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Changing Public Behavior > Audiences > Conservation professionals

44 Total Findings

Adapt course design over time using multiple feedback methods.

Apply group decision analysis (including needs and opportunities of stakeholders) in the long-term watershed planning process. Steps include: develop an understanding of watershed issues, problems, constraints and capabilities; consult about management strategies and alternatives; and prioritize strategies and alternatives.

Bayesian Belief Network decision support systems are most effectively used as part of a participatory process. It is imperative to get active involvement of stakeholders in this process for a proper construction of variables, selection of states, identification of links, etc.

Build watershed council ability to:

Capture the social dynamics of grounds maintenance operations units including social, physical, and environmental responses to watershed management concerns to reveal key decision-making points in the system. Develop a framework of these dynamics, to illustrate activities needed to implement sustainable watershed and environmental management at large institutions.

Create opportunities to build landowner participation in the activities of landowner groups.

Emphasize effective leadership when encouraging or facilitating watershed group formation. Watershed groups rate leadership as more important to effective group formation than support factors such as staff assistance or financial support.

Enable students to personalize their education objectives (through pre-course interviews)

Enhance stakeholder interest in restoration efforts by:

Enhance stakeholder interest in restoration efforts by:

Evaluate conservation professionals’ effectiveness in using models and demonstration tools and in their use of skills taught in the workshops

Facilitate public access to land that is owned or managed by water utilities for purposes of protecting the watershed, in order to allow public scrutiny of forest/watershed management practices. Public engagement is critical to the success of source water protection programs, where citizens with experience of the land can effectively share views about topics such as no-cut zones around streams and protection for existing old forests.

Focus on a geographic area:

Focus on a geographic area:

Follow classroom exercises and visual examples by applying learning in the field.

For conservation professionals:

For watershed management decison-making on tribal lands

In the long-term watershed planning process, assess and analyse different stakeholders’ preferences in order to prioritize various strategies and alternatives. For example, use an analytical hierarchy process (AHP) or a social choice function (SCF) process. The analytical hierarchy process is best used with expert groups and includes (1) the structuring of a problem into a hierarchy consisting of a goal and subordinate features, (2) pairwise comparisons between elements at each level, and (3) propagation of level-specific, local priorities to global priorities. The intensity of preference between any two elements is assessed by integers ranging from 1 to 9 (Saaty, 1980, 1990).  The social choice function is based on pairwise comparisons on the number of voters between pairs of strategies. It assumes that all assertions of preference between two strategies carry equal weight.

Investigate watershed council community involvement characteristics to promote effective engagement:

Involve citizens in a watershed planning group by facilitating their understanding of the problem/situation.

Link economic risk to over-application of nutrients, a common practice for ensuring maximum yield.

Provide course activities with direct application to work responsibilities (appropriate to local context)

Provide face-to-face meeting opportunities: to allow for learning from others and to provide camaraderie (networking and moral support).

Provide groups with training to help develop leadership and organization skills.

Provide instructor feedback

Provide students with autonomy in determining content and timing of learning activities.

Strengthen public participation by addressing: lack of resources (time, money, staff), lack of rules of participation, lack of in-depth involvement of authorities, lack of hands-on use of Bayesian Belief Network decision support systems for stakeholders, and a lack of professional supervision of the decision-support process.

Support watershed councils in promoting civic engagement through:

Support watershed planning groups with assistance from agencies.

Tap into indigenous knowledge of local land stewards, especially since recommended, best-bet practices may have uncertain results in local application.

The use of Bayesian Belief Network decision support systems for groundwater management requires full involvement of stake holders during the inplementation phase. Bayesian Belief Network decision support systems organise the body of knowledge in any given area by mapping out cause-and-effect relationships among key variables and encoding them with numbers that represent the extent to which one variable is likely to affect another.

To increase US public acceptance of water reuse, such as high awareness of treatment technology, trust in local government; and of the challenges and opportunities of water reuse in the US:

Train water education professionals to apply these steps when designing an outreach program:

Use Bayesian Belief Network decision support systems for complex decision-making, including structural learning, strategic integration and breakdown of barriers between different domains.  But high level of frustration can occur when citizen input meetings lack structure and trail off into local and personal problems.

Use a comparison strip to provide the farmer with opportunity to make their own evaluation of pros and cons of a new procedure

Use activities and evaluation to help identify barriers and verify success

Use best education practices in organizing environmental field days for youth

Use these outreach components and apply best practices for each: 

Watershed management participatory methods include, scenario workshops (develops ideas and actions based on visioning processes), mediated modeling (problem definition, conceptualization, specification, and policy analysis), and social multicriteria evaluation (compliments decision-making processes with social science techniques including institutional analysis, interviews,questionnaires, obeservation, polls, and focus groups). Scenario workshops and mediated modeling are well-suited to the early stages of the planning process (problem solving and identification of goals and alternatives) and good at educating participants and building capacity, but not as effective at resolving long-standing conflicts and achieving consensus.  Social multicriteria evaluation is better able to address the evaluation of alternatives, reveal trade-offs, and aid convergence between divergent stakeholder's views; however, implementation is heavily reliant on experts, and allows for less participation and deliberation than scenario workshops or mediated modeling  in the goal-setting stage.  A hybrid of participatory methods may be the best approach.

When applying group decision analysis processes in the long-term watershed planning process, facilitate development of/effective operation of a watershed council in order to enhance coordination among the stakeholders when choosing long-term watershed management alternatives.

When facilitating sustainable watershed and environmental management at large institutions emphasize:

When implementing group decision analysis results in the long-term watershed planning process, facilitate development of awareness and cooperation of all stakeholders, especially governmental agencies and local communities.

When involving the public in green space planning: use survey responses to group residents according to their interest in recreation, in planning participation, or no interest.

When involving the public in green space planning:


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