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

这一跨学科研究项目将探讨与成功恢复退化河流流域森林生态系统有关的因素，包括人们的态度与他们管理的土地上植物群落动态之间的因果关系。 该项目将提供有关恢复前后植物群落动态的新见解和信息，以及土地管理人员对恢复的态度、知识来源和观点。 该项目将在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方面产生关于人类与自然系统之间相互作用的新知识。 项目调查结果将使土地管理者了解恢复的最佳做法，并将向恢复科学家提供急需的反馈，说明他们的调查结果在多大程度上得到了利用，以及植物群落是否得到了预期的改善。 将通过针对土地管理人员的区域讲习班和行业出版物以及针对科学界的学术介绍和出版物传播成果。 该项目还将为研究生和本科生提供教育和培训机会。世界各地每年花费数十亿美元来恢复退化的河流系统。 关于恢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恢复的人们的知识、背景和动机如何影响这些项目的生态结果。 调查人员将通过扩展他们先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一项目，这些数据库位于亚利桑那州、加州州、科罗拉多州、内华达州、新墨西哥州和犹他州的科罗拉多河和格兰德河流域的400多个沿着溪流。 他们将使用这些自然系统数据以及通过在线调查和对每个地点的土地管理者的亲自采访收集的关于人类态度和行为的数据来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对自然和科学态度的变化？ (3)自然环境的因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植被随时间的变化以及恢复地点和非恢复参考地点之间的比较来衡量。 将利用人类系统数据，包括有关知识来源的信息，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，探讨恢复结果的变化。 访谈中的定性信息将补充统计分析中的定量数据，以确定许多因素中哪些因素对描述总体模式很重要。 该项目由NSF耦合自然和人类系统动力学（CNH）计划支持。

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.