Sponsor
This work was supported by the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) under funding received from the National Science Foundation DBI-1052875. We would like to acknowledge the valuable counsel of our external experts on the project, Barbara Cosens of the University of Idaho College of Law and Derek Cabrera at Cornell University and his colleagues at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's ThinkWater program.
Published In
Ecology and Society
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2019
Subjects
Pathophysiology -- Case studies, System analysis
Abstract
Transboundary collaborations related to international freshwater are critical for ensuring equitable, efficient, and sustainable shared access to our planet’s most fundamental resources. Visual artifacts, such as knowledge maps, functioning as boundary objects, are used in hydropolitical contexts to convey understandings and facilitate discussion across scales about challenges and opportunities from multiple perspectives. Such focal points for discussion are valuable in creating shared, socially negotiated priorities and integrating diverse and often disparate cultural perspectives that naturally exist in the context of international transboundary water resources. Visual boundary objects can also represent the collective mental models of the actor countries and transboundary institutions and encompass their perspectives on the complex hydro-social cycles within specific “problem-shed” regions of the shared resources. To investigate and synthesize these multiple concepts, we developed a novel method of eliciting mental models from visual boundary objects in social-ecological contexts by combining content analysis with theoretical frameworks for boundary objects and systems thinking. Using this method, we analyzed visual boundary objects represented in publicly available documents formally related to decision making in the Pilcomayo River Basin in South America. The Pilcomayo River Basin is a unique case for investigating decision making in international collaboration among represented states, given the unique social and biophysical challenges that have plagued the region for over a century. Using our framework, we were able to develop insight into the collective mental models of stakeholders, organizations, and decision-making institutions, related to priorities, vulnerabilities, and adaptation strategies among the various socioeconomic, cultural, political, and biophysical drivers for different regions and scales of the basin.
Locate the Document
DOI
10.5751/ES-10586-240209
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/29997
Citation Details
Kenzie, E. S., Parks, E. L., Bigler, E. D., Lim, M. M., Chesnutt, J. C., & Wakeland, W. (2017). Concussion as a multi-scale complex system: an interdisciplinary synthesis of current knowledge. Frontiers in neurology, 8, 513.
Description
Copyright © 2019 by the author(s). Published here under license by The Resilience Alliance. This article is under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt the work for noncommercial purposes provided the original author and source are credited, you indicate whether any changes were made, and you include a link to the license.