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"Cognitive Mapping"
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Characterizing the social-ecological system for inland freshwater salinization using fuzzy cognitive maps: implications for collective management
Current regulatory tools are not well suited to address freshwater salinization in urban areas, and the conditions under which bottom-up management is likely to emerge remain unclear. We hypothesize that Elinor Ostrom’s social-ecological systems (SESs) framework can be used to explore how current understanding of salinization might foster or impede its collective management. We focus on the Occoquan Reservoir, a critical urban water supply in Northern Virginia, USA, and use fuzzy cognitive maps (FCMs) to characterize stakeholder understanding of the SES that underpins salinization in the region. Hierarchical clustering of FCMs reveals four stakeholder groups with distinct views on the causes and consequences of salinization, and actions that could be taken to mitigate salinization, including technological, policy, and governance interventions and innovations. Similarities and differences across these four groups, and their degree of concordance with measured or modeled SES components, point to actions that could be taken to catalyze collective management of salinization in the region.
Journal Article
Identifying system archetypes in Nigeria’s rice agri-food system using fuzzy cognitive mapping
Nigeria is a major rice-producing and rice-importing country in Africa, challenged with ensuring rice-food security for its growing population. Successive governments have implemented several strategies to increase local rice production such as rice import restriction policies and agricultural investments. These strategies have yielded results but achieving long-term sustainable growth in Nigeria’s rice agri-food system has remained elusive. Addressing food security and sustainability in agri-food systems requires a systems-thinking approach. In this study, we applied two systems thinking techniques, fuzzy cognitive mapping (for describing the system structure and behavior) and archetype analysis (to reveal generic system archetypes and effective strategies to improve the system). Our analysis revealed three system archetypes: limits to success, fixes that fail, and drifting goals. Rice production is limited by low agricultural productivity indicating the “limits to success” archetype. Farmers tend to increase rice area as a “quick fix” to productivity issues but this quick fix leads to unintended consequences such as soil degradation (fixes that fail archetype). Additionally, because of the import-restriction policies generating an unmet demand for rice, the government may face pressure to lower the goal of self-sufficiency falling into the “drifting goals” archetype. However, our analysis shows that suspending import-restriction policies would result in undesirable system states, with reduced demand for local rice and lower rice production. Our results underscore the importance of government policies in increasing rice production sustainably and ensuring food security.
Journal Article
Balancing water needs and well-being: bringing social-cultural values into environmental flows using a DPSIR framework
Bringing social and cultural dimensions into environmental flows (eflows) is critical for sustainable river management, yet structured methods for this process are lacking. We tested the efficacy of a Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework, quantified with Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping (FCM), to bridge ecological processes and social-cultural-spiritual values for the regulated Wolastoq | Saint John River | fleuve Saint-Jean, a large transboundary watershed in Maritime Canada. We integrated data from expert-led workshops, which produced 69 refined flow-ecology hypotheses, and a public survey on social-cultural-spiritual connections to the river. The resulting semi-quantitative model revealed a complex network of 39 social-ecological nodes with 941 positive and negative connections and provided a visual map of these connections. Network analysis identified flow variability (an environmental stressor) and peace + tranquility (a social-cultural-spiritual state) as the most significant nodes within the map, acting as critical bridges between the environmental and human domains. The framework explicitly linked physical processes and flow management actions, like hydropeaking, to tangible impacts on ecosystem health (e.g., water quality and biodiversity), recreational access, and community well-being, while also highlighting a potential feedback loop where a sense of peace also promotes environmental stewardship. Our findings demonstrate that the DPSIR-FCM approach is a powerful tool for creating a holistic, transparent, and socially defensible foundation for eflows management. It translates complex social-ecological interactions into an actionable decision-support tool that prioritizes management decisions that promote inclusive, evidence-based water governance.
Journal Article
The impact of social media marketing strategies on promoting sustainability of tourism with fuzzy cognitive mapping: a case of Kalanggaman Island (Philippines)
The current literature has espoused the role of social media platforms in promoting tourism destinations. Despite such advances, limited works are reported on how social media foster the sustainability of tourist destinations. This work builds upon the argument that sustainable tourism (ST) agenda and initiatives can be integrated alongside the traditional competitive mission of social media marketing as a communications strategy of tourism stakeholders. With such an argument and the scarce literature on the topic, this paper analyzes the impact of social media strategies on marketing indicators contextualized within ST. In addressing this objective, a fuzzy cognitive mapping technique is adopted to examine the changes in marketing performance indicators given an initial set of activation values of social media marketing strategies. A case study in Kalanggaman Island (Philippines), an emerging tourist destination, is carried out to demonstrate the evaluation process. Three policy scenarios with interrelated social media marketing strategies are examined: minimal effort, moving visuals, and collaborative strategies. The minimal effort scenario increases counting metrics, comments, and Web traffic, while the moving visuals scenario yields increases in reach, counting metrics, comments, and Web traffic. Finally, the collaborative strategies scenario enhances indicators on awareness, the share of voice, counting metrics, comments, and lead. The findings generated from the proposed framework provide policy- and decision-makers a platform for analyzing possible social media policies in disseminating the ST agenda.
