While stakeholder-driven approaches have been increasingly used in scenario modeling, previous studies have mostly focused on the qualitative elements, e.g., narratives and policy documents, from the stakeholders, but lack engagement of stakeholders with quantitative inputs. In this study, we conducted workshops with a stakeholder group to integrate the participatory mapping of future policies in the simulation, and to compare the environmental impacts after including the participatory mapping. A land system change model named CLUMondo was used to simulate four scenarios, i.e., Business-As-Usual (BAU), Destroying Resources in Owyhee (DRO), Ecological Conservation (EC), and Managed Recreation (MR), in Owyhee County, Idaho, United States. The InVEST models were used to assess water yield, soil erosion, and wildlife habitat under the four scenarios. The results show that the DRO scenario would decrease shrubland and increased grassland, thus leading to less water yield, more soil erosion, and deteriorated wildlife habitat anticipated through to 2050. On the contrary, the EC and MR scenarios reverse the trend and would improve these ecosystem services over the same time horizon. The stakeholder-driven policies appear to influence the spatial distribution of the land system and ecosystem services. The results help to reach a nuanced understanding of the stakeholder-driven scenarios and highlight the importance of engaging stakeholders in scenario modeling and environmental impact analysis.

Understanding and modeling the trajectories of change in broad level interactions in food-energy-water systems is incomplete when it is undertaken by researchers in isolation from those who live and work in the systems. For models and outcomes to have validity they need to be subjected to sustained development and iteration with stakeholders. This requires a paradigm shift in our thinking of stakeholder engagement from viewing such engagement as an isolated activity or part of the data collection methods to thinking of engagement as a process of knowledge generation. That process hinges on building relationships and building trust, and also sustaining these as long-term relationships through multiple elements of research design and execution. Using the case-study of a mid-size river basin we demonstrate a co-production of knowledge process for food-energy-water systems. The findings highlight the multiple and different ways in which knowledge co-production can be transacted in food-energy-water systems while also generating solutions to the use and re-use of water, energy, and nutrients at the landscape level.

Finding effective and practical solutions to climate change challenges in food-energy-water systems requires the integration of experts in local/regional social and biophysical systems, and these are commonly local community members. In the Magic Valley, Idaho we investigated the tensions between water used for energy and to irrigate cropland for food production, as well as, strategies for protecting water quantity and quality. Incorporating stakeholders with long-standing expertise allows the development of solutions to these challenges that are locally and regionally practical and consistent with the values of the social system into which they are incorporated. We describe a stakeholder-driven process used in a case study in the Magic Valley that incorporated local experts to develop plausible future scenarios, identify drivers of change, vet impact and hydrological modeling and map areas of change. The process described allowed stakeholders to envision alternative futures in their region, leading to development of enhanced context and place-based solutions and an anticipated time line for adoption of those solutions. The solutions developed by the stakeholders have been applied across many geographic areas. The described process can also be applied across a broad range of geographic levels. Most importantly, stakeholders should be involved in anticipating solutions and solution timing to the differing challenges posed by each scenario.

As growth in the western U.S. continues to lead to the development of land, pressure is being exerted on agricultural production, and could lead to the loss of prime agricultural land. A wide array of perspectives concerning agricultural protection requires a variety of possible solutions. Diverse and plausible scenarios, driven by stakeholders, can be modeled by researchers to guide potential solutions to address key challenges within a region. This paper addresses one stakeholder-defined social-ecological system (SES) solution in the context of southern Idaho, one of the fastest-growing states in the U.S.: agricultural protection zoning. This project demonstrates a method for incorporating an Agriculture Protection Zone (APZ) within a suite of scenarios showing land protection opportunities across a range of future conditions and challenges. The results, by way of a Geodesign framework, entail suitability analyses through a series of weighted raster overlays to analyze scenario-based solutions. The suite of scenario solutions was compared to demonstrate effective proportions of the APZ. The analysis of the results, as a solution gradient, aim to inform policy makers, planners, and developers about the efficiencies of various APZ delineations as well as a methodology to demonstrate the impact of solutions based on assumptions of stakeholder-informed future scenarios.

Scenarios of landscape change have the capacity to address spatial and temporal issues, current and future trends, and solutions that increase capacity and/or resilience in social-ecological systems and their networks. In this study, we present a resilience framework for food–energy–water systems and demonstrate it with a case study in Magic Valley, Idaho. We formulated scenarios of change based on stakeholder input (qualitative data), researcher-developed models (quantitative data), and validation of plausibility through impact and indicator evaluation. The stakeholder engagement process identified key issues, critical uncertainties, and plausible and viable solutions to future challenges. Specifically, we analyzed cross-scenario futures and their solutions to address water quality issues in the face of climate change, land-use change conflicts, and population shifts in the region. The process activates stakeholder and research-based models to create geospatial alternative futures and their associated timesteps, with embedded solutions, which broadens and improves conventional scenario-based research. The process intends to provide policy-makers, researchers, and scenario facilitators with a strategic framework to activate solutions temporally with a stakeholder-defined suite of scenarios.

Contemporary landscape planning challenges require an increasingly diverse ensemble of voices, including regional stakeholders, physical scientists, social scientists, and technical experts, to provide insight into a landscape’s past trends, current uses, and desired future. To impactfully integrate these disparate components, stakeholder-driven research must include clear lines of communication, share data transparently, and slowly develop trust. Alternative future scenario representations aim to generate conversations through discourse, evoke scenario-based stakeholder input, and ensure stakeholder-based revisions to research models. The current literature lacks a metric for gauging effectiveness and a framework for optimal evaluation for future scenario representations. We have developed and applied a metric for a ranked set of compelling scenario representations using stakeholder input from an active research project. Researchers surveyed stakeholders through a case study in Idaho’s Magic Valley to gauge the effectiveness of each representational approach. To improve future stakeholder-driven geodesign projects and gaps in the research literature, this project provides a ranking of graphic strategies based on the stakeholder survey. Additionally, we provide examples and evaluate graphic representation strategies that can stimulate meaningful conversations, create common understandings, and translate research processes and findings to a variety of audiences. The results of this study intend to provide landscape architects, landscape planners, and geodesign specialists with a framework for evaluating compelling future scenario representations for a stakeholder group.

As pressure on the dairy industry to reduce its environmental impact increases, efficient recycling of manure nutrients through local cropping systems becomes crucial. The aim of this study was to calculate annual nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) budgets in six counties located in the Magic Valley, Idaho and estimate what distance manure would need to be transported to be in balance with crop nutrient demand given current dairy cattle populations and cropping systems. Our analysis suggests that crop N needs will not be met solely by manure, and synthetic fertilizer will need to be applied. However, to balance P with crop production, manure would need to be transported a minimum of 12.9 km from dairies and would have to replace synthetic fertilizer P on 91% of regional cropland. Education of producers and technical specialists would be necessary to improve the management of manure use in regional cropping systems. Technical solutions such as alternative diets for cattle and nutrient capture from manure streams will also likely be necessary to bring regional P into balance to protect environmental quality and improve the sustainability of the regional dairy industry.

The modeling of landscape change and socio-ecological systems (SES) tends to ignore the interactions across distance and boundaries. To fill the gap, this research analyzes landscape change by considering the tele-coupling effects at the local scale between Owyhee county and Treasure Valley in Idaho, United States. The spatial distribution of recreational activities in Owyhee county are modeled by Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST). Land use and cover change (LUCC) are simulated using Multi-Layer Perceptron Neural Network (MLPNN). Results show that the tele-coupling effects have significant impacts on the nature-based recreation in Owyhee county. With the tele-coupling effects, MLPNN has achieved a high overall accuracy and kappa coefficient in LUCC. The findings suggest that the tele-coupling effects should be incorporated into the modeling of landscape change and SES. This study also provides policy implications for land management and stakeholder involvement in accommodating landscape change.