Knowledge co-production and boundary work offer planners a new frame for critically designing a social process that fosters collaborative implementation of resulting plans. Knowledge co-production ...involves stakeholders from diverse knowledge systems working iteratively toward common vision and action. Boundary work is a means of creating permeable knowledge boundaries that satisfy the needs of multiple social groups while guarding the functional integrity of contributing knowledge systems. Resulting products are boundary objects of mutual interest that maintain coherence across all knowledge boundaries. We examined how knowledge co-production and boundary work can bridge the gap between planning and implementation and promote cross-sectoral cooperation. We applied these concepts to well-established stages in regional conservation planning within a national scale conservation planning project aimed at identifying areas for conserving rivers and wetlands of South Africa and developing an institutional environment for promoting their conservation. Knowledge co-production occurred iteratively over 4 years in interactive stakeholder workshops that included co-development of national freshwater conservation goals and spatial data on freshwater biodiversity and local conservation feasibility; translation of goals into quantitative inputs that were used in Marxan to select draft priority conservation areas; review of draft priority areas; and packaging of resulting map products into an atlas and implementation manual to promote application of the priority area maps in 37 different decision-making contexts. Knowledge co-production stimulated dialogue and negotiation and built capacity for multi-scale implementation beyond the project. The resulting maps and information integrated diverse knowledge types of over 450 stakeholders and represented > 1000 years of collective experience. The maps provided a consistent national source of information on priority conservation areas for rivers and wetlands and have been applied in 25 of the 37 use contexts since their launch just over 3 years ago. When framed as a knowledge co-production process supported by boundary work, regional conservation plans can be developed into valuable boundary objects that offer a tangible tool for multiagency cooperation around conservation. Our work provides practical guidance for promoting uptake of conservation science and contributes to an evidence base on how conservation efforts can be improved. La coproducción de conocimiento y el trabajo de frontera le ofrecen a los planeadores un marco nuevo para diseñar críticamente un proceso social que fomente la implementación de los planes resultantes en colaboración. La coproducción de conocimiento involucra a accionistas de diversos sistemas de conocimiento trabajando repetidamente hacia una visión y acción común. El trabajo de frontera es un medio de creación de fronteras permeables de conocimiento que satisfacen las necesidades de múltiples grupos sociales mientras mantienen la integridad funcional de los sistemas de conocimiento contribuyentes. Los productos resultantes son objetos fronterizos de interés mutuo que mantienen la coherencia a lo largo de todas las fronteras del conocimiento. Examinamos cómo la coproducción de conocimiento y el trabajo de frontera pueden resolver el vacío entre la planeación y la implementación y promover la cooperación entre sectores. Aplicamos estos conceptos a las fases bien establecidas de la planeación de la conservación regional dentro de un proyecto de planeación de la conservación a escala nacional enfocado a la identificación de áreas para la conservación de ríos y humedales de Sudáfrica y al desarrollo de un ambiente institucional para promover su conservación. La coproducción de conocimiento apareció repetidamente a lo largo de cuatro años en talleres interactivos de trabajo para los accionistas, que incluyeron el co-desarrollo de objetivos de conservación del agua dulce nacional e información espacial sobre la biodiversidad de agua dulce y la viabilidad de la conservación local; la traducción de las metas a aportes cuantitativos que se usaron en Marxan para seleccionar áreas de conservación de proyectos prioritarios; la revisión de áreas de proyectos prioritarios; y el empaquetamiento de los productos cartográficos resultantes para promover la aplicación del mapa de área prioritaria resultante en 37 contextos de toma de decisiones. La coproducción de conocimiento estimuló el diálogo y la negociación y construyó la capacidad para la implementación multiescala más allá del proyecto. Los mapas resultantes y la información integraron diferentes tipos de conocimiento de más de 450 accionistas y representaron >1000 años de experiencia colectiva. Los mapas proporcionaron una consistente fuente nacional de información sobre las áreas prioritarias de conservación de ríos y humedales y se han aplicado en 25 contextos de uso desde su creación. Cuando se enmarcan como un proceso de coproducción de conocimiento respaldado por el trabajo de frontera, los planes de conservación regional pueden transformarse en objetos valiosos que ofrecen una herramienta tangible para la cooperación multiagencia en la conservación. Nuestro trabajo proporciona una guía práctica para promover la comprensión de la ciencia de la conservación y contribuye a una base de evidencias de cómo se puede mejorar la conservación.
Free‐flowing rivers (FFRs) are important surrogates for freshwater biodiversity as there are increasingly fewer rivers that reflect intact habitat and species diversity from source to sea. The status ...and changes in the ecological condition or protection of FFRs is not explicitly reported on in global biodiversity targets. Indices are proposed for reporting such changes to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 6 and 15, Aichi Target 11, and the post‐2020 global biodiversity framework.
