Browsing by Author "de Groot, Wouter T."

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Institutions and Ecosystem-Based Development Potentials of the Elephant Marsh, Malawi
(2012) Kosamu, Ishmael B. M.; de Groot, Wouter T.; Kambewa, Patrick S.; de Snoo, Geert R.
"The Elephant Marsh, a wetland in Southern Malawi, is important for fishing, agriculture, hunting and the collection of natural resources for the livelihoods of local communities. However, there has been increasing pressure driven by a changing climate, population growth, rural poverty and agricultural conversion, all of which threaten the future of the wetland. Currently, Malawi does not have either a national wetland policy or a climate change policy and wetland issues are only marginally present in the National Parks and Wildlife Policy of 2000 and National Fisheries and Aquaculture Policy of 2001. As a result, the country lacks a framework that could be strong enough to achieve balanced and sustainable wetland management for multiple resource users. The objective of this study was to establish the development potentials of Elephant Marsh from an ecosystem-based (‘working-with-nature’) perspective. It was revealed that there are development potentials in fisheries, recession agriculture, biomass for energy, conservation and tourism. This paper emphasizes that as these opportunities are developed, there will be the need to strengthen management institutions at local and national levels, and the coordination between the two."
Multiactor Modeling of Settling Decisions and Behavior in the San Mariano Watershed, the Philippines: A First Application with the MameLuke Framework
(2006) Huigen, Marco G. A.; Overmars, Koen P.; de Groot, Wouter T.
"Land-use system dynamics and demographic dynamics are tightly coupled. In environmental science and studies of changes in land use and land cover, an unequivocal relationship is sometimes found between both systems, especially in coarse-scale studies. To obtain a better understanding of these intermingling dynamics, we formulated an agent-based model, the MameLuke settlement model, that used a deductive approach to investigate these relationships. The model was constructed based on ethnographic histories of farm households in San Mariano, the Philippines. The model was calibrated visually. Although this calibration approach proved to be very inefficient, the model itself still outperformed a random model. The model formulation process and the model outcomes were quite extensively discussed with stakeholders, and the conceptual modeling approach and framework proved to be clear and useful tools for local-scale studies dealing with interacting human and biophysical subsystems."
Opportunity and Problem in Context (OPiC): A Framework for Environmental Management
(2009) Tsetse, David; de Groot, Wouter T.
"Most frameworks used in the management of environmental problems focus on problem analysis and pay little or no attention to the explanation of the problem and the opportunities for solving it. The Opportunity and Problem in Context (OPiC) framework aims to be fully balanced in this respect. On a broad theoretical footing, the framework can give structure and interconnection to (i) the analysis and explanation of environmental problems by making use of parallel effect chains and norm chains, the functions and values of the environment, a breakdown of human action through lifecycle principles and explanation through fields of causally related actors, (ii) the identification of opportunities for solutions based on the problem analysis, on system concepts and on creativity enhancement, and (iii) the synthesis of this in the process of design and evaluation of solutions. The OPiC framework has been developed with a special view to developing countries but its applicability is not greatly dependent on scale and context."