Mapping discussions about forests and forest management

Lei, S. and M. Kelly. 2015. Evaluating adaptive collaborative management in Sierra Nevada forests by exploring public meeting dialogues using Self-Organizing Maps. Society and Natural Resources (28)8: 873-890

Heat map of discussion in SNAMP meetings: red conveys most consistently discussed topics; blue conveys least consistently discussedCollaborative adaptive management (CAM) is an appropriate management regime for social-ecological systems because it aims to reduce management uncertainties and fosters collaboration among diverse stakeholders. We evaluate the effectiveness of CAM in fostering collaboration among contentious multiparty environmental stakeholders based the Sierra Nevada Adaptive Management Project (SNAMP). Our evaluation focuses on facilitated public multiparty discussions (2005-2012). Self-organizing maps (SOM), an unsupervised machine-learning method, were used to process, organize, and visualize the public meeting notes.

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Tracking information production and use in adaptive management

Lei, S., A. Iles, and M. Kelly. 2015. Characterizing the networks of digital information that support collaborative adaptive forest management in Sierra Nevada forests. Environmental Management 56(1): 94-109

Tracking where some of our lidar papers are being citedSome of the factors that can contribute to the success of collaborative adaptive management – such as social learning, open communication, and trust - are built upon a foundation of the open exchange of information about science and management between participants and the public.  Despite the importance of information transparency, the use and flow of information in collaborative adaptive management has not been characterized in detail in the literature, and currently there exist opportunities to develop strategies for increasing the exchange of information, as well as to track information flow in such contexts. We use powerful new information monitoring tools to characterize information products generated in the SNAMP program through their production, transport, use, and monitoring.

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Using the web as a participatory tool in adaptive management

Kelly, M., S. Ferranto, S. Lei, K. Ueda, L. Huntsinger. 2012. Expanding the table: The web as a tool for participatory adaptive management in California forests. Journal of Environmental Management 109: 1-11

Participatory adaptive management is widely promoted as the new paradigm in public lands management. It is grounded in two underlying principles - that management experiments and diverse sources of information should be used to continually refine management in complex ecological systems, and that the public must be included throughout the adaptive management process. Access to scientific results and exchange of information is at the core of both of these principles. The recent proliferation of Internet communities and web-based participation tools raises the question of how the Internet might help facilitate information exchange in participatory adaptive management. Using a case study approach, the role of web technologies in facilitating the flow of transparent and useful information was examined in a participatory adaptive management project focused on Forest Service vegetation management treatments in California’s Sierra Nevada.

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Oakmapper: citizen science, webGIS, and volunteered information

Connors, J., S. Lei and M. Kelly. 2012. Citizen science in the age of neogeography: utilizing volunteered geographic information for environmental monitoring. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 102(6): 1267-1289

The interface between neogeography and citizen science has great potential for environmental monitoring, but this nexus has been explored less often than each subject individually. In this article we review the emerging role of volunteered geographic information in citizen science, and present a case study of an integrated toolset that engages multiple types of users (from targeted citizen-based observation networks, expert-driven focused monitoring, and opportunistic crowdsourcing efforts) in monitoring a forest disease in the western U.S.

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