For land degradation monitoring and assessment (M&A) to be accurate and for sustainable land mana... more For land degradation monitoring and assessment (M&A) to be accurate and for sustainable land management (SLM) to be effective, it is necessary to incorporate multiple knowledges using a variety of methods and scales, and this must include the (potentially conflicting) perspectives of those who use the land. This paper presents a hybrid methodological framework that builds on approaches developed by UN Food & Agriculture Organisation's land degradation Assessment in Drylands (LADA), the World Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT) programme and the Dryland Development Paradigm (DDP), and is being applied internationally through the EU-funded DESIRE project. The framework suggests that M&A should determine the progress of SLM towards meeting sustainability goals, with results continually and iteratively enhancing SLM decisions. The framework is divided into four generic themes: (i) establishing land degradation and SLM context and sustainability goals; (ii) identifying, evaluating and selecting SLM strategies; (iii) selecting land degradation and SLM indicators and (iv) applying SLM options and monitoring land degradation and progress towards sustainability goals. This approach incorporates multiple knowledge sources and types (including land manager perspectives) from local to national and international scales. In doing so, it aims to provide outputs for policy-makers and land managers that have the potential to enhance the sustainability of land management in drylands, from the field scale to the region, and to national and international levels. The paper draws on operational experience from across the DESIRE project to break the four themes into a series of methodological steps, and provides examples of the range of tools and methods that can be used to operationalise each of these steps.
Given the growing popularity of indicators among policy-makers to measure progress toward conserv... more Given the growing popularity of indicators among policy-makers to measure progress toward conservation and sustainability goals, there is an urgent need to develop indicators that can be used accurately by both specialists and nonspecialists, drawing from the knowledge possessed by each group. This paper uses a case study from the Kalahari, Botswana to show how participatory and ecological methods can be combined to develop robust indicators that are accessible to a range of users to monitor and enhance the sustainability of land management. First, potential environmental sustainability indicators were elicited from pastoralists in three study sites. This knowledge was then evaluated by pastoralists, before being tested empirically using ecological and soil-based techniques. Despite the wealth of local knowledge about indicators, this knowledge was thinly spread. The knowledge was more holistic than published indicator lists for monitoring rangelands, encompassing vegetation, soil, livestock, wild animal, and socioeconomic indicators. Pastoralist preferences for vegetation and livestock indicators match recent shifts in ecological theory suggesting that livestock populations reach equilibrium with key forage resources in semiarid environments. Although most indicators suggested by pastoralists were validated through empirical work (e.g., decreased grass cover and soil organic matter content, and increased abundance of Acacia mellifera and thatching grass), they were not always sufficiently accurate or reliable for objective degradation assessment, showing that local knowledge cannot be accepted unquestioningly. We suggest that, by combining participatory and ecological approaches, it is possible to derive more accurate and relevant indicators than either approach could achieve alone.
Understanding the socio-economic and environmental implications of rural change requires the acti... more Understanding the socio-economic and environmental implications of rural change requires the active participation of many research disciplines and stakeholders. However, it remains unclear how to best integrate participatory and biophysical research to provide information useful to land managers and policy makers. This paper presents findings of a RELU scoping study that has formulated and applied a research framework based on stakeholder participation and adaptive learning to model rural change in the Peak District National Park in the north of England. The paper describes a learning process that integrates different types of knowledge to produce future scenarios that describe possible economic and environmental changes due to a national review of burning practices on heather moorland and blanket bogs. We stress the need for using social network analysis to structure stakeholder engagement and outline how a range of participatory approaches can facilitate more inclusive environmental planning and policy development.
Typologies of crop-drought vulnerability: an empirical analysis of the socio-economic factors tha... more Typologies of crop-drought vulnerability: an empirical analysis of the socio-economic factors that influence the sensitivity and resilience to drought of three major food crops in China (
Sustainability indicators based on local data provide a practical method to monitor progress towa... more Sustainability indicators based on local data provide a practical method to monitor progress towards sustainable development. However, since there are many conflicting frameworks proposed to develop indicators, it is unclear how best to collect these data. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the literature on developing and applying sustainability indicators at local scales to develop a methodological framework that summarises best practice. First, two ideological paradigms are outlined: one that is expert-led and top-down, and one that is community-based and bottom-up. Second, the paper assesses the methodological steps proposed in each paradigm to identify, select and measure indicators. Finally, the paper concludes by proposing a learning process that integrates best practice for stakeholder-led local sustainability assessments. By integrating approaches from different paradigms, the proposed process offers a holistic approach for measuring progress towards sustainable development. It emphasizes the importance of participatory approaches setting the context for sustainability assessment at local scales, but stresses the role of expert-led methods in indicator evaluation and dissemination. Research findings from around the world are used to show how the proposed process can be used to develop quantitative and qualitative indicators that are both scientifically rigorous and objective while remaining easy to collect and interpret for communities.
