Kate Sherren
Biographic Data
| ID | 302439 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kate Sherren |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kate |
| FAMILY NAME | Sherren |
| SIGNATURE | SHERREN K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Dalhousie University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1576-9878 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 52 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 86 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 52 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Exploring the influence of future land use changes on the cultural ecosystem services in a fast-developing region
Proximity, benefit transfer and trade-offs: The limits of ecosystem service assumptions in an anthropogenic rural coastal setting
The Bay of Fundy agricultural dykeland and tidal wetland system in eastern Canada faces sea level rise and increasing storm action. Managed dyke realignment is underway, which will convert some parts of the anthropogenic dykelands – over 400 years old in some places – back to tidal wetlands. The target landforms are small and widely distributed across the rural coastline, making it difficult to identify stakeholders in landscape decisions and und…
Servicesheds connect people to the landscapes upon which they depend
Ecosystem services (ES) are benefits people receive from nature. To sustain these benefits, we need to spatially connect communities benefitting from specific ES with landscape features that generate the ES. A variety of process‐based models support ES assessments by estimating the biophysical supply of ES that comes from landscapes. However, less attention has been given to how ES flow from landscapes to beneficiary groups. A ‘serviceshed’ is de…
Integrate and embrace or isolate and hide? Using Q-method to understand how to incorporate large-scale solar in rural Nova Scotia, Canada
Large-scale solar (LSS) facilities, also called solar farms, are increasingly being built as part of the national transition to renewable energy. LSS can have landscape impacts that concern rural residents and cause community pushback. This paper identifies rural residents' views about integrating LSS into rural landscapes of Nova Scotia, Canada, a province new to LSS where community pushback has already occurred. We do not focus on whether LSS s…
Participatory scenario planning: A social learning approach to build systems thinking and trust for sustainable environmental governance
Participatory Scenario Planning (PSP), the collaborative process of envisioning plausible futures, is a promising approach to aid environmental management and governance in the Anthropocene. Emerging scholarship on PSP emphasizes its potential for social learning to enhance knowledge, values, and competencies for more sustainable governance. However, empirical evidence that PSP leads to social learning is limited. We explored a PSP exercise for t…
Co-imagining future scenarios can enhance environmental actors’ empathy toward future generations and non-human life-forms
Welcome home! Introducing SocSES: A Society for Inclusive and Impactful Social-Ecological Research
Underpinned by systemic thinking, social-ecological systems (SES) research has emerged as a critical field for addressing the challenges of the Anthropocene, marked by a cross-scale focus, inter- and transdisciplinary approaches, and a strong emphasis on place-based work. Thanks to the efforts of many networks and institutes, the field has advanced new theoretical and methodological approaches, fostered dedicated journals, and spurred educational…
Reversing the gaze: Understanding how community members are negatively affected by impact assessment
This study addresses the persistent tensions in Impact Assessment (IA), which aim to balance public engagement with technical analysis. In this context, the IA process itself poses a significant risk to the individuals and communities involved in the impact assessment. The consequences of these risks, and whether they materialize, remain uncertain and depend on the specific context of each IA process. Drawing on the sociology of risk and broader …
The ecosystem services concept in urban planning: The criteria for practical fit
Application of the ecosystem services (ES) concept in urban planning has potential for improving environmental and human health outcomes in cities. We aimed to narrow an identified ES implementation gap by identifying the criteria for the practical fit of the ES concept in urban planning. We found that local relevance and adaptability within current planning approaches were core criteria for practical fit. If not met immediately, these criteria m…
Landscapes on the edge
Many landscapes are on the edge literally, particularly here on the Atlantic Coast of Canada. But landscapes everywhere are on the edge metaphorically: on the edge of change. Tackling the collective challenges we face, and redefining a “good life” in these new circumstances, will likely transform the places and landscapes that we care about. Yet change is hard and it is felt unevenly across space and social strata. We often instinctively feel tha…
Exploring mental systems within regenerative agriculture: Systems thinking and rotational grazing adoption among Canadian livestock producers
Social media and social impact assessment: Evolving methods in a shifting context
Among many by-products of Web 2.0 come the wide range of potential image and text datasets within social media and content sharing platforms that speak of how people live, what they do, and what they care about. These datasets are imperfect and biased in many ways, but those flaws make them complementary to data derived from conventional social science methods and thus potentially useful for triangulation in complex decision-making contexts. Yet …
Modelling cultural ecosystem services in agricultural dykelands and tidal wetlands to inform coastal infrastructure decisions: A social media data approach
A saliency mapping approach to understanding the visual impact of wind and solar infrastructure in amenity landscapes
Shifts from fossil fuels toward renewable energy (RE) introduce profound changes to landscapes, including visual impacts that are often investigated during environmental and social impact assessment. Moreover, RE transitions are among many visual changes happening in rural areas that are increasingly serving amenity functions and becoming destinations for wide ranges of users. This diversity introduces complexities during infrastructure siting di…
Are fencelines sites of engagement or avoidance in farmer adoption of alternative practices
Coastal resident perceptions of nature‐based adaptation options in Nova Scotia
Climate change risks to coastal communities may overwhelm current management strategies. The emergence of nature‐based solutions could provide alternative approaches for climate adaptation; however, studies on their public acceptability are limited. This research focuses on the human dimensions of nature‐based coastal adaptation solutions. The research sought to understand the kind of environmental changes participants were experiencing in their …
Flood risk mapping in southwestern Nova Scotia: Perceptions and concerns
Flood risk mapping allows for informed decision making regarding personal and community planning. Resistance to flood risk mapping can be driven by potential decline of property values. This paper explores resistance to flood risk mapping through the lens of climax thinking. Climax thinking is a novel theory guiding explorations of resistance to proposed land use changes. The aim of this study was to understand flood experiences, the presence of …
Using a leverage points perspective to compare social-ecological systems: A case study on rural landscapes
A leverage points perspective recognises different levels of systemic depth, ranging from the relatively shallow levels of parameters and feedbacks to the deeper levels of system design and intent. Analysing a given social-ecological system for its characteristics across these four levels of systemic depth provides a useful diagnostic to better understand sustainability problems, and can complement other types of cause-and-effect systems modellin…
You keep using that word: Disjointed definitions of resilience in food systems adaptation
Facing the challenges of using place-based social-ecological research to support ecosystem service governance at multiple scales
Place-based social-ecological research is often designed to improve local environmental governance, but it can also inform decisions at larger scales or in other places. However, the focus on local perspectives in such research creates challenges for transferring insights to other locations, and for aggregating understanding to larