Socio-ecological practitioners and researchers alike need to communicate clearly in writing to be effective. However, there are many examples of bad writing in both practice and academia that hinder communication, obscure meaning, and reduce accessibility. Five problem areas are identified: over reliance on planning jargon, the use (often incorrectly) of unnecessarily complex language, poor English, disciplinary frictions, and the adoption or application of terms inaccurately. The paper examines how these issues emerge across professional and academic contexts and offers practical recommendations for improving clarity, precision, and readability. Examples of effective writing guides and strategies are also discussed to support stronger communication across disciplines and audiences.
Rooftop gardening has been gaining ground as a promising nature-based solution for enhancing urban sustainability, food security, and household well-being in rapidly urbanizing areas. Yet most of the research so far has stayed narrowly focused on biophysical assessments or isolated case studies, with limited attention to how households perceive the multifunctional benefits of rooftop gardening. To address this gap, the present study aims to evaluate the perceived ecological, nutritional, and socioeconomic contributions of household rooftop gardens in Rajshahi City Corporation (RCC), Bangladesh. A structured questionnaire was administered to 170 rooftop-gardening households chosen through stratified random sampling to collect information on gardening practices, output, and perceived benefits. The study developed three composite indices representing ecological services, food security, and socioeconomic outcomes, which were subsequently integrated into an overall sustainability index. Among the three, the Ecological Services Index had the highest calculated mean score (0.68), followed by the Socioeconomic Benefit Index (0.55), while the Food Security Index had the lowest mean score (0.42). Although rooftop gardens contributed only a modest share of daily caloric intake, respondents perceived improvements in dietary diversity and reductions in malnutrition. Correlation analysis revealed positive associations among the social, economic, and environmental benefits, while the conceptual network model illustrated their multidimensional interrelationships. The findings demonstrate that rooftop gardening provides multiple perceived household benefits beyond food production. The perception-based assessment framework developed in this study offers a practical approach for evaluating rooftop gardening initiatives and provides evidence to support urban greening, climate adaptation, and food system resilience in rapidly growing cities.
Effective local adaptation to climate change requires bottom-up influence on knowledge creation systems for context relevant decision making. This calls for locally led collaborative learning (CL) approaches, whose establishment processes are currently not understood and documented, especially in the context of least developed countries and communities. This paper is part of a larger study aimed at generating an understanding of what bottom-up collaborative learning processes for climate adaptation look like at local community level. The specific objective of the paper is to communicate the context specific entry points and considerations for initiating locally led collaborative learning. The context of this paper is based on a case study in Kiboga District, which is one of the most drought hazard prone areas in Uganda. This is a qualitative, participatory action-oriented research study involving farmer-led experiential learning with researchers, practitioners and local government personnel. It was exploratory in nature, involving eight farmer groups in a hands-on establishment of collaborative learning activities. This was coupled with participant observations, discussions and interviews to gain understanding of what a farmer-led action-oriented collaborative learning process entailed. Findings show that alignment of meeting schedules to socio-economic activities, events, and respect for socio-cultural differences are very important aspects in establishment of CL. The study shows that important factors for participation in the establishment of CL include the need for new actionable knowledge, existence of farming groups, and farmers’ desire to improve their livelihoods through income generating activities. The most dominant learning needs were the establishment of water and soil conservation structures, identifying appropriate tree species for agroforestry, and knowledge on water harvesting techniques. Ultimately, the findings demonstrate that sustainable local adaptation requires practical climate interventions that intersect with socio-cultural contexts and community livelihood goals. The study offers actionable insights for context relevant community-based collaborative learning for local adaptation to climate change.
Urban design is under growing pressure to accommodate multiple ecological and socio-economic functions, yet translating the multidisciplinary scientific knowledge needed to support this goal into practical design solutions remains a persistent challenge. This challenge largely arises from the complex and often non-linear relationships between urban spatial patterns and multiple dimensions of urban functional performance. This study examines how research-informed tools may serve as a science-practice interface for supporting designers’ perception and integration of urban multifunctionality within a collaborative design studio. The study draws on a project-based design studio as an empirical setting, involving student participants from architecture and landscape design backgrounds who used a tool package comprising written guidelines and a machine-learning-based assessment tool. Questionnaire surveys, semi-structured focus group discussions, and model-estimated performance of selected design proposals were used to examine disciplinary starting points, patterns of tool use, and engagement with trade-offs and synergies. Across the studio, participants’ reported priorities and perceptions of influential urban form indicators changed, while the two tool components were described as serving complementary roles in conceptual framing and iterative evaluation. Overall, the study showcases a practical approach to translating scientific insights into design guidance, demonstrating its potential to broaden designers’ perspectives, moderate disciplinary predispositions, and support data-informed consideration of urban multifunctionality in design outcomes, thereby providing a basis for deepening understanding of the interface between science and design in sustainable urban landscape planning.
Addressing zoonotic diseases often calls for collaborative efforts across health and agriculture sectors to find ways to control or eliminate these pathogens. However, existing techno-scientific and biomedical interventions frequently fall short given the siloed nature of their knowledge and implementation, compounded by the overall lack of consideration for socio-ecological factors and interactions that contribute to disease transmission. Moreover, even when established socio-ecological models are applied to zoonoses, they are still unable to capture the nuanced power structures (i.e., gender, colonialism and anthropocentrism) that drive pathogenicity. Thus, this paper provides a critical reorientation of socio-ecological approaches by integrating foundational ideas from gender studies and decolonial thought that recognize the influence of power and the many ways power shapes and is formed in zoonotic situations. By starting from the marginalized human/nonhuman agencies and the relations that constitute them, addressing the colonial pasts and presences in their contexts, and applying a more topological perspective to these relations, we develop and apply this critical socio-ecological approach to the case of Taenia solium and emphasize how it transcends siloed One Health initiatives driven by anthropocentric medical approaches, as well as intersects with current Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programs that focus mainly on human sanitation within Northern Uganda’s smallholder pig farming communities. Through this re-framing, we open space for a more nuanced One Health-WASH praxis with potential for collaborative and deeply transformative outcomes.