Moorlands are unique environments found in uplands of the temperate zone including in the UK, New... more Moorlands are unique environments found in uplands of the temperate zone including in the UK, New Zealand and Ireland, and in some high altitude tropical zones such as the Andean páramos. Many have been managed through grazing, burning or drainage practices. However, there are a number of other environmental and social factors that are likely to drive changes in management practice over the next few decades. Some moorlands have been severely degraded and in some countries conservation and restoration schemes are being attempted, particularly to revegetate bare soils. Native or non-native woodland planting may increase in some moorland environments while atmospheric deposition of many pollutants may also vary. Moorland environments are very sensitive to changes in management, climate or pollution. This paper reviews how environmental management change, such as changes in grazing or burning practices, may impact upon moorland processes based on existing scientific understanding. It also reviews the impacts of changes in climate and atmospheric deposition chemistry. The paper focuses on the UK moorlands as a case study of moorland landscapes that are in different states of degradation. Future research that is required to improve our understanding of moorland processes is outlined. The paper shows that there is a need for more holistic and spatial approaches to understanding moorland processes and management. There is also a need to develop approaches that combine understanding of interlinked social and natural processes.
Summary The world is facing unprecedented long term pressures on agricultural landscapes. It will... more Summary The world is facing unprecedented long term pressures on agricultural landscapes. It will be necessary to increase food production to meet demand but this must be undertaken sustainably, with a minimum of environmental and social impacts." ...
2005. Integrating methods for developing sustainability indicators to facilitate learning and act... more 2005. Integrating methods for developing sustainability indicators to facilitate learning and action. Ecology and Society 10(1): r3. [online] URL: ABSTRACT. Bossel's (2001) systems-based approach for deriving comprehensive indicator sets provides one of the most holistic frameworks for developing sustainability indicators. It ensures that indicators cover all important aspects of system viability, performance, and sustainability, and recognizes that a system cannot be assessed in isolation from the systems upon which it depends and which in turn depend upon it. In this reply, we show how Bossel's approach is part of a wider convergence toward integrating participatory and reductionist approaches to measure progress toward sustainable development. However, we also show that further integration of these approaches may be able to improve the accuracy and reliability of indicators to better stimulate community learning and action. Only through active community involvement can indicators facilitate progress toward sustainable development goals. To engage communities effectively in the application of indicators, these communities must be actively involved in developing, and even in proposing, indicators. The accuracy, reliability, and sensitivity of the indicators derived from local communities can be ensured through an iterative process of empirical and community evaluation. Communities are unlikely to invest in measuring sustainability indicators unless monitoring provides immediate and clear benefits. However, in the context of goals, targets, and/or baselines, sustainability indicators can more effectively contribute to a process of development that matches local priorities and engages the interests of local people.
African Journal of Range & Forage Science, May 9, 2008
The main radiation of large mammalian herbivores in Africa took place in the Pliocene-Pleistocene... more The main radiation of large mammalian herbivores in Africa took place in the Pliocene-Pleistocene, when a long-term trend towards aridification promoted grasslands and the diversification of ruminant grazers. Traditional models of this evolution identify habitat fragmentation in response to climate change as the primary cause of speciation and diversification. However, with their adaptation to poorer and drier diets, these animals incurred a cost: an increase in water requirements to aid digestion and to thermoregulate their larger body size. Water requirements are included in the current model, relating this foremost physiological need to an environmental resource: habitat fragments would have contained sources of drinking water for the persistence of water-dependent species. However, the location of drinking water and its influences are subsumed within the extent of those fragments; their roles in habitat fragmentation and the subsequent evolutionary processes are less clear. The current model neglects to consider the interaction of water dependency with the location of drinking water; increased aridification would not only have involved shifts in the spatial distribution and species composition of forage resources, but it would also have increased the patchiness of surface water distributions. Animal foraging distributions would have been constrained within species-specific distances of their drinking water over an evolutionary timescale, distances that were not necessarily in accord with the extent of their potential habitat as solely defined by forage distributions, particularly as animals became more dependent on water with the increase in grazing and its associated traits. Drinking-water location exerts a dominant influence on animal survival and reproduction, suggesting that these roles of drinking-water location need to be incorporated into existing models of large mammalian herbivore evolution in Africa.
For land degradation monitoring and assessment (M&A) to be accurate and for sustainable land mana... more For land degradation monitoring and assessment (M&A) to be accurate and for sustainable land management (SLM) to be effective, it is necessary to incorporate multiple knowledges using a variety of methods and scales, and this must include the (potentially conflicting) perspectives of those who use the land. This paper presents a hybrid methodological framework that builds on approaches developed by UN Food & Agriculture Organisation's land degradation Assessment in Drylands (LADA), the World Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT) programme and the Dryland Development Paradigm (DDP), and is being applied internationally through the EU-funded DESIRE project. The framework suggests that M&A should determine the progress of SLM towards meeting sustainability goals, with results continually and iteratively enhancing SLM decisions. The framework is divided into four generic themes: (i) establishing land degradation and SLM context and sustainability goals; (ii) identifying, evaluating and selecting SLM strategies; (iii) selecting land degradation and SLM indicators and (iv) applying SLM options and monitoring land degradation and progress towards sustainability goals. This approach incorporates multiple knowledge sources and types (including land manager perspectives) from local to national and international scales. In doing so, it aims to provide outputs for policy-makers and land managers that have the potential to enhance the sustainability of land management in drylands, from the field scale to the region, and to national and international levels. The paper draws on operational experience from across the DESIRE project to break the four themes into a series of methodological steps, and provides examples of the range of tools and methods that can be used to operationalise each of these steps.
Given the growing popularity of indicators among policy-makers to measure progress toward conserv... more Given the growing popularity of indicators among policy-makers to measure progress toward conservation and sustainability goals, there is an urgent need to develop indicators that can be used accurately by both specialists and nonspecialists, drawing from the knowledge possessed by each group. This paper uses a case study from the Kalahari, Botswana to show how participatory and ecological methods can be combined to develop robust indicators that are accessible to a range of users to monitor and enhance the sustainability of land management. First, potential environmental sustainability indicators were elicited from pastoralists in three study sites. This knowledge was then evaluated by pastoralists, before being tested empirically using ecological and soil-based techniques. Despite the wealth of local knowledge about indicators, this knowledge was thinly spread. The knowledge was more holistic than published indicator lists for monitoring rangelands, encompassing vegetation, soil, livestock, wild animal, and socioeconomic indicators. Pastoralist preferences for vegetation and livestock indicators match recent shifts in ecological theory suggesting that livestock populations reach equilibrium with key forage resources in semiarid environments. Although most indicators suggested by pastoralists were validated through empirical work (e.g., decreased grass cover and soil organic matter content, and increased abundance of Acacia mellifera and thatching grass), they were not always sufficiently accurate or reliable for objective degradation assessment, showing that local knowledge cannot be accepted unquestioningly. We suggest that, by combining participatory and ecological approaches, it is possible to derive more accurate and relevant indicators than either approach could achieve alone.
Understanding the socio-economic and environmental implications of rural change requires the acti... more Understanding the socio-economic and environmental implications of rural change requires the active participation of many research disciplines and stakeholders. However, it remains unclear how to best integrate participatory and biophysical research to provide information useful to land managers and policy makers. This paper presents findings of a RELU scoping study that has formulated and applied a research framework based on stakeholder participation and adaptive learning to model rural change in the Peak District National Park in the north of England. The paper describes a learning process that integrates different types of knowledge to produce future scenarios that describe possible economic and environmental changes due to a national review of burning practices on heather moorland and blanket bogs. We stress the need for using social network analysis to structure stakeholder engagement and outline how a range of participatory approaches can facilitate more inclusive environmental planning and policy development.
Typologies of crop-drought vulnerability: an empirical analysis of the socio-economic factors tha... more Typologies of crop-drought vulnerability: an empirical analysis of the socio-economic factors that influence the sensitivity and resilience to drought of three major food crops in China (
Sustainability indicators based on local data provide a practical method to monitor progress towa... more Sustainability indicators based on local data provide a practical method to monitor progress towards sustainable development. However, since there are many conflicting frameworks proposed to develop indicators, it is unclear how best to collect these data. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the literature on developing and applying sustainability indicators at local scales to develop a methodological framework that summarises best practice. First, two ideological paradigms are outlined: one that is expert-led and top-down, and one that is community-based and bottom-up. Second, the paper assesses the methodological steps proposed in each paradigm to identify, select and measure indicators. Finally, the paper concludes by proposing a learning process that integrates best practice for stakeholder-led local sustainability assessments. By integrating approaches from different paradigms, the proposed process offers a holistic approach for measuring progress towards sustainable development. It emphasizes the importance of participatory approaches setting the context for sustainability assessment at local scales, but stresses the role of expert-led methods in indicator evaluation and dissemination. Research findings from around the world are used to show how the proposed process can be used to develop quantitative and qualitative indicators that are both scientifically rigorous and objective while remaining easy to collect and interpret for communities.
