achieved by the recognition and inclusion of several elements and approaches, as indicated in the following paragraphs:
Land use management should be analyzed in terms of the interaction of social and natural processes. These
interactions determine the state of social, economic and ecological resource bases upon which the sustainability of agricultural and rural development depends. Explicit recognition of these interactions helps to identify external- ities and ensures their inclusion in management systems and policies. Perhaps more significantly, quantifying interactions improves our understanding of synergies between scales (see below) or across sectors. Thus the introduction of IR8 rice in Vietnam in the late 1960s proved most successful at the farm scale when it coincided with road development at the regional scale:
roads allowed information and materials to flow into farmland, and for harvested crops to reach markets (Quinn, 2011).
the contextual dynamics of landscapes can be encompassed both within the system of interest (where they are relatively easy to envisage and capture) or extraneous to it (where they are more difficult to incorporate or even recog- nize). Examples of the latter include: changes in consumer behavior and market demands (e.g. the rise of biofuels as agricultural commodities); shifting political-institutional frameworks (e.g. decentralization and democratization); or perturbations in global economic conditions. These contextual differences should be accounted for by research and modeling approaches, otherwise it will be more difficult to generate knowledge that can be widely applied. Even issues that form part of the landscape context can be missed – notably the importance of multiplier effects.
Interactions between scales (e.g. plant, field, farm, landscape, national and global scales) are central to the innovation systems approach. Vertical up-scaling or down-scaling is particularly challenging, as it requires learning and participation across a range of stake- holders and institutions (Gündel et al., 2001). Often, there is limited rec- ognition and inclusion of processes that operate or interact across scales. Land- use modeling approaches usually fail to capture the level of detail at the farm scale, while stakeholder-based approach- es are limited in their capacity to derive regional-scale projections based on the aggregated interventions and interac- tions within and among land use units. Many economic and social processes that affect resource use, values and vulnera- bilities are the result of aggregated effects that are only expressed at higher scales (e.g. substitution effects in eco- nomics, network externalities in social behavior, connectivity in ecology). Clear methodological procedures for up- scaling are limited, and mismatches in analysis of ecological and agricultural processes might be partly derived from different conceptual frameworks (Volk and Ewert, 2011). Relating farm-level production objectives to larger-scale landscape amenity or biodiversity values
is challenging, as the landscape values can only be determined at higher levels of aggregation, often through non- linear pathways.
the role of consumers and society as a whole is crucial in interpreting what is meant by sustainability, and yet societal values are often assumed, rather than known. ‘Boundary work’ research seeks
to overcome the barriers to creative dialogue across interest groups and sectors, and should be included in NRM research, particularly where issues transcend disciplines and societal
hier archies (Clark et al., 2011). Boundary work emphasizes meaningful participa- tion in agenda setting and information exchange across societal or stakeholder groups, a process that is facilitated by effective accountability and support tools.
What should result from research
in NrM?
The role of research is, first, to generate new knowledge, and, second, to deliver new knowledge to stakeholders in appropriate formats that will contribute to shaping the development of informed responses to poverty and food security challenges. In the context of land use and associated public goods, NRM research that ultimately seeks to address poverty and food security should, among other things, achieve the following:
Deliver new knowledge on, for example, the changing dynamics of biodiversity abundance and ecosystem functions in response to land use and climate change.
Improve understanding of human– environmental feedbacks and
dependencies in the context of changing land use at the landscape scale.
Improve understanding of linkages between scales from local to regional and global, to allow up-scaling and the contextualization of knowledge within broader environmental, economic and political frameworks.
Integrate knowledge across inter-
disciplinary and transdisciplinary research frameworks. Past experience shows that this is not easy, and requires considerable individual and institutional investment for mutual understanding across disciplinary boundaries.
Develop or apply new approaches, products and tools for analysis,
monitoring, assessment and evaluation. These include refined methodologies, data bases and maps, technologies, quanti tative tools for interpretive analyses, spatially explicit models, and decision-support systems. Long-term and widely accessible meta-data from many geo graphically disparate locations can be a foundation for future research for development.
Recognize, and capitalize on, opportuni- ties afforded by the emergence of new technologies, developing infrastructures and new institutional structures from beyond the normal sphere of NRM.
Understand and improve processes of engagement across stakeholder groups within and across social and political hierarchies.
Within this body of research there are con- siderable uncertainties. These fall within the remits of social science (e.g. livelihood and health dependencies on ecosystem services [ES]), natural science (e.g. rates of ES degradation and biodiversity loss in the context of land use and climate change, as well as the identification of tipping points that may lead to irreversible changes), eco- nomics (e.g. valuation of ES, opportunity costs and tradeoffs of ES preservation) and policy (e.g. aligning management options to minimize conflicts across ES, creating structures that internalize ES values). Thus, NRM research has much to contribute from various disciplinary perspectives. The long-standing challenge is to integrate good science across disciplines (interdiscipli- narity) and stakeholders (transdisciplinari- ty). While science can contribute to, and guide, more effective NRM through the provision of new knowledge, technologies, management options, and conceptual and operational frameworks, it is as yet unable to provide complete coherent and broadly acceptable solutions. The impact of research is contingent on the wider economic, institutional and political envi- ronments, and these are rarely included within existing models of socio-ecological systems. How processes operate across a range of spatial and temporal scales, and the links between scales, provide additional axes that NRM research needs to encom-
pass. While many conceptual frameworks exist (see Haberl et al., 2006; Young et al., 2006; Fisher et al., 2008; Ohl et al., 2010) they provide little guidance as to how they should be methodologically implemented or analytically interpreted. They also tend to focus on a limited number of system components such as biodiversity, ecosystem services or livelihoods (see Collins et al., 2011).