DISES: Co-producing knowledge to sustain pastoral socio-environmental systems: System feedbacks, future scenarios, and adaptive responses

-----------------------------------------------------------------------繁荣的家庭农场是养活世界的关键，维持充满活力的文化，保护环境，但它们正受到威胁。在大多数地区，由于经济压力增加、气候变化、新的虫害和杂草挑战以及对什么是可行生计的观念发生变化，儿童选择替代职业，农场正在被放弃。迫切需要了解使畜牧系统适应不断变化的条件的因素和关系，以及哪些因素使小规模农业在某些社会环境背景下保持弹性。该项目研究气候、土地管理、景观和政策之间的复杂联系，以了解我们如何通过政策或其他干预措施最好地支持健康的牧区系统。该项目整合了社会科学、气候科学、植物和土壤科学，以了解哪些变量最有可能维持小规模的牧场系统。该小组将当地农民作为工作中的平等合作伙伴。田园景观是复杂的社会环境系统(SES)，其中系统的自然组成部分既支持人类生计和文化，又需要人类干预才能继续存在。它们覆盖了全球陆地的近60%，可以养活多达5亿人。然而，他们正面临着越来越多的挑战，最明显的是气候变化和年轻人对农业兴趣的下降。这些挑战突出表明，迫切需要了解支持牧区系统适应不断变化的条件的能力的因素和关系。这个项目探索了一个长期存在的牧区系统，这是解决这些知识差距的理想环境。几千年来，牲畜放牧和人类对火的使用创造了多产的高海拔草地，支持生物多样性和其他生态系统服务，以及与牧业有关的人类生计和充满活力的文化习俗。尽管承受着其他牧区系统面临的许多同样的压力，但随着时间的推移，这种SES保持了相对强劲的势头，是欧洲新农民装置率最高的国家之一。该项目的总体目标是：(A)了解影响农业传播、牧业实践的连续性以及这一景观及其生态系统功能的复原力的各种因素之间的关系，以及(B)开发一个与牧民共同生产社会环境知识的过程，以增进科学知识并加强地方治理机构。这项研究将通过实现两个研究目标来实现这些目标：1)通过测量构成的环境和社会成分，确定对系统的历史和当前控制，并对系统要素之间的关系进行建模，来确定牧区SES的特征；以及2)通过将长期社会环境数据收集与气候和政策预测相结合，分析和模拟系统的未来变化。这项研究建立在合作跨学科研究的基础上，并继续进行，这些研究将当地居民纳入共同生产牧区系统可持续性知识的完全合作伙伴。自从这项拟议研究开始以来，牧民们一直是设计和开发这项拟议研究的正式合作伙伴。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Thriving family farms are critical to feeding the world, sustaining vibrant cultures, and protecting the environment, but they are under threat. In most regions, farms are being abandoned as children choose alternate careers due to increasing economic pressures, a changing climate, new pest and weed challenges, and shifting ideas of what constitutes a viable livelihood. There is an urgent need to understand the factors and relationships that allow pastoral systems to adapt to changing conditions and what factors allow small-scale farming to remain resilient in certain socio-environmental contexts. This project examines the complex linkages between climate, land management, landscape, and policy to learn how we can best support healthy pastoral systems through policy or other interventions. This project integrates social science, climate science, and plant and soil sciences to understand what variables are most likely to sustain small-scale pastoral systems. The team includes local farmers as equal partners in the work.Pastoral landscapes are complex socio-environmental systems (SES) in which the natural components of the system both support human livelihoods and culture and require human intervention for their continued existence. They cover almost 60% of the global landmass and may support as many as 500 million people. They are, however, facing increasing challenges, most notably climate change and declining interest in farming among youth. These challenges underscore the urgent need to understand the factors and relationships that support the ability of pastoral systems to adapt to changing conditions. This project explores a longstanding pastoral system that is an ideal setting for addressing these gaps in knowledge. Livestock grazing and human use of fire over thousands of years have created productive high-elevation meadows that support biodiversity and other ecosystem services, as well as human livelihoods and vibrant cultural practices related to pastoralism. Though subject to many of the same pressures confronting other pastoral systems, this SES has remained relatively robust over time, with one of the highest rates of new farmer installations in Europe. The overarching goals of this project are a) to understand the relationship among factors that influence farm transmission, continuity of pastoral practice, and the resilience of this landscape and its ecosystem functions, and b) to develop a process for the co-production of socio-environmental knowledge with pastoralists that improves scientific knowledge and strengthens local governance institutions. This research will address those goals by accomplishing two research objectives: 1) characterize the pastoral SES by measuring constituent environmental and social components, determining the historic and current controls on the system, and modeling relationships between system elements; and 2) analyze and model future changes in the system by integrating long-term socio-environmental data collection with climate and policy forecasts. This research builds on, and continues, collaborative transdisciplinary research that integrates local residents as full partners in the co-production of knowledge on pastoral system sustainability. Pastoralists have been full partners in the design and development of this proposed research since its inception.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.