Moorlands are unique environments found in uplands of the temperate zone including in the UK, New... more Moorlands are unique environments found in uplands of the temperate zone including in the UK, New Zealand and Ireland, and in some high altitude tropical zones such as the Andean páramos. Many have been managed through grazing, burning or drainage practices. However, there are a number of other environmental and social factors that are likely to drive changes in management practice over the next few decades. Some moorlands have been severely degraded and in some countries conservation and restoration schemes are being attempted, particularly to revegetate bare soils. Native or non-native woodland planting may increase in some moorland environments while atmospheric deposition of many pollutants may also vary. Moorland environments are very sensitive to changes in management, climate or pollution. This paper reviews how environmental management change, such as changes in grazing or burning practices, may impact upon moorland processes based on existing scientific understanding. It also reviews the impacts of changes in climate and atmospheric deposition chemistry. The paper focuses on the UK moorlands as a case study of moorland landscapes that are in different states of degradation. Future research that is required to improve our understanding of moorland processes is outlined. The paper shows that there is a need for more holistic and spatial approaches to understanding moorland processes and management. There is also a need to develop approaches that combine understanding of interlinked social and natural processes.
Summary The world is facing unprecedented long term pressures on agricultural landscapes. It will... more Summary The world is facing unprecedented long term pressures on agricultural landscapes. It will be necessary to increase food production to meet demand but this must be undertaken sustainably, with a minimum of environmental and social impacts." ...
2005. Integrating methods for developing sustainability indicators to facilitate learning and act... more 2005. Integrating methods for developing sustainability indicators to facilitate learning and action. Ecology and Society 10(1): r3. [online] URL: ABSTRACT. Bossel's (2001) systems-based approach for deriving comprehensive indicator sets provides one of the most holistic frameworks for developing sustainability indicators. It ensures that indicators cover all important aspects of system viability, performance, and sustainability, and recognizes that a system cannot be assessed in isolation from the systems upon which it depends and which in turn depend upon it. In this reply, we show how Bossel's approach is part of a wider convergence toward integrating participatory and reductionist approaches to measure progress toward sustainable development. However, we also show that further integration of these approaches may be able to improve the accuracy and reliability of indicators to better stimulate community learning and action. Only through active community involvement can indicators facilitate progress toward sustainable development goals. To engage communities effectively in the application of indicators, these communities must be actively involved in developing, and even in proposing, indicators. The accuracy, reliability, and sensitivity of the indicators derived from local communities can be ensured through an iterative process of empirical and community evaluation. Communities are unlikely to invest in measuring sustainability indicators unless monitoring provides immediate and clear benefits. However, in the context of goals, targets, and/or baselines, sustainability indicators can more effectively contribute to a process of development that matches local priorities and engages the interests of local people.
African Journal of Range & Forage Science, May 9, 2008
The main radiation of large mammalian herbivores in Africa took place in the Pliocene-Pleistocene... more The main radiation of large mammalian herbivores in Africa took place in the Pliocene-Pleistocene, when a long-term trend towards aridification promoted grasslands and the diversification of ruminant grazers. Traditional models of this evolution identify habitat fragmentation in response to climate change as the primary cause of speciation and diversification. However, with their adaptation to poorer and drier diets, these animals incurred a cost: an increase in water requirements to aid digestion and to thermoregulate their larger body size. Water requirements are included in the current model, relating this foremost physiological need to an environmental resource: habitat fragments would have contained sources of drinking water for the persistence of water-dependent species. However, the location of drinking water and its influences are subsumed within the extent of those fragments; their roles in habitat fragmentation and the subsequent evolutionary processes are less clear. The current model neglects to consider the interaction of water dependency with the location of drinking water; increased aridification would not only have involved shifts in the spatial distribution and species composition of forage resources, but it would also have increased the patchiness of surface water distributions. Animal foraging distributions would have been constrained within species-specific distances of their drinking water over an evolutionary timescale, distances that were not necessarily in accord with the extent of their potential habitat as solely defined by forage distributions, particularly as animals became more dependent on water with the increase in grazing and its associated traits. Drinking-water location exerts a dominant influence on animal survival and reproduction, suggesting that these roles of drinking-water location need to be incorporated into existing models of large mammalian herbivore evolution in Africa.
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Papers by AJ Dougill