Periodic Reporting for period 1 - InSiTe-LandGov (Interdisciplinary Synthesis of Tools for understanding Land Governance)
Reporting period: 2022-04-01 to 2024-03-31
To address the global challenges of environmental degradation and poverty we need to vastly improve our understanding of natural resource governance—the social and political processes by which people make decisions about the environment. Yet empirical methods for assessing resource governance remain spread across several disciplines, and are often costly and difficult to replicate. Scientists and policy makers thus continue to lack a coherent set of methods and data for understanding resource governance in different contexts and at different scales. Even in our current era of ‘big data’, governance remains a blind spot. Through this project my main research objective was to help address this gap by testing a set of existing and new interdisciplinary methods observing dimensions of resource governance. My focus was on combining qualitative and quantitative approaches, and on integrating potential new big/open data approaches.
I conducted this research with a focus on resource governance in the southern African savanna woodland biome—the world’s biggest savannah, spanning 12 countries from Angola to Tanzania. This vast area contains a network of over 10,000 research plots, coordinated by the Social-Ecological Observatory for Southern African Woodlands (SEOSAW)—a voluntary research network of 19 universities from Europe, North America and southern Africa. They have pooled their data to form the world’s largest dataset on savannas, but they lack critical methods and analyses on resource governance. During this project I worked as a part of SEOSAW to test methods for observing resource governance in the region.
As a Marie Curie Global Fellowship, an additional objective of this project was to further develop my technical skills and professional network through training and mentorship from academics at three world-class hubs of sustainability research: Prof. Brian Robinson at McGill University (Montreal, Canada, outgoing phase); Dr Casey Ryan at the University of Edinburgh (UK, secondment), and Dr Tim Daw at Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC) (Stockholm University, incoming phase).
The main conclusions of the action were:
1. The finding that, while field-based approaches to generating data on governance are likely to remain the most robust and precise, such methods are likely to remain methodologically arduous, ethically difficult and very costly (even despite advances in remote data generation and automated data processing). Analysts in search of cost effective options are thus likely to need to use the increasingly wide array of interdisciplinary mixed-method (and not necessarily highly quantitative) approaches that are emerging in social-ecological systems research.
2. Empirical research showing that human factors (including dimensions of protected area governance) have significantly altered the structure of almost all of the world’s remaining savanna woodlands. The paper argues that savannas should thus be assumed to be anthropic systems by default—and that unless human factors (including aspects of governance) are accounted for in empirical analyses, savanna ecology risks becoming, in essence, an archaeological discipline examining the functioning of historical biomes that no longer commonly exist in the real world.
3. A theory-based piece proposing radical alternatives for assessing and rewarding carbon sequestration (and other ecological outcomes) in ecological markets, whereby carbon suppliers would be rewarded based on their adaptive capacity and resilience (including aspects of their governance regime), rather than for inherently uncertain estimates of carbon change.
I conducted this research with a focus on resource governance in the southern African savanna woodland biome—the world’s biggest savannah, spanning 12 countries from Angola to Tanzania. This vast area contains a network of over 10,000 research plots, coordinated by the Social-Ecological Observatory for Southern African Woodlands (SEOSAW)—a voluntary research network of 19 universities from Europe, North America and southern Africa. They have pooled their data to form the world’s largest dataset on savannas, but they lack critical methods and analyses on resource governance. During this project I worked as a part of SEOSAW to test methods for observing resource governance in the region.
As a Marie Curie Global Fellowship, an additional objective of this project was to further develop my technical skills and professional network through training and mentorship from academics at three world-class hubs of sustainability research: Prof. Brian Robinson at McGill University (Montreal, Canada, outgoing phase); Dr Casey Ryan at the University of Edinburgh (UK, secondment), and Dr Tim Daw at Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC) (Stockholm University, incoming phase).
The main conclusions of the action were:
1. The finding that, while field-based approaches to generating data on governance are likely to remain the most robust and precise, such methods are likely to remain methodologically arduous, ethically difficult and very costly (even despite advances in remote data generation and automated data processing). Analysts in search of cost effective options are thus likely to need to use the increasingly wide array of interdisciplinary mixed-method (and not necessarily highly quantitative) approaches that are emerging in social-ecological systems research.
2. Empirical research showing that human factors (including dimensions of protected area governance) have significantly altered the structure of almost all of the world’s remaining savanna woodlands. The paper argues that savannas should thus be assumed to be anthropic systems by default—and that unless human factors (including aspects of governance) are accounted for in empirical analyses, savanna ecology risks becoming, in essence, an archaeological discipline examining the functioning of historical biomes that no longer commonly exist in the real world.
3. A theory-based piece proposing radical alternatives for assessing and rewarding carbon sequestration (and other ecological outcomes) in ecological markets, whereby carbon suppliers would be rewarded based on their adaptive capacity and resilience (including aspects of their governance regime), rather than for inherently uncertain estimates of carbon change.