FFRs were identified at a countrywide scale in South Africa for protection, planning, monitoring, and assessing changes in their ecological condition and protection status. They were selected and prioritized using criteria co‐produced with national, provincial, and local river managers and policy makers. Given the high competition for water resources and the unlikely possibility for strictly protecting all FFRs, a subset of FFRs, termed ‘flagship FFRs’, was identified.
Methods for reporting changes in the protection levels of prioritized FFRs at a countrywide scale were developed, which included indices of FFRs related to global targets: the loss of the extent of FFRs in a natural and largely natural ecological condition for SDG 6; changes in the connectivity of FFRs included in the post‐2020 global biodiversity framework targets; and changes in protection levels of FFRs for Aichi Target 11 and SDG 15.1.2.
Flagship FFRs attracted targeted management initiatives and thus maintained their connectivity and ecological condition. This was not true when all FFRs were considered; in the broader set of FFRs, longitudinal fragmentation increased and ecological condition declined from 2011 to 2018.
Considering the increasing pressures rivers are likely to experience from human and climate change impacts, particularly in semi‐arid to temperate environments, urgent prioritization and monitoring of FFRs is called for so that a targeted set of protection and management strategies can be applied.
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•Strategic water source areas form 8% of southern Africa but contribute 50% runoff.•These areas support at least 51% of South Africa’s population and 64% of its economy.•They should ...be regarded as national assets; yet only 13% of their area is protected.•We recommend using multiple strategies for the legal protection of these areas.•Co-producing maps of these areas with decision makers improved use in policy/practice.
Strategic water source areas are those areas that have a relatively high natural runoff in the region of interest, which is made accessible for supporting the region’s population or economy. These areas contribute substantially to development needs, often far away from the source. This disconnect between ecosystem service supply and use means that the social-ecological impacts of development decisions in these areas may not be obvious to users and decision makers. We identified 22 strategic water source areas in southern Africa linked to major urban centers. We quantified the population size and economy they support, and their current levels of protection. We found that strategic water source areas form only 8% of the land area but contribute 50% of the runoff. When linked to downstream urban centers, these areas support at least 51% of South Africa’s population and 64% of its economy. Yet only 13% of their land area is formally protected. We recommend using multiple strategies for the legal protection of these areas. Identifying strategic water source areas and their links to downstream users offers an opportunity for achieving synergy in spatial planning across diverse policy sectors, and enables new patterns of collaboration between government, business and civil society.
Knowledge co-production and boundary work offer planners a new frame for critically designing a social process that fosters collaborative implementation of resulting plans. Knowledge co-production ...involves stakeholders from diverse knowledge systems working iteratively toward common vision and action. Boundary work is a means of creating permeable knowledge boundaries that satisfy the needs of multiple social groups while guarding the functional integrity of contributing knowledge systems. Resulting products are boundary objects of mutual interest that maintain coherence across all knowledge boundaries. We examined how knowledge co-production and boundary work can bridge the gap between planning and implementation and promote cross-sectoral cooperation. We applied these concepts to well-established stages in regional conservation planning within a national scale conservation planning project aimed at identifying areas for conserving rivers and wetlands of South Africa and developing an institutional environment for promoting their conservation. Knowledge co-production occurred iteratively over 4 years in interactive stake-holder workshops that included co-development of national freshwater conservation goals and spatial data on freshwater biodiversity and local conservation feasibility; translation of goals into quantitative inputs that were used in Marxan to select draft priority conservation areas; review of draft priority areas; and packaging of resulting map products into an atlas and implementation manual to promote application of the priority area maps in 37 different decision-making contexts. Knowledge co-production stimulated dialogue and negotiation and built capacity for multi-scale implementation beyond the project. The resulting maps and information integrated diverse knowledge types of over 450 stakeholders and represented >1000 years of collective experience. The maps provided a consistent national source of information on priority conservation areas for rivers and wetlands and have been applied in 25 of the 37 use contexts since their launch just over 3 years ago. When framed as a knowledge co-production process supported by boundary work, regional conservation plans can be developed into valuable boundary objects that offer a tangible tool for multi-agency cooperation around conservation. Our work provides practical guidance for promoting uptake of conservation science and contributes to an evidence base on how conservation efforts can be improved. La Coproducción de Conocimiento y el Trabajo de Frontera para Promover la Implementación de los Planes de Conservación Resumen La coproducción de conocimiento y el trabajo de frontera le ofrecen a los planeadores un marco nuevo para diseñar críticamente un proceso social que fomente la implementación de los planes resultantes en colaboración. La coproducción de conocimiento involucra a accionistas de diversos sistemas de conocimiento trabajando repetidamente hacia una visión y acción común. El trabajo de frontera es un medio de creación de fronteras permeables de conocimiento que satisfacen las necesidades de múltiples grupos sociales mientras mantienen la integridad funcional de los sistemas de conocimiento contribuyentes. Los productos resultantes son objetos fronterizos de interés mutuo que mantienen la coherencia a lo largo de todas las fronteras del conocimiento. Examinamos cómo la coproducción de conocimiento y el trabajo de frontera pueden resolver el vacío entre la planeación y la implementación y promover la cooperación entre sectores. Aplicamos estos conceptos a las fases bien establecidas de la planeación de la conservación regional dentro de un proyecto de planeación de la conservación a escala nacional enfocado a la identificación de áreas para la conservación de ríos y humedales de Sudáfrica y al desarrollo de un ambiente institucional para promover su conservación. La coproducción de conocimiento apareció repetidamente a lo largo de cuatro años en talleres interactivos de trabajo para los accionistas, que incluyeron el co-desarrollo de objetivos de conservación del agua dulce nacional e información espacial sobre la biodiversidad de agua dulce y la viabilidad de la conservación local; la traducción de las metas a aportes cuantitativos que se usaron en Marxan para seleccionar áreas de conservación de proyectos prioritarios; la revisión de áreas de proyectos prioritarios; y el empaquetamiento de los productos cartográficos resultantes para promover la aplicación del mapa de área prioritaria resultante en 37 contextos de toma de decisiones. La coproducción de conocimiento estimuló el diálogo y la negociación y construyó la capacidad para la implementación multiescala más allá del proyecto. Los mapas resultantes y la información integraron diferentes tipos de conocimiento de más de 450 accionistas y representaron >1000 años de experiencia colectiva. Los mapas proporcionaron una consistente fuente nacional de información sobre las áreas prioritarias de conservación de ríos y humedales y se han aplicado en 25 contextos de uso desde su creación. Cuando se enmarcan como un proceso de coproducción de conocimiento respaldado por el trabajo de frontera, los planes de conservación regional pueden transformarse en objetos valiosos que ofrecen una herramienta tangible para la cooperación multiagencia en la conservación. Nuestro trabajo proporciona una guía práctica para promover la comprensión de la ciencia de la conservación y contribuye a una base de evidencias de cómo se puede mejorar la conservación.
Although a large body of international literature has advanced our understanding of river systems, a considerable amount of gaps exit in the knowledge of dryland systems. River systems reflect ...complex interactions between biophysical processes and patterns. Understanding how processes generate observed patterns and, in turn, how patterns influence processes is crucial to understanding river structure and function. It requires an interdisciplinary approach in both research and resulting applications. The aim of this thesis was to examine the relationship between valley confinement, fluvial style, valley floor morphology and vegetation in the semi-arid environment of the Baviaanskloof river catchment, South Africa. This interdisciplinary investigation used a mixed method approach that involved desktop analyses and field surveys to understand dynamics at multiple scales, from the whole catchment to local (site, reach and quadrat or sample plot) scales. The desktop analyses included historical rainfall patterns and climate extremes, aerial photograph time-series and remote sensing greenness indices, and the field surveys focussed on cross-valley landform profiles, groundwater depth levels, sediment size distribution and soil chemistry, and vegetation distribution patterns. Based on the integrative assessment of these techniques a framework was developed of the links between valley confinement, surface-groundwater interaction, hydrogeomorphic processes and landforms, vegetation and human activities. Study findings highlighted the fact that very strong links exist between these factors. In this semi-arid area water availability (groundwater and streamflow conditions) was the primary control on valley floor vegetation composition and patterning. One group of species was associated with the wetted channel reaches at confined and semi-confined valley settings, while the other was associated with dry bed channel reaches at unconfined valley settings. The analyses also indicated that the environmental variables which best explained the variation in vegetation at the differing geomorphic landforms were related to landform position (elevation and distance), sediment size (fine and coarse sand) and available phosphorus (i.e. human impacts). The different plants, in turn, also affected landforms through their influence on sediment erosion, transport and deposition. Specially, they build, maintained or modified geomorphic landforms at confined, semi-confined and unconfined valley settings across the valley floor. Valley confinement was a primary control influencing hydrogeomorphic processes and their associated landforms. Alluvial fans and terraces acted as critical additional controls at especially the unconfined valley setting. Implications for restoration efforts in the catchment included strategies that took cognisance of: active revegetation on floodplain surfaces related to former agricultural fields; channel switching associated with the highly dynamic and unpredictable nature of geomorphic features; unstable multi-thread braided channels in the unconfined valley setting; and the selection of representative monitoring sites.
