Taha Loghmani-Khouzani , Victoria Dany , Nadine Seifert , Kaveh Madani , Edeltraud Guenther
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
CONTEXT
Highly water-dependent agri-food systems are impacted by external shocks, revealing their vulnerabilities and stressing the need to transform them towards increased sustainability and resilience. Various disciplines and scholars highlight the role of Nature-based Solutions (NbS) in addressing societal challenges while creating sustainable and resilient contexts.
OBJECTIVE
In steering transformative processes, participation is vital as a governance variable. However, motivating stakeholders' engagement with NbS uptake in decision-making requires evidence proving its potential to effectively address their direct and indirect environmental, societal, and economic concerns. This review systematically analyzed the potential of Citizen Science (CS) to overcome the barriers to NbS adoption and to drive stakeholders' attitudes towards sustainability.
METHODS
Focused on water as an essential for the agri-food system, 46 articles were systematically analyzed to examine water-related NbS, locate relevant drivers and barriers of NbS and ecosystem services, including associated advantages and disadvantages.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
Current research focuses heavily on NbS that benefit people, often overlooking the broader environmental benefits. While a trend towards using NbS for extreme weather events is evident, other critical areas like irrigation, groundwater management, food security, and water sanitation (WASH) need more attention. These elements are vital for sustainable and resilient agri-food systems. The literature identifies three central challenges to implementing NbS: knowledge gaps, participation, and funding. Novel participatory research methods like CS could prove pivotal in addressing NbS adoption barriers. CS in NbS can enhance engagement through improved and informed stakeholder participation while ensuring cost-effective and transparent processes of monitoring and evaluating potential success. Although NbS are gaining traction, scopes and scales of implementation must be more inclusive of various stakeholders and ecological services for the broader environment.
SIGNIFICANCE
CS in NbS can promote sustainable attitudes within the individuals of the society, and by design, NbS provides a sustainable context. Upon proper alignment, CS-NbS can increase the harmony between human and natural systems, shedding light on the Resource Nexus cycle and ultimately causing a visible change in behavior within the engaged stakeholder network. This approach values and amplifies notions of inclusiveness and the incorporation of local knowledge. Living labs and mixed-method research in CS-NbS can initiate inter and transdisciplinarity, collaborative learning, knowledge sharing, and enhanced participation in decision-making while unlocking the transformative capacities of NbS and strengthening the science-policy-society interface.
期刊介绍:
Agricultural Systems is an international journal that deals with interactions - among the components of agricultural systems, among hierarchical levels of agricultural systems, between agricultural and other land use systems, and between agricultural systems and their natural, social and economic environments.
The scope includes the development and application of systems analysis methodologies in the following areas:
Systems approaches in the sustainable intensification of agriculture; pathways for sustainable intensification; crop-livestock integration; farm-level resource allocation; quantification of benefits and trade-offs at farm to landscape levels; integrative, participatory and dynamic modelling approaches for qualitative and quantitative assessments of agricultural systems and decision making;
The interactions between agricultural and non-agricultural landscapes; the multiple services of agricultural systems; food security and the environment;
Global change and adaptation science; transformational adaptations as driven by changes in climate, policy, values and attitudes influencing the design of farming systems;
Development and application of farming systems design tools and methods for impact, scenario and case study analysis; managing the complexities of dynamic agricultural systems; innovation systems and multi stakeholder arrangements that support or promote change and (or) inform policy decisions.