CNH-S: Interactions Between Human Perspectives and Natural System Dynamics in the Restoration of Riparian Forests in the Southwestern U.S.

这个跨学科的研究项目将探索与成功恢复已经退化的河流流域的森林生态系统有关的因素，包括人们的态度和他们所管理的土地上植物群落的动态之间的相互因果关系。该项目将提供有关恢复前后植物群落动态以及土地管理者对恢复的态度、知识来源和观点的新见解和信息。该项目将产生关于人类和自然系统之间相互作用的新知识，涉及生态变量对公共和私人土地管理者观点的影响，以及土地管理者观点对生态变量的影响。项目的发现将告知土地管理者关于恢复的最佳实践，并将向恢复科学家提供急需的反馈，说明他们的发现正在被使用的程度，以及预期的植物群落改善是否正在发生。研究结果将通过针对土地管理者的区域讲习班和贸易出版物以及针对科学界的学术报告和出版物来传播。该项目还将为研究生和本科生提供教育和培训机会。全世界每年花费数十亿美元来恢复退化的河流系统。修复退化河岸生态系统的研究往往侧重于工程设计与水、植被和生态系统其他自然组成部分的自然动态之间的相互作用，但很少注意确定参与修复的人们的知识、背景和动机如何影响这些项目的生态结果。研究人员将通过扩展他们之前根据详细的植被调查和环境参数收集的数据库来开展这个项目，这些数据库包括科罗拉多河和亚利桑那州、加利福尼亚州、科罗拉多州、内华达州、新墨西哥州和犹他州的bbbgrande盆地的400多个地点。他们将利用这些自然系统数据和通过在线调查收集到的有关人类态度和行为的数据，以及对每个地点的土地管理者的亲自访谈，寻求四组问题的答案：(1)植物群落结构如何作为恢复的结果而变化？(2)土地管理者背景的哪些方面最能解释他们对待自然和科学态度的差异？(3)自然环境的要素能预测土地管理者对科学或自然的态度吗？(4)土地管理者对科学和/或自然的态度是否影响恢复项目的成功？恢复活动的影响将通过比较恢复地点内随时间的植被以及比较恢复地点和非恢复参考地点之间的比较来衡量。利用人类系统数据，包括知识来源信息、对科学和自然的看法以及背景信息（如教育水平和权威水平），探索恢复结果的可变性。访谈所得的定性资料将补充统计分析所得的定量数据，以便确定在许多因素中哪一个对描述总体模式是重要的。本项目由美国国家科学基金会自然与人类系统耦合动力学（CNH）项目资助。

This interdisciplinary research project will explore the factors associated with success in restoring forest ecosystems in river basins that have been degraded, including the reciprocal causality between people's attitudes and the dynamics of plant communities on land they are managing. The project will provide new insights and information about plant community dynamics before and after restoration and the attitudes, knowledge sources, and perspectives of land managers regarding restoration. The project will generate new knowledge about interactions between human and natural systems with respect to the influence of ecological variables on public and private land managers' perspectives as well as the influence of land managers' perspectives on the ecological variables. Project findings will inform land managers about the best practices for restoration and will provide much-needed feedback to restoration scientists about the degree to which their findings are being used and whether anticipated improvements to plant communities are occurring. Results will be disseminated through regional workshops and trade publications aimed at land managers as well as through scholarly presentations and publications directed toward the scientific community. The project also will provide education and training opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students. Billions of dollars are spent each year to restore degraded river systems around the world. Research on efforts to restore degraded riparian ecosystems have tended to focus on the interplay between engineering designs and the natural dynamics of water, vegetation, and other natural components of the ecosystem, but very little attention has been given to ascertaining how the knowledge, backgrounds, and motivations of people involved in restoration affect the ecological outcomes of such projects. The investigators will undertake this project by expanding on a database they previously assembled based on detailed vegetation surveys and environmental parameters for more than 400 sites along streams in the Colorado River and Rio Grande basins in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. They will seek answers to four sets of questions using these natural-system data and data about human attitudes and behavior gathered through the conduct of online surveys and in-person interviews with land managers for each of the sites: (1) How does plant community structure change as a consequence of restoration? (2) What aspects of a land manager's background best explain variability in attitudes toward nature and science? (3) Do elements of the natural environment predict land manager attitudes about science or nature? (4) Do the attitudes of land managers toward science and/or nature affect the success of restoration projects? The impact of restoration activities will be measured with comparisons of vegetation over time within restoration sites as well as comparisons among restoration sites and non-restoration reference sites. The variability in restoration outcomes will be explored using the human-system data, including information about knowledge sources, perspectives on science and nature, and background information, such as education level and level of authority. Qualitative information from interviews will complement the quantitative data from the statistical analyses in order to ascertain which of many factors are important for describing overall patterns. This project is supported by the NSF Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems (CNH) Program.