What do we know about decision support systems for landscape and environmental management? A review and expert survey within EU research projects

Stakeholder engagement with environmental decision support systems: The perspective of end users

“…Our findings support other sustainability science literature which assert that ensuring meaningful stakeholder engagement from the very inception of the project through to its completion is important so that end users of EDSS might develop a degree of ownership in project results, encouraging the ongoing use of EDSS (Campbell et al ; Lindblom et al ; Rodela et al ; Zasada et al ). Meaningful stakeholder engagement throughout climate change adaptation projects may be one way of increasing the usability of such climate change science by stakeholders to aid them in their decision making.…”

“…The findings of this study complement the sustainability science literature supporting the value of this type of EDSS (Cohen et al ; Voinov and Gaddis ; Salter et al ; Bohnet et al ; Robinson et al ; Sheppard et al ; Bowron and Davidson ; Meyer et al ; Rodela et al ; Zasada et al ). While the literature reports overall value in EDSS, there has been a need identified for further research to better understand the perspectives of the EDSS end users (Talwar et al ; Meyer et al ; Lindblom et al ).…”

“…Yet, it appears that climate change adaptation plans are often not adequately consulted after their completion, and that once the research and development phase ends, the valuable project outcomes are often not considered for future use (Koontz ; Meyer et al ; Sandink et al ; Merritt et al ; Zasada et al ; Zulkafli et al ). The literature has noted the value of having an embedded representative in at least one organization involved in the project to serve as a champion for the EDSS being adopted into ongoing actions and plans (Dilling and Lemos ; McIntosh et al ; Cairns et al ; Zasada et al ). Investing a project's limited funds to support the efforts of a few carefully selected, skilled, passionate, connected, and highly influential champions to serve as stakeholders and undergo training in the use of the EDSS, from a variety of organizations, may have more effect on project success than a broader approach to stakeholder engagement.…”

“…Consideration of the multiple interests and diversity of values of the public is very challenging. However, natural resource management has been evolving and progressively engaging stakeholders in planning and identifying priority issues for action (Reed 2008;Kalbar et al 2016;Murdock et al 2016;Rodela et al 2017;Zasada et al 2017;Zulkafli et al 2017).…”

“…Environmental decision support systems (EDSS) have been developed to assist natural resource managers and stakeholders to assess problems and choose appropriate responses. Current literature has established that despite substantial research data and EDSS availability, there is a gap between these knowledge tools and their use by stakeholders (Betsill and Bulkeley 2007;McIntosh et al 2011;Lemos et al 2012;Karpouzoglou et al 2016;Rodela et al 2017;Zasada et al 2017;Zulkafli et al 2017). Improved stakeholder engagement is needed to increase the influence of research in environmental management and policy.…”