Collaborative research drawing from multiple disciplines and conservation planning efforts with multi-stakeholder participants must each contend with fundamental questions about how social and ecological values are recognized, evaluated, integrated, and acted upon. Once elicited and shared, the way we represent our values can significantly affect the course of decision-making and evaluation of viable alternatives that follow. The field of decision theory forms a solid foundation for the methods we use to understand one another, measure critical factors on the landscape, and address stakeholder uncertainties. By integrating insights across institutional, disciplinary, and interpersonal boundaries, we may more clearly communicate and understand the values that drive our efforts toward our fundamental goals. As there are no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approaches to decision-making, we must explore and experiment with approaches to measuring values, aggregation of scientific metrics, and implementation of planning criteria. In this dissertation research, we explored a range of approaches for measuring, aggregating, and interpreting conservation values in the Lower Savannah River watershed of South Carolina and Georgia, USA. We employed natural and social sciences techniques and drew inspiration from social psychology and decision theory to inform decision-making practices and planning recommendations. This dissertation document is organized as an Introduction that includes a review of the relevant literature, three primary data chapters intended as publishable studies of decision-making approaches, and a Conclusion for summaries and reflections.
Through a study of family forest owners (FFOs) in the watershed, we identified important factors to understanding and adapting to individuals’ decision-making about engaging with conservation programs. We further studied private land in the watershed through a set of spatial prioritization analyses, where we compared two prominent approaches to identifying high-priority forest parcels that support water quality and protect riparian habitats against urbanization. Finally, we reflected on the stakeholder engagement process and created a framework for integrating multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) into water fund planning efforts. Through these studies, we recognize the values held by others and ourselves, the processes that bring those values into planning environments, and the effects of the methodological and procedural choices we make throughout research collaborations.
