The goal of the Participatory Modeling Process (PMP) was to create a venue for scientists and stakeholders to come together and share perspectives, identify knowledge gaps, and improve the accuracy, credibility, and utility of project results. Through the PMP process stakeholders collaborated with the project team modelers in model development and interpretation of the model outputs. When modeling does not integrate stakeholder perspectives, the findings may be of little relevance or use to decision makers and resource managers. Over the course of the project scientists and stakeholders collaboratively generated and discussed management scenarios, trade-offs, and incentives related to current and future land use, water management, and rural economic development.
Stakeholder members of the PMP were nominated by Project Advisory Committee members to represent key stakeholder interest groups: agriculture, forestry, conservation & environmental protection, and government. Participants were selected based on their interest in water issues, connection to the study area, and potential to use or communicate project findings to decision makers and broader audiences. They included regional leaders with high levels of influence in peer groups and established relationships with project team scientists. Furthermore, they were familiar with science and models or were willing to learn. Importantly, all were open to dialog and communicating across different perspectives as well as willing and able to commit their time to the process.
Throughout the project, the PMP met 26 times using various interactive spaces. This included six face-to-face workshops, 16 online webinars, and four check-in meetings (optional Zoom “office hours” for PMP stakeholders). The PMP process was designed and professionally facilitated by project team members with facilitation training and experience.
Process outputs: 26 webinars and in-person PMP meetings were held, engaging 25 regional stakeholders and 11 project team members to co-develop farm/forest- and regional-scale economic-biophysical models. Priority cropping systems, a suite of farm/forest-scale management systems for each cropping system, and a series of regional land use/land and water management scenarios were identified for each state. Co-interpretation of the model results in the PMP produced a shared understanding of the regional economic-biophysical systems and model limitations and sensitivities in interpretation.
Publications
Meet the team
Wendy-Lin Bartels, University of Florida
Kristin Rowles, Albany State University
Mark Masters, Albany State University
