DISES: Socioecological Outcomes of Restoration in Forest-Grassland Ecosystems

This research investigates how and why restoration programs impact social and environmental systems in forest-grassland ecosystems. While restoration is purported to address interlinked crises of environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, and climate change, little is known about what restoration programs achieve as outcomes and what tradeoffs exist between global and local sustainability goals and needs. The research hypotheses that effective restoration involves significant tradeoffs between ecological and social goals and is the result of the interplay of other forces, including participatory governance, land rights, and technical capacity. The research employs multiple methods, including remote sensing, field-based ecological measurements of biodiversity and carbon storage, household surveys, interviews, and focus group discussions to address globally important critical knowledge gaps in restoration science. By generating empirical evidence and insights about restoration governance processes and outcomes, the research contributes to advance understanding and application of restoration as a nature-based solution. While restoring degraded ecosystems as a nature-based solution is a high policy priority to address interlinked crises of environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, and climate change while achieving social benefits, little empirical evidence exists on the socio-environmental outcomes of restoration and their drivers. Also, tradeoffs between social and ecological goals and local and global priorities are not well understood. This research project seeks to fill these knowledge gaps by investigating how and why restoration programs transform landscapes and livelihoods in forest-grassland ecosystems, which face distinct social-ecological tradeoffs due to the complex interactions of grassland and woodland covers and their relationships with anthropogenic and natural fire and herbivory. The project investigates how restoration changes ecological and social conditions, identifies what drives the ecological and social changes induced by restoration, and develops cost-effective indicators and tools to advance systematic assessment of socio-environmental benefits/tradeoffs of restoration interventions. The research adopts a land change system perspective and integrates theories of landscape ecology, governance systems, and impact evaluation to examine the multi-scalar socio-environmental system of dryland forest-grassland mosaics’ restoration. Beyond its scientific merits, the research aims to reinforce the science-policy-society interface in restoration efforts, and contribute to graduate/undergraduate education as well as career development of postgraduate scholars and junior faculty. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.