DISES: Decision Making for Land Use Planning under Future Climate Scenarios through Engaged Research via Co-Design

The apparent loss of biodiversity as a function of human activities has many species on the brink of extinction. However, humans slso have the power to make the decisions to prevent biodiversity losses and improve ecosystem functioning on Earth. This research addresses the question of how scientists and decision makers can work together to develop sustainable land-use solutions in a way that leverages the best available data, technology, and predictive tools in a manner that can be translated into policy action.

The researchers on this project will work directly with scientists and policy makers in Colombia—the second most biodiverse country in the world—to develop models that can predict future land use changes and use those models to make sustainable land-use decisions. A broad set of participants will engage in the research through workshops where the models will be developed, and participant feedback will be used to improve the usability and usefulness of the outputs.

The effectiveness of the approach will be evaluated to determine how such an engaged research approach can be improved in the future. Additionally, this project will broaden participation in conservation science and STEM by providing training and mentoring to students and postdocs.

Bringing together scientists and decision makers through an engaged research approach, this project uses co-design to advance toward more viable systems of knowledge production that involve decision makers in shaping the research, not just receiving the outcomes. Basic scientific theories and models of land use and biodiversity forecasting will be advanced by integrating diverse, multi-scale data into dynamic prediction models to inform actionable and sustainable land use plans to prevent the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services while also ensuring food and energy security into the future.

These projections will be used to prioritize different areas for conservation, agriculture, and energy land uses according to stakeholder inputs and feedback so that they can support sustainable land-use decisions in support of global targets such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the Convention on Biological Diversity’s 30x30 target. The sensitivity of the models to user-determined scenarios and data inputs will be assessed to inform how the model responds to different points of leverage on the target variables leading to different land use prioritizations and different model parameterizations.

The process of knowledge creation and use will also be assessed for its efficacy and effectiveness to better understand how co-design can lead to translational research outcomes and interventions that will ultimately improve the decision-making capacity of agencies.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.