Evaluating the social acceptability of Marine Protected Areas

Q methodology provides a novel, quantitative approach to reveal stakeholder perspectives and was used to assess social acceptance of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) with fisheries and conservation management goals using the Devon & Severn region, UK as a case study site. Participants sorted a set of statements (n=42) into a forced-choice frequency distribution and centroid analysis revealed three factors for interpretation: (1) ‘pro-conservation’, characterised by views that conservation should be prioritised over commercial and economic interests; (2) ‘pro-fisheries’ who saw fishing as the priority and expressed concerns over the uncertainty of management measures and the number of planned MPAs; and (3) ‘win–win’ who felt that the current approach to marine management using MPAs would allow both fisheries and conservation goals to be met. Despite some differences in opinion, social acceptability of MPAs was identified across all three discourses, but was limited by the knock-on effects of the exclusion of stakeholders from the implementation of MPAs and the development of management measures. This resulted in disenfranchisement and uncertainty over the future of their activities. The results suggest that social acceptability of MPAs is generated by effective and ongoing stakeholder engagement, transparency and honesty relating to the costs and benefits of designations and a certainty that once sites are in place the resources exist for their effective management. Understanding social acceptability will guide adaptive management and increase the chances of MPA success and the meeting of global targets.     

Shaping an international agreement on marine biodiversity beyond areas of national jurisdiction: Lessons from high seas fisheries

A decade of international discussion on marine biological diversity beyond areas of national jurisdiction (BBNJ) culminated in 2015 with a United Nations General Assembly Resolution to establish an international legally-binding instrument on the conservation and sustainable use of BBNJ. Proponents of the new instrument therefore consider it as an opportunity to eliminate gaps in the current legal regime and promote better coordination. As the next step in the negotiations begins, substantial lessons can be drawn from the 1995 UN Fish Stocks Agreement (UNFSA), which has faced many of the same challenges related to gaps in scientific knowledge, uneven governance and regulatory capacities, and inherent unpredictability, both ecologically and in terms of anthropogenic drivers of change. For BBNJ, however, such challenges are far more complex due to the diversity of stakeholder communities and the diversity of resources involved, including fish and mineral resources with tangible economic values, marine genetic resources of unknown value, and the culturally-specific values attached to charismatic species and conservation in general. Drawing on lessons from UNFSA, it is argued that the establishment of marine protected areas (MPAs) under the BBNJ instrument would be particularly well served by a similar regional approach aligned with existing international agreements. In this regard, it is recommended that the capacity building under the new international instrument on BBNJ should focus inter alia on the secretariats of the regional fishery management organizations in order to enhance intra-regional and inter-regional cooperation and sharing of best practices.     

SinoGrids: a practice for open urban data in China

ABSTRACT

In the past decade, an explosion of data has taken place in Chinese cities due to widespread use of mobile Internet devices, Web 2.0 applications, and the development of the “Wired City.” With advances in data storage and high-performance computing, big/open urban data have opened up important avenues for urban studies, planning practice, and commercial consultancy. Urban researchers and planners are eager to make use of these abundant, sophisticated, and dynamic data to deepen their understanding on urban form and functions. However, in practice, access to such urban data is limited in China due to institutional constraints on data distribution and data holders’ hesitation to share data. And this hampers urban analytics. To draw reliable conclusions about the workings of complex urban systems, efficient and effective interoperation of multisource urban datasets is needed. Also, dealing with the heterogeneity between datasets is an equally critical challenge, especially for urban planners and government officers. They would derive value from data analytics, but have little data processing experience. To address these issues, we initiated SinoGrids (Plan Xu Xiake), a crowdsourcing platform that standardizes (or “downscales”) microscale urban data in China to facilitate its sharing and interoperation. To assess the performance evaluation of SinoGrids, we propose field-testing with actual urban data and their potential users. Digital desert, a son project of SinoGrids is also included.     

Mind mapping as an interactive tool for engaging complex geographical issues

Students and communities engaging with complex geographical issues require tools to assist them structure and contextualise data. This paper examines the use of mind mapping as a tool in geographical education. Case studies are presented from a sample of undergraduate and cross-cultural educational settings demonstrating the use of mind mapping in communication, analysis and problem solving. In critiquing this educational tool, we conclude that mind mapping is particularly effective with communities whose cultures are strong on visual communication but weaker on written communication and in cross-cultural situations where use of written English would disadvantage learners.     

Messing with nature? Exploring public perceptions of geoengineering in the UK

Anthropogenic influence on the climate – and possible societal responses to it – offers a unique window through which to examine the way people think about and relate to the natural world. This paper reports data from four, one-day deliberative workshops conducted with members of the UK public during early 2012. The workshops focused on geoengineering – the deliberate, large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment – as one of three possible responses to climate change (alongside mitigation and adaptation). Here, we explore one of the most pervasive and wide-ranging themes to emerge from the workshops: whether geoengineering represented an unprecedented human intervention into ‘nature’, and what the moral consequences of this might be. Using the concept of ‘messing with nature’ as an analytical lens, we explore public perceptions of geoengineering. We also reflect on why ‘messing with nature’ was such a focal point for debate and disagreement, and whether the prospect of geoengineering may reveal new dimensions to the way that people think about the natural world, and their relationship to it.     

