvement in the last decade. To motivate progress, we recommend that an annual assessment of the methodological reliability of evidence reviews be conducted. To better serve the environmental policy and management communities we identify a requirement for independent critical appraisal of review methodology thus enabling decisionmakers to select reviews that are most likely to accurately reflect the evidence base.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The reliability of evidence review methodology in environmental science and conservation

O‘Leary

Kvist

Bayliss

et al. 2016

Environmental Science & Policy

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“…A reliance on forms of evidence such as anecdotes occurs as a result of barriers to the uptake of evidence, including lack of access to scientific literature, lack of practice-relevant conservation science, time constraints, or perhaps even evidence complacency (Addison et al 2015;Walsh 2015;Sutherland and Wordley 2017). To improve the use of evidence in practice, conservation scientists have suggested that decision support tools could be better designed and utilised to deliver evidence in a useable form (Cook et al 2016;Dicks et al 2014). Indeed, conservation practitioners responsible for management and policy decisions are also calling out for user-friendly decision support tools to help incorporate evidence into decision-making (Addison et al 2017;Addison et al 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Dicks et al 2014;Rodela et al 2017;IPBES 2016), there is a clear lack of social science research on improving design. Sustained insights from social science are needed because, as Bagstad et al (2013) argue, these tools are best designed in a collaborative manner with intended end users.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decision support tools in conservation: a workshop to improve user-centred design

Rose

Addison²,

Ausden³

et al. 2017

RIO

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A workshop held at the University of Cambridge in May 2017 brought developers, researchers, knowledge brokers, and users together to discuss user-centred design of decision support tools. Decision support tools are designed to take users through logical decision steps towards an evidence-informed final decision. Although they may exist in different forms, including on paper, decision support tools are generally considered to be computer-(online, software) or app-based. Studies have illustrated the potential value of decision support tools for conservation, and there are several papers describing the design of individual tools. Rather less attention, however, has been placed on the desirable characteristics for use, and even less on whether tools are actually being used in practice. This is concerning because if policy-maker or practitioner, then its design will have wasted resources. Based on an analysis of papers on tool use in conservation, there is a lack of social science research on improving design, and relatively few examples where users have been incorporated into the design process. Evidence from other disciplines, particularly human-computer interaction research, illustrates that involving users throughout the design of decision support tools increases the relevance, usability, and impact of systems. User-centred design of tools is, however, seldom mentioned in the conservation literature. The workshop started the necessary process of bringing together developers and users to share knowledge about how to conduct good user-centred design of decision support tools. This will help to ensure that tools are usable and make an impact in conservation policy and practice.

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“…Taken together, these approaches follow a logical sequence from a large volume of disparate evidence to a simple, easily understandable answer for use in policy or practice. They fall within the existing framework of the '4S' hierarchy for organising evidence described by Dicks et al (2014b). The example of natural pest regulation in agriculture was a selected case study within two entirely independent science-policy interface projects between 2012 and 2014.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What works in conservation? Using expert assessment of summarised evidence to identify practices that enhance natural pest control in agriculture

et al. 2016

Self Cite

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This paper documents an exercise to synthesize and assess the best available scientific knowledge on the effectiveness of different farm practices at enhancing natural pest regulation in agriculture. It demonstrates a novel combination of three approaches to evidence synthesis-systematic literature search, collated synopsis and evidence assessment using an expert panel. These approaches follow a logical sequence moving from a large volume of disparate evidence to a simple, easily understandable answer for use in policy or practice. The example of natural pest regulation in agriculture was selected as a case study within two independent science-policy interface projects, one European and one British. A third funder, a private business, supported the final stage to translate the synthesized findings into a useful, simplified output for agronomists. As a whole, the case Communicated by Stefan Schindler. This is part of the special issue on Networking Biodiversity Knowledge.Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article

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Organising evidence for environmental management decisions: a ‘4S’ hierarchy

Cited by 211 publications

References 56 publications

The reliability of evidence review methodology in environmental science and conservation

The reliability of evidence review methodology in environmental science and conservation

Decision support tools in conservation: a workshop to improve user-centred design

What works in conservation? Using expert assessment of summarised evidence to identify practices that enhance natural pest control in agriculture

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