David Griffith

University of Idaho | UID · Center for Resilient Communities

Understanding and modeling the trajectories of change in broad level interactions in food-energy-water systems is incomplete when it is undertaken by researchers in isolation from those who live and work in the systems. For models and outcomes to have validity they need to be subjected to sustained development and iteration with stakeholders. This...

Adaptive capacity is a topic at the forefront of environmental change research with roots in both social, ecological, and evolutionary science. It closely related to the evolutionary biology concept of adaptive potential. In this systematic literature review we: 1) Summarize the history of these topics and related fields; 2) Assess relationship(s)...

New applied approaches are needed to address urgent, global environmental issues. Practitioners, scholars, and policy makers alike call for increased integration of natural and social sciences to develop new frameworks for better addressing the range of contemporary environmental issues. From a theoretical perspective, social–ecological systems (SE...

This paper applies a social metabolism framework and energy flow analysis for evaluating agroecosystem and land use transitions in food-energy-water systems using the Upper Snake River Basin (USBR), Idaho, USA as a case-study. The study area is one of the primary agricultural regions of the State of Idaho. Dairy products are the primary agricultura...

One of the factors for the success of simulation studies is close collaboration with stakeholders in developing a conceptual model. Conceptual models are a useful tool for communicating and understanding how real systems work. However, models or frameworks that are not aligned with the perceptions and understanding of local stakeholders can induce...

In 2017, the U.S. Census Bureau announced Idaho to be the fastest growing state by population in the country. As these trends continue, this growth can have various impacts on socio-ecological systems such as increased development, pressure exerted on agricultural production, and increased effects of urban stream syndrome. Various scenarios, driven...

Conceptual and mental models are useful platforms for communicating and understanding how systems work. However, models or frameworks that are not aligned with the perceptions and understanding of the local stakeholders can propagate model output errors and uncertainties. This paper focuses on two sources of epistemic uncertainty in building food-e...

Environmental monitoring and observation by members of local communities have become increasingly common in the US and Canada over the past several decades. During the same period, social–ecological systems (SES) science has been developed to explain and predict human and environmental interactions, but empirical methods to generate matched social...

There is a growing consensus that transdisciplinary environmental networks are required to generate knowledge of the dynamics of coupled human–natural systems (CHANs) and to assess societal and policy consequences of complex environmental issues. Few of the existing large environmental observatory networks collect much, if any, data on the CHANs co...

The habitat-adapted symbiosis hypothesis predicts that the most positive effects of symbiosis are expected in the most stressful sites for a plant host. Stress varies with site characteristics but also during the life cycle of a plant, with winter annuals experiencing the most stress after fall emergence. For Bromus tectorum, fecundity can vary tre...

The purpose of this report is to give the reader insight into a range of community-based observing (CBO) types as well as understand their appropriate applications and trade-offs. In this report, we address CBO broadly, in part as a result of a workshop held on October 4-5, 2015 at the University of Washington, and in part as a reflection of broade...

Effective and standardized assessment of social-ecological systems is crucial for supporting increased resilience of human communities and for developing adaptation strategies. However, few analytical frameworks exist to assess the social-ecological resilience and vulnerability of different landscapes. To help fill the gap in this literature, we in...

Dung fungi, such as Sordaria fimicola, generally reproduce sexually with ascospores discharged from mammalian dung after passage through herbivores. Their life cycle is thought to be obligate to dung, and thus their ascospores in Quaternary sediments have been interpreted as evidence of past mammalian herbivore activity. Reports of dung fungi as en...

Data from forage quality and preference experiments. (XLS)