Landslide susceptibility analysis based on citizen reports

Landslide susceptibility estimates are essential for reducing the risk posed by landslides to social and economic well-being. However, estimates of landslide susceptibility depend on reliable landslide inventories whose production requires extensive field or remote sensing efforts. Further, most inventories are not updated through time and thus may not capture the influence of changes in climate and/or land use. Inventories based on citizen reports of landslide occurrence, have the potential to overcome these limitations. Such an inventory can be produced from citizen reports to a 311-phone and online system, a nationwide database that updates real-time and records reported landslides location and timing. Whereas this landslide inventory is promising, it has not used for landslide susceptibility analyses and may be associated with spatial uncertainties and reporting biases. In this study we explore the use of 311-based landslide inventory for landslide susceptibility estimates in Pittsburgh, PA, USA, where landslide risk is among the highest in the nation. We compare the 311-based inventory to field-validated inventories through a multi-pronged approach that combines field validation of 311-reported landslides, probabilistic analysis of the association between landslides and the underlying topographic and geologic factors, and spatial filtering. Our results show that: (a) approximately 70% of the 311-reported landslides are associated with an identifiable landslide in the field; (b) the spatial uncertainty of the 311-reported landslides is 104 ± 25 m; (c) 311-reported landslides differ from other inventories in that they are primarily associated with proximity to roads, however, field-correction of 311-reported landslide locations rectifies this anomaly; (d) a simple spatial filter, scaled by the uncertainty in location as determined from a subset of the 311-data, can increase the consistency between the 311-reported inventory and field-validated inventories. These results suggest that 311-based landslide inventories can improve susceptibility estimates at a relatively low cost and high temporal resolution.     

Public engagement with marine climate change issues: (Re)framings,understandings and responses

Climate change impacts on marine environments have been somewhat neglected in climate change research, particularly with regard to their social dimensions and implications. This paper contributes to addressing this gap through presenting a UK focused mixed-method study of how publics frame, understand and respond to marine climate change-related issues. It draws on data from a large national survey of UK publics (N = 1,001), undertaken in January 2011 as part of a wider European survey, in conjunction with in-depth qualitative insights from a citizens’ panel with participants from the East Anglia region, UK. This reveals that discrete marine climate change impacts, as often framed in technical or institutional terms, were not the most immediate or significant issues for most respondents. Study participants tended to view these climate impacts ‘in context’, in situated ways, and as entangled with other issues relating to marine environments and their everyday lives. Whilst making connections with scientific knowledge on the subject, public understandings of marine climate impacts were mainly shaped by personal experience, the visibility and proximity of impacts, sense of personal risk and moral or equity-based arguments. In terms of responses, study participants prioritised climate change mitigation measures over adaptation, even in high-risk areas. We consider the implications of these insights for research and practices of public engagement on marine climate impacts specifically, and climate change more generally.     

时空间行为研究动态及其实践应用前景

随着国内外时空间行为研究的数据采集、计算挖掘、三维可视化与时空模拟等理论与技术的不断革新,时空间行为研究日益呈现出研究数据多源化、研究方法科学化、研究对象个体化、研究主题应用化等趋势。海外的时空间行为研究在结构化理论、GIS 以及其他社会科学领域中得到广泛的理论应用,中国的时空间行为研究经历了时间地理学的引入与描述性统计、城市空间与时空间行为的互动机理研究、基于位置感知设备的数据采集与规划应用等3 个阶段,正在步入实践应用的重要时期。时空间行为研究在城市规划、社会管理、居民服务等领域具有广泛的应用前景。     

Costly stakeholder participation creates inertia in marine ecosystems

Ecosystems often shift abruptly and dramatically between different regimes in response to human or natural disturbances. When ecosystems tip from one regime to another, the suite of available ecosystem benefits changes, impacting the stakeholders who rely on these benefits. These changes often create some groups who stand to incur large losses if an ecosystem returns to a previous regime. When the participation cost in the decision-making process is extremely high, this can “lock in” ecosystem regimes, making it harder for policy and management to shift ecosystems out of what the majority of society views as the undesirable regime. Public stakeholder meetings often have high costs of participation, thus economic theory predicts they will be dominated by extreme views and often lead to decisions that do not represent the majority viewpoint. Such extreme viewpoints can create strong inertia even when there is broad consensus to manage an ecosystem towards a different regime. In the same manner that reinforcing ecological feedback loops make it harder to exit an ecosystem regime, there are decision-making feedback loops that contribute additional inertia.     

Explaining State‐Environmental NGO Relations in the Philippines and Indonesia

This paper explains how the notion of “critical engagement” has been a popular basis for NGO‐state relations in the Philippines and Indonesia. It has been used, moreover, in both liberal democratic (post‐1985 Philippines) and authoritarian (late 1960s to late 1990s Indonesia) political regimes. For both states and reform‐minded NGOs, critical engagement has represented a flexible means by which to pursue assorted political, economic and social ends. In a context of regional political and economic upheaval, it is likely to remain popular with both states and many NGOs for the foreseeable future.