WP1 - Generating a typology of methods for observing resource governance
• Through a literature review I developed a framework for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of different governance assessment methods.
• I then trialled four governance-assessment approaches in Africa, ranging from field data generation to remote sensing.
• I found that field-based methods are the most accurate, but the most costly.
• I conclude that analysts should consider mixed methods approaches.
• These results are being disseminated through a published Policy Forum piece in science, and another forthcoming publication.
• The results are being exploited in the ongoing work of SEOSAW, and through a new PhD project at the University of Edinburgh
WP 2 - Generating an open-access dataset on resource governance in southern African woodlands
• Three of the methods in WP1 used open access data. The code and datasets for these approaches are publicly available in the publication from WP1.
WP 3 – Analysis of governance, degradation, and wellbeing across southern African woodlands
• I conducted an analysis that used machine learning, remote sensing and qualitative data to assess the degree to which humans have restructured aboveground tree biomass in the world’s remaining savannas since pre-industrial times.
• The analysis indicates that the vast majority of savannas have been significantly restructured.
• Within this, governance can either increase or decrease biomass, depending on the objectives of the governance regime.
• The analysis will be disseminated through a peer-review paper (in preparation).
• The results are being exploited in the ongoing work of SEOSAW.
WP 4 - Ensuring impact, communication, dissemination, and exploitation
Three main pathways for impact were:
• engagement with African woodland policy forums through SEOSAW
• presentations and collaborations with the academic resource governance research community
• engagement with carbon market policy debates and working groups.
WP 5 - Management and training
During the project I gained new skills and broadened my professional network through:
• ten courses on data science, machine learning and AI under the McGill University Computational and Data Systems Initiative (CDSI)
• on-the-job training and mentoring with Prof Brian Robinson (McGill University) and Casey Ryan (University of Edinburgh) on spatial statistics and computation (including through two week-long researcher visits to Edinburgh)
• participation in the various working groups, conferences and paper collaborations.
The project was originally planned to run for 36 months, but was instead concluded after 23 months for professional and family reasons.
• Through a literature review I developed a framework for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of different governance assessment methods.
• I then trialled four governance-assessment approaches in Africa, ranging from field data generation to remote sensing.
• I found that field-based methods are the most accurate, but the most costly.
• I conclude that analysts should consider mixed methods approaches.
• These results are being disseminated through a published Policy Forum piece in science, and another forthcoming publication.
• The results are being exploited in the ongoing work of SEOSAW, and through a new PhD project at the University of Edinburgh
WP 2 - Generating an open-access dataset on resource governance in southern African woodlands
• Three of the methods in WP1 used open access data. The code and datasets for these approaches are publicly available in the publication from WP1.
WP 3 – Analysis of governance, degradation, and wellbeing across southern African woodlands
• I conducted an analysis that used machine learning, remote sensing and qualitative data to assess the degree to which humans have restructured aboveground tree biomass in the world’s remaining savannas since pre-industrial times.
• The analysis indicates that the vast majority of savannas have been significantly restructured.
• Within this, governance can either increase or decrease biomass, depending on the objectives of the governance regime.
• The analysis will be disseminated through a peer-review paper (in preparation).
• The results are being exploited in the ongoing work of SEOSAW.
WP 4 - Ensuring impact, communication, dissemination, and exploitation
Three main pathways for impact were:
• engagement with African woodland policy forums through SEOSAW
• presentations and collaborations with the academic resource governance research community
• engagement with carbon market policy debates and working groups.
WP 5 - Management and training
During the project I gained new skills and broadened my professional network through:
• ten courses on data science, machine learning and AI under the McGill University Computational and Data Systems Initiative (CDSI)
• on-the-job training and mentoring with Prof Brian Robinson (McGill University) and Casey Ryan (University of Edinburgh) on spatial statistics and computation (including through two week-long researcher visits to Edinburgh)
• participation in the various working groups, conferences and paper collaborations.
The project was originally planned to run for 36 months, but was instead concluded after 23 months for professional and family reasons.
Progress beyond state of the art is:
1. A new analytical framework for understanding the influence of resource governance in complex social-ecological system
2. The development of the ‘SES-InTerra’ tool, a new proto-type Python-based workflow that combines ‘big’ and qualitatve data to compare resource governance regimes across landscapes
3. New empirical evidence that savannas should be assumed to be anthropic systems by default, and managed accordingly.
4. A new theory-based proposal that forest carbon projects should be paid for signs of resilience and transformation, rather than for inherently uncertain estimates of carbon change.
1. A new analytical framework for understanding the influence of resource governance in complex social-ecological system
2. The development of the ‘SES-InTerra’ tool, a new proto-type Python-based workflow that combines ‘big’ and qualitatve data to compare resource governance regimes across landscapes
3. New empirical evidence that savannas should be assumed to be anthropic systems by default, and managed accordingly.
4. A new theory-based proposal that forest carbon projects should be paid for signs of resilience and transformation, rather than for inherently uncertain estimates of carbon change.