The social side of spatial decision support systems: Investigating knowledge integration and learning

Romina Rodela, Arnold K. Bregt, Arend Ligtenberg, Marta Pérez-Soba and Peter Verweij

Environmental Science & Policy, 2017, vol. 76, issue C, 177-184

Abstract: Spatial decision support systems (SDSS) represent a step forward in efforts to account for the spatial dimension in environmental decision-making. The aim of SDSS is to help policymakers and practitioners access, interpret and understand information from data, analyses and models, and guide them in identifying possible actions during a decision-making process. Researchers, however, report difficulties in up-take of SDSS by the intended users. Some suggest that this field would benefit from investigation of the social aspects involved in SDSS design, development, testing and use. Borrowing insights from the literature on science-policy interactions, we explore two key social processes: knowledge integration and learning. Using a sample of 36 scientific papers concerning SDSS in relation to environmental issues, we surveyed whether and how the selected papers reported on knowledge integration and learning. We found that while many of the papers mentioned communication and collaboration with prospective user groups or stakeholders, this was seldom underpinned by a coherent methodology for enabling knowledge integration and learning to surface. This appears to have hindered SDSS development and later adoption by intended users.

Keywords: Spatial decision support systems; Participatory processes; Knowledge integration; Learning; Science-policy interface; Environmental issues (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1462901117300436
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:enscpo:v:76:y:2017:i:c:p:177-184

DOI: 10.1016/j.envsci.2017.06.015

Access Statistics for this article

Environmental Science & Policy is currently edited by M. Beniston

More articles in Environmental Science & Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().