Social and Institutional Aspects of Natural Resource Decision Making Team (FRESC)
Active
By Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center
February 15, 2024
Our work uses a range of social science methods including interviews, surveys, listening sessions, workshops, and document analysis, to understand how Department of the Interior land managers and others make natural resource decisions.
Environmental decision makers require quality science for their management decisions. But even the best science is implemented within specific social and institutional contexts, which may create barriers or opportunities to meeting desired goals.
We ask the following kinds of questions:
- How do interactions among scientists, decision makers, and stakeholders influence the effective translation of science into decision making?
- How does the design and implementation of decision support tools influence group learning, negotiation, and decision making?
- How do institutional and regulatory structures shape the process and outcome of decision making?
Visit the web pages below to learn more about our work.
Mechanisms and Outcomes of Science Facilitation
USGS researchers are studying how science facilitation can help diverse and interdisciplinary teams of scientists collaborate effectively and develop a common scientific understanding of complex challenges.
USGS Team Science Curriculum
USGS scientists are developing a team science curriculum to teach researchers from different fields and backgrounds how to work collaboratively and creatively to address complex environmental challenges.
Cross-Park RAD Project (CPRP): A Case Study in Four National Parks Investigating How Institutional Context and Emotions Shape Manager Decisions to Resist, Accept, or Direct Change in Transforming Ecosystems
Natural & cultural resource managers are facing a slew of new challenges for managing public lands stemming from climate change and human-driven stressors like invasive species, fragmentation, and new resource uses. In some cases, the very landscapes and species they are managing are changing in significant ways, transforming from one set of conditions to another. As a result, previously...
Public Land Manager Decision-Making Under Ecological Transformation
As pressures from climate change and other anthropogenic stressors, like invasive species, increase, new challenges arise for natural resource managers who are responsible for the health of public lands. One of the greatest challenges these managers face is that the traditional way of managing resources might not be as effective, or in some cases might be ineffective, in light of...
Conservation Introductions: Enhancing Decision Support for the Pacific Northwest and Pacific Islands
This research effort is an interagency partnership between U.S. Geological Survey and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to systematically explore the issues, viewpoints, and concerns within the Service in relation to conservation introductions. Conservation introduction is the planned, intentional moving of species, populations or genotypes to a location outside a target’s native range.
Developing and Testing a Rapid Assessment Method for Understanding Key Social Factors of Ecological Drought Preparedness
Drought is a complex environmental hazard that impacts both ecological and social systems. Accounting for the role of human attitudes, institutions, and societal values in drought planning is important to help identify how various drought durations and severity may differentially affect social resilience to adequately respond to and manage drought impacts. While there have been...
Visit the web pages below to learn more about our work.
Mechanisms and Outcomes of Science Facilitation
USGS researchers are studying how science facilitation can help diverse and interdisciplinary teams of scientists collaborate effectively and develop a common scientific understanding of complex challenges.
USGS Team Science Curriculum
USGS scientists are developing a team science curriculum to teach researchers from different fields and backgrounds how to work collaboratively and creatively to address complex environmental challenges.
Cross-Park RAD Project (CPRP): A Case Study in Four National Parks Investigating How Institutional Context and Emotions Shape Manager Decisions to Resist, Accept, or Direct Change in Transforming Ecosystems
Natural & cultural resource managers are facing a slew of new challenges for managing public lands stemming from climate change and human-driven stressors like invasive species, fragmentation, and new resource uses. In some cases, the very landscapes and species they are managing are changing in significant ways, transforming from one set of conditions to another. As a result, previously...
Public Land Manager Decision-Making Under Ecological Transformation
As pressures from climate change and other anthropogenic stressors, like invasive species, increase, new challenges arise for natural resource managers who are responsible for the health of public lands. One of the greatest challenges these managers face is that the traditional way of managing resources might not be as effective, or in some cases might be ineffective, in light of...
Conservation Introductions: Enhancing Decision Support for the Pacific Northwest and Pacific Islands
This research effort is an interagency partnership between U.S. Geological Survey and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to systematically explore the issues, viewpoints, and concerns within the Service in relation to conservation introductions. Conservation introduction is the planned, intentional moving of species, populations or genotypes to a location outside a target’s native range.
Developing and Testing a Rapid Assessment Method for Understanding Key Social Factors of Ecological Drought Preparedness
Drought is a complex environmental hazard that impacts both ecological and social systems. Accounting for the role of human attitudes, institutions, and societal values in drought planning is important to help identify how various drought durations and severity may differentially affect social resilience to adequately respond to and manage drought impacts. While there have been...