Multicriteria analysis of critical areas for restoration in a semiarid landscape: A comparison between stakeholder groups

Mchich Derak; Elysa Silva; Emilio Climent-Gil; Andreu Bonet; Germán López; Jordi Cortina-Segarra

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.117545

Multicriteria analysis of critical areas for restoration in a semiarid landscape: A comparison between stakeholder groups

J Environ Manage. 2023 Jun 15:336:117545. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.117545. Epub 2023 Mar 3.

Authors

Mchich Derak¹, Elysa Silva², Emilio Climent-Gil³, Andreu Bonet⁴, Germán López⁵, Jordi Cortina-Segarra⁶

Affiliations

¹ Regional Forest Directorate. Tétouan, Morocco. Avenue Mohamed V, BP 722, 93000, Tétouan, Morocco. Electronic address: mchich78@gmail.com.
² Department of Ecology and IMEM, University of Alicante. Alicante, Spain. Electronic address: elysilvam@gmail.com.
³ Department of Sociology I and POMADE, University of Alicante. Alicante, Spain. Electronic address: emilio.climent@ua.es.
⁴ Department of Ecology and IMEM, University of Alicante. Alicante, Spain. Electronic address: andreu@ua.es.
⁵ Department of Ecology and IMEM, University of Alicante. Alicante, Spain. Electronic address: german.lopez@ua.es.
⁶ Department of Ecology and IMEM, University of Alicante. Alicante, Spain. Electronic address: jordi@ua.es.

PMID: 36871448
DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.117545

Abstract

In landscape-scale ecological restoration, there is an urgent need to develop participatory systematic planning strategies and prioritization schemes that are operational under current technical and legal constraints. Different stakeholder groups may differ in their choice of criteria to define critical areas for restoration. Analyzing the correspondence between stakeholder characteristics and their expressed preferences is key to understand their values and facilitate consensus among the different groups. We analyzed the participatory identification of critical areas for restoration in a Mediterranean semiarid landscape of southeastern Spain by means of two Spatial Multicriteria Analyses. The first one included 33 ecological and socioeconomic prioritization criteria. The second included 24 ecosystem services. Prioritization criteria and services and their weights were based on the preferences of 46 stakeholders. We distinguished three stakeholder groups, according to their approach to ecological restoration. Stakeholders showed similarities regarding the most important criteria and services assessed. Yet, we found contrasted opinions between the group labeled as Biodiversity, who showed preference for Regulating Services and Ecosystem Functions, and the two groups labeled as Environment, and Agriculture & other occupations who assigned the highest importance to Provisioning and Cultural Services, along with highly Anthropized Environments. Maps integrating criteria and services weighted by the different groups of stakeholders were largely coincident, because of their overall agreement and the high number of criteria and services included in the analysis. Our approach allowed the identification of consensual critical areas for restoration, which were mainly covered by shrublands and rainfed crops, and mostly characterized by low to medium supply of ecosystem services. Our study emphasizes the need to recognize and integrate different social perspectives when identifying critical areas for restoration and highlights the importance of using complementary approaches as decision-making support tools to define these areas.

Keywords: Criteria; Ecosystem services; Prioritization; Restoration planning; Stakeholders.

MeSH terms

Agriculture
Biodiversity
Conservation of Natural Resources*
Ecosystem*
Spatial Analysis