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Science for action at the local landscape scale

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Abstract

For landscape ecology to produce knowledge relevant to society, it must include considerations of human culture and behavior, extending beyond the natural sciences to synthesize with many other disciplines. Furthermore, it needs to be able to support landscape change processes which increasingly take the shape of deliberative and collaborative decision making by local stakeholder groups. Landscape ecology as described by Wu (Landscape Ecol 28:1–11, 2013) therefore needs three additional topics of investigation: (1) the local landscape as a boundary object that builds communication among disciplines and between science and local communities, (2) iterative and collaborative methods for generating transdisciplinary approaches to sustainable change, and (3) the effect of scientific knowledge and tools on local landscape policy and landscape change. Collectively, these topics could empower landscape ecology to be a science for action at the local scale.

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Acknowledgments

This paper is based on a symposium organized at the IALE World Congress of Landscape Ecology, Beijing, China, August 2011. This work was supported in part by a Grant to J. Nassauer from the NSF (# DBI-1052875 to the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Alterra & Land Use Planning Group, Wageningen University, 6708 PB, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Paul Opdam

  2. School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109-1115, USA

    Joan Iverson Nassauer

  3. College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Beijing University, Beijing, China

    Zhifang Wang

  4. Institute of Environmental Planning, Leibniz Universität Hannover, 30419, Hannover, Germany

    Christian Albert

  5. Department of Environmental Politics, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, UFZ, Leipzig, Germany

    Christian Albert

  6. USDA National Agroforestry Center, Lincoln, NE, 68583-0822, USA

    Gary Bentrup

  7. Institut de Recherche Pour le Développement (IRD), UMR 220 GRED, Vientiane, Laos People’s Democratic Republic

    Jean-Christophe Castella

  8. Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Bogor, Indonesia

    Jean-Christophe Castella

  9. School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Management, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, 4072, Australia

    Clive McAlpine

  10. Department of Fisheries and Wildlife & Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48823, USA

    Jianguo Liu

  11. Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning (CALP), Forest Resources Management and Landscape Architecture, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada

    Stephen Sheppard

  12. School of Landscape Architecture, Lincoln University, PO Box 85084, Christchurch, New Zealand

    Simon Swaffield

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  1. Paul Opdam
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  2. Joan Iverson Nassauer
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  4. Christian Albert
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  8. Jianguo Liu
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  10. Simon Swaffield
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Correspondence to Paul Opdam.

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Opdam, P., Nassauer, J.I., Wang, Z. et al. Science for action at the local landscape scale. Landscape Ecol 28, 1439–1445 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-013-9925-6

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