Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Bush Estate, Penicuik, Midlothian EH26 0QB, UK.
Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel.
Sci Total Environ. 2018 May 1;622-623:1225-1240. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.11.324. Epub 2017 Dec 13.
With an overarching goal of addressing global and regional sustainability challenges, Long Term Socio-Ecological Research Platforms (LTSER) aim to conduct place-based research, to collect and synthesize both environmental and socio-economic data, and to involve a broader stakeholder pool to set the research agenda. To date there have been few studies examining the output from LTSER platforms. In this study we enquire if the socio-ecological research from 25 self-selected LTSER platforms of the International Long-Term Ecological Research (ILTER) network has produced research products which fulfil the aims and ambitions of the paradigm shift from ecological to socio-ecological research envisaged at the turn of the century. In total we assessed 4983 publically available publications, of which 1112 were deemed relevant to the socio-ecological objectives of the platform. A series of 22 questions were scored for each publication, assessing relevance of responses in terms of the disciplinary focus of research, consideration of human health and well-being, degree of stakeholder engagement, and other relevant variables. The results reflected the diverse origins of the individual platforms and revealed a wide range in foci, temporal periods and quantity of output from participating platforms, supporting the premise that there is a growing trend in socio-ecological research at long-term monitoring platforms. Our review highlights the challenges of realizing the top-down goal to harmonize international network activities and objectives and the need for bottom-up, self-definition for research platforms. This provides support for increasing the consistency of LTSER research while preserving the diversity of regional experiences.
具有解决全球和区域可持续性挑战的总体目标，长期社会生态研究平台（LTSER）旨在进行基于地点的研究，收集和综合环境和社会经济数据，并涉及更广泛的利益相关者群体来制定研究议程。迄今为止，很少有研究考察 LTSER 平台的产出。在这项研究中，我们询问了国际长期生态研究（ILTER）网络中 25 个自选 LTSER 平台的社会生态研究是否产生了研究产品，这些产品是否实现了本世纪初生态向社会生态研究范式转变的目标和雄心。我们总共评估了 4983 篇公开可用的出版物，其中 1112 篇被认为与平台的社会生态目标相关。对每篇出版物都进行了一系列 22 个问题的评分，根据研究的学科重点、人类健康和福祉的考虑、利益相关者参与的程度以及其他相关变量来评估响应的相关性。结果反映了各个平台的多样化起源，并揭示了参与平台的重点、时间跨度和产出数量的广泛范围，支持了在长期监测平台上社会生态研究呈增长趋势的前提。我们的审查强调了实现协调国际网络活动和目标的自上而下目标以及研究平台自下而上、自我定义的挑战。这为在保留区域经验多样性的同时提高 LTSER 研究的一致性提供了支持。