Journal Article
Evaluation of sustainable energy planning scenarios with a new approach based on FCM, WASPAS and impact effort matrix
Energy system investments and policies have a significant role in maintaining sustainable development. The ability to forecast energy demands, energy obtained from renewable resources and their impacts on the environment and society is extremely important for an effective energy planning and policy making. However, it is a complicated issue requiring many factors, which are rarely independent and often not well defined in real-world problems, to be considered. Moreover, this planning process may require the evaluation of uncertain scenarios arising from different economic, regulatory, technological and environmental advancements. Therefore, in this study, an approach consisting of fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM), weighted aggregated sum product assessment (WASPAS) and impact effort assessment is introduced to enable experts to rank different sustainability scenarios based on their impact and the effort needed. By using this approach, the scenarios with less effort and relatively high impact are identified for an effective energy planning.
Journal Article
Using fuzzy cognitive mapping and social capital to explain differences in sustainability perceptions between farmers in the northeast US and Denmark
Farmers are key actors in the transition towards sustainable agricultural practices. Therefore, it is important to understand farmers’ motivations to encourage lasting change. This study investigated how farmers from the two different social contexts of the northeast US and Denmark perceive sustainability. Twenty farmers constructed Fuzzy Cognitive Maps to model their practices and perceived outcomes. The maps were analyzed using social capital as an analytical framework. The results showed that sustainability perceptions differed between US and Danish farmers. Specifically, Danish farmers focused mainly on environmental sustainability while US farmers distributed their focus more evenly across environmental, social, and economic factors. Further, US and Danish farmers had different notions of community engagement. US farmers emphasized the importance of interdependence with their non-farmer community members, where farmers contributed to the wellbeing and livelihoods of non-farmers and vice versa. For Danish farmers, the importance of community engagement lay mainly in localizing food systems, the public image of farming, and the cultural value of farms. Differences in the dominant types of social capital (farmer-to-government vs. farmer-to-non-farmer-community) can explain this pattern. We argue that understanding social capital and primary level of influence can lead to more effective and efficient policies.
Journal Article
Critical success factors for implementing a smart IoT-based decision framework in the water industry
The decentralized nature of information and the widespread use of mobile devices for accessing content make the water sector an excellent platform for using the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm to streamline procedures, benchmark standards, and create a sustainable environment. Smart devices play an essential role in deploying digital solutions through IoT. They help connect the physical world with the digital universe and are regarded as fundamental entities within a network-integrated through IoT. The study provides a better understanding to assess the critical success factors (CSFs) for smart device implementation in the water sector. The factors are obtained from the literature and shortlisted with the help of experts using the Delphi method. Kappa statistics are used to further validate the experts' consensus. The significant factors identified were leadership, usability, cost of implementation, technology awareness, data privacy, interoperability and community partnership. Mental modeler software has been used to construct a fuzzy logic cognitive mapping of CSFs to represent causal reasoning in diagraphs. Scenario analysis was conducted for each CSF. The study provides recommendations for policymakers to develop precise strategies for integrating IoT in the water industry.
Journal Article
COGNITIVE MAPPING OF THE ECONOMY OF TRUST
The concept of trust has been extensively explored by governments, researchers, and academic communities focusing on public authorities and the financial system, albeit in separate contexts. Trust plays a vital role in both sectors, influencing various aspects of governance, economic stability, and societal well-being. However, the relationship and interdependencies between trust in the government and trust in the financial system remain relatively unexplored. In addressing this gap, this study aims to improve the understanding of the role of trust in the socio-economic system and provide a framework for analysing the complex causal mechanisms between developments in the financial and public sectors using trust concepts. To achieve this, the study adopts the Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping (FCM) method in combination with the fuzzy Delphi method (FDM) as the methodological approach. The results highlight that even a small decline in trust can have severe repercussions on the stability of the financial system, deposit levels, exchange rate stability, and the prevalence of non-performing loans. Additionally, violations of trust in the financial sector also impact the development of the public sector, resulting in decreased trust in the government, fiscal stability, tax revenues, and government bond purchases. The study also demonstrated that when trust in both the financial sector and the government is eroded simultaneously, the complexities and the extent of negative consequences are amplified. These findings emphasize the interconnected nature of trust dynamics in both sectors and underscore the importance of a comprehensive approach to addressing trust-related challenges.
Journal Article
Supporting underrepresented students in health sciences: a fuzzy cognitive mapping approach to program evaluation
Background
The Students Training in Academia, Health, and Research (STAHR) Program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) strives to help students from low-income families that have experienced educational challenges due to poverty and prepare them to enter, persist, and graduate from a health sciences degree program at UMKC. Students in the program participated in fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM) sessions to ensure that all voices of the program were heard to improve program implementation, and student success, and contribute to an equitable educational environment.
Methods
Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping sessions for the 2020–2021 cohort of students (
n
= 52) were conducted to assess the strengths and weaknesses in program implementation, especially through the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Students’ maps were coded by a team of researchers and then confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis.
Results
Statistical analyses reveal that mentorship, workshops, and social support helped students to work toward their goal of obtaining a professional health sciences degree, while a lack of time, remote learning, and outside stressors inhibited their opportunities for success.
Conclusions
The findings from a multipronged analysis of mapping data demonstrate the value of this innovative approach to the field, especially when looking to incorporate student voices.
Journal Article