Max Nielsen-Pincus

Employing Philosophical Dialogue in Collaborative Science

ABSTRACT Integrated research across disciplines is required to address many of the pressing environmental problems facing human societies. Often the integration involves disparate disciplines, including those in the biological sciences, and demands collaboration from problem formulation through hypothesis development, data analysis, interpretation, and application. Such projects raise conceptual and methodological challenges that are new to many researchers in the biological sciences and to their collaborators in other disciplines. In this article, we develop the theme that many of these challenges are fundamentally philosophical, a dimension that has been largely overlooked in the extensive literature on cross-disciplinary research and education. We present a “toolbox for philosophical dialogue,” consisting of a set of questions for self-examination that cross-disciplinary collaborators can use to identify and address their philosophical disparities and commonalities. We provide a brief users manual for this toolbox and evidence for its effectiveness in promoting successful integration across disciplines.

Bridges and Barriers to Developing and Conducting Interdisciplinary Graduate-Student Team Research

Understanding complex socio-environmental problems requires specialists from multiple disciplines to integrate research efforts. Programs such as the National Science Foundations Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship facilitate integrated research efforts and change the way academic institutions train future leaders and scientists. The University of Idaho and the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center in Costa Rica collaborate on a joint research program focusing on biodiversity conservation and sustainable production in fragmented landscapes. We first present a spectrum of integration ranging from disciplinary to transdisciplinary across seven aspects of the research process. We then describe our experiences and lessons learned conducting interdisciplinary graduate student team research. Using our program as a case study, we examine the individual, disciplinary, and programmatic bridges and barriers to conducting interdisciplinary research that emerged during our student team research projects. We conclude with a set of recommendations for exploiting the bridges and overcoming the barriers to conducting interdisciplinary research, especially as part of graduate education programs.

An evaluation of internet versus paper-based methods for Public Participation Geographic Information Systems (PPGIS)

Public participation geographic information systems (PPGIS) are an increasingly important tool for collecting spatial information about the social attributes of place. The availability of Internet-based options for implementing PPGIS presents new opportunities for increased efficiency and new modes of access. Here we used a mixed-mode approach to evaluate paper versus Internet mapping methods for the same PPGIS survey in Wyoming. We compared participant characteristics, mapping participation, and the spatial distribution of mapped attributes between participants who responded to the paper versus Internet option. The response rate for those who completed the paper version of the survey was nearly 2.5 times the response rate of the Internet version. Paper participants also mapped significantly more places than did Internet participants (43 vs. 18). Internet participants tended to be younger, more likely to have a college degree, and had lived in the region for less time than paper participants. For all but one attribute there was no difference in the spatial distribution of places mapped between Internet and paper methods. Using a paper-based PPGIS survey resulted in a higher response rate, reduced participant bias, and greater mapping participation. However, survey mode did not influence the spatial distribution of the PPGIS data.

Predicting land use change: comparison of models based on landowner surveys and historical land cover trends

To make informed planning decisions, community leaders, elected officials, scientists, and natural resource managers must be able to evaluate potential effects of policies on land use change. Many land use change models use remotely-sensed images to make predictions based on historical trends. One alternative is a survey-based approach in which landowners’ stated intentions are modeled. The objectives of our research were to: (1) develop a survey-based landowner decision model (SBM) to simulate future land use changes, (2) compare projections from the SBM with those from a trend-based model (TBM), and (3) demonstrate how two alternative policy scenarios can be incorporated into the SBM and compared. We modeled relationships between land management decisions, collected from a mail survey of private landowners, and the landscape, using remotely-sensed imagery and ownership parcel data. We found that SBM projections were within the range of TBM projections and that the SBM was less affected by errors in image classification. Our analysis of alternative policies demonstrates the importance of understanding potential effects of targeted land use policies. While policies oriented toward increasing enrollment in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) resulted in a large (11–13%) increase in CRP lands, policies targeting increased forest thinning on private non-industrial lands increased low-density forest projections by only 1%. The SBM approach is particularly appropriate for landscapes including many landowners, because it reflects the decision-making of the landowners whose individual actions will result in collective landscape change.

Mapping a Values Typology in Three Counties of the Interior Northwest, USA: Scale, Geographic Associations Among Values, and the Use of Intensity Weights

Spatial attribution mapping is one method of eliciting the relationship between people and place. I use a landscape values typology and environmental values theory to investigate how people attribute values to the landscape in three counties of Idaho and Oregon. Using geographically referenced values data collected in a mail survey (n = 767), I examine the use of intensity weights when implementing a mapping exercise and the spatial scale and geographic associations between values in the typology. The results demonstrate that places within a landscape can offer multiple values, and that when geographically operationalized the landscape values typology can be divided primarily into two categories: material (socioeconomic quality) and postmaterial (personal/environmental quality) values. The findings reflect the linkages between spatially operationalized values and established environmental values theory, and the need for land use planners, natural resource managers, and local decision makers to facilitate both material and postmaterial values in their decisions.