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1. Eight grand challenges in socio-environmental systems modeling

   https://doi.org/10.18174/sesmo.2020a16226  

   Elsawah, Sondoss; Filatova, Tatiana; Jakeman, Anthony J.; Kettner, Albert J.; Zellner, Moira L.; Athanasiadis, Ioannis N.; Hamilton, Serena H.; Axtell, Robert L.; Brown, Daniel G.; Gilligan, Jonathan M.; et al (September 2019, Socio-Environmental Systems Modelling)

   Modeling is essential to characterize and explore complex societal and environmental issues in systematic and collaborative ways. Socio-environmental systems (SES) modeling integrates knowledge and perspectives into conceptual and computational tools that explicitly recognize how human decisions affect the environment. Depending on the modeling purpose, many SES modelers also realize that involvement of stakeholders and experts is fundamental to support social learning and decision-making processes for achieving improved environmental and social outcomes. The contribution of this paper lies in identifying and formulating grand challenges that need to be overcome to accelerate the development and adaptation of SES modeling. Eight challenges are delineated: bridging epistemologies across disciplines; multi-dimensional uncertainty assessment and management; scales and scaling issues; combining qualitative and quantitative methods and data; furthering the adoption and impacts of SES modeling on policy; capturing structural changes; representing human dimensions in SES; and leveraging new data types and sources. These challenges limit our ability to effectively use SES modeling to provide the knowledge and information essential for supporting decision making. Whereas some of these challenges are not unique to SES modeling and may be pervasive in other scientific fields, they still act as barriers as well as research opportunities for the SES modeling community. For each challenge, we outline basic steps that can be taken to surmount the underpinning barriers. Thus, the paper identifies priority research areas in SES modeling, chiefly related to progressing modeling products, processes and practices. 

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2. Socio-technical coordination (keynote)

   https://doi.org/10.1145/2591062.2600729  

   Herbsleb, James (January 2014, International Conference on Software Engineering)

   Product architecture structures the coordination problem that the development organization must solve. The modularity strategy establishes design rules that fix module functionality and interfaces, and assigns development work for each module to a single team. The modules present relatively independent coordination problems that teams attempt to solve with all the traditional coordination mechanisms available to them. The applicability and effectiveness of this strategy is limited with increasing technical and organizational volatility. In the absence of theory explaining why and when modularity works, the technique is brittle, with very little firm basis for adjustment or for complementing it with other strategies. I present a theory of coordination, based on decision networks, that generalizes the modularity strategy. I review evidence testing several hypotheses derived from the theory, and explore how this theoretical view can drive coordination research and provide a theoretical basis for practical techniques to assist architects, developers, and managers. 

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3. Hybrid hydrological modeling and data analysis for time variant anthropogenic change quantification in socio-hydrological systems

   Mohajer Iravanloo, B. (September 2021, Delft International Conference on Sociohydrology)
4. Socio-hydrological modeling of the tradeoff between flood control and hydropower provided by the Columbia River Treaty

   https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-4893-2022  

   Shrestha, Ashish; Souza, Felipe Augusto; Park, Samuel; Cherry, Charlotte; Garcia, Margaret; Yu, David J.; Mendiondo, Eduardo Mario (January 2022, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences)

   Abstract. The Columbia River Treaty (CRT) signed between the United States and Canada in 1961 is known as one of the most successful transboundary watertreaties. Under continued cooperation, both countries equitably share collective responsibilities of reservoir operations and flood control andhydropower benefits from treaty dams. As the balance of benefits is the key factor of cooperation, future cooperation could be challenged byexternal social and environmental factors which were not originally anticipated or change in the social preferences of the two actors. To understandthe robustness of cooperation dynamics, we address two research questions. (i) How does social and environmental change influence cooperationdynamics? (ii) How do social preferences influence the probability of cooperation for both actors? We analyzed infrastructural, hydrological,economic, social, and environmental data to inform the development of a socio-hydrological system dynamics model. The model simulates the dynamicsof flood control and hydropower benefit sharing as a function of the probability to cooperate, which in turn is affected by the share ofbenefits. The model is used to evaluate scenarios that represent environmental and institutional change and changes in political characteristicsbased on social preferences. Our findings show that stronger institutional capacity ensures equitable sharing of benefits over the long term. Under the current CRT, the utility of cooperation is always higher for Canada than non-cooperation, which is in contrast to the United States. The probability tocooperate for each country is lowest when they are self-interested but fluctuates in other social preference scenarios. 

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5. Localizing Socio-Environmental Problem Solving

   Ruis, A. R.; Siebert Evenstone, A. L.; Brohinsky, J.; Tan, Y.; Hinojosa, C.; Cai, Z.; Marquart, C.; Lark, T.; Barford, C.; Shaffer, D. W. (January 2022, Computersupported collaborative learning)

   Weinberger, A.; Chen, W.; Hernández-Leo, D.; Chen, B. (Ed.)

   In this paper, we describe iPlan, a web-based software platform for constructing localized, reduced-form models of land-use impacts, enabling students, civic representatives, and others without specialized knowledge of land-use planning practices to explore and evaluate possible solutions to complex, multi-objective land-use problems in their own local contexts. 

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