TY - JOUR

T1 - Design principles for social-ecological research at the landscape scale applied to western Rwanda

AU - Baumann, Matthias

AU - Duguma, Dula

AU - Vögele, Susanne

AU - Wollni, Meike

AU - Sun, Ping

AU - Ndayizeye, Gaelle

AU - Fischer, Joern

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2025 Baumann et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

PY - 2025/8

Y1 - 2025/8

N2 - Place-based social-ecological systems research provides major opportunities to advance sustainability and often involves large, interdisciplinary groups. Researchers adopt various methodologies when studying landscapes, gathering a wide array of data such as socioeconomic information from households, ecological data from specific areas, and qualitative insights from interviews. To integrate these varied methods, we propose identifying social-ecological research units as shared anchor points for data collection across teams. We outline four design principles: (i) spatial scale of social-ecological units, (ii) key social-ecological gradients in the study area, (iii) accessibility of stratification data, and (iv) flexibility in response to logistical challenges. We applied these principles to design a social-ecological study on ecosystem restoration in western Rwanda. We identified five distinct and spatially homogenous clusters, from which we sampled a total of 152 villages (~9.5% of all villages in our study area), which will be visited by different researchers within our study consortium, hence enabling to identify cross-sectional similarities and differences. Through our stratification according to these principles, we created a framework to guide interdisciplinary collaboration. This structured approach supports integration of diverse research efforts and offers insights for advancing place-based social-ecological systems research globally. Sharing our stratification data and methodology, we highlight its potential applicability to other landscapes and sustainability challenges.

AB - Place-based social-ecological systems research provides major opportunities to advance sustainability and often involves large, interdisciplinary groups. Researchers adopt various methodologies when studying landscapes, gathering a wide array of data such as socioeconomic information from households, ecological data from specific areas, and qualitative insights from interviews. To integrate these varied methods, we propose identifying social-ecological research units as shared anchor points for data collection across teams. We outline four design principles: (i) spatial scale of social-ecological units, (ii) key social-ecological gradients in the study area, (iii) accessibility of stratification data, and (iv) flexibility in response to logistical challenges. We applied these principles to design a social-ecological study on ecosystem restoration in western Rwanda. We identified five distinct and spatially homogenous clusters, from which we sampled a total of 152 villages (~9.5% of all villages in our study area), which will be visited by different researchers within our study consortium, hence enabling to identify cross-sectional similarities and differences. Through our stratification according to these principles, we created a framework to guide interdisciplinary collaboration. This structured approach supports integration of diverse research efforts and offers insights for advancing place-based social-ecological systems research globally. Sharing our stratification data and methodology, we highlight its potential applicability to other landscapes and sustainability challenges.

KW - Ecosystems Research

KW - Environmental Governance

KW - Environmental planning

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=105014017771&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0330704

DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0330704

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 40844975

AN - SCOPUS:105014017771

VL - 20

JO - PLoS ONE

JF - PLoS ONE

SN - 1932-6203

IS - 8

M1 - e0330704

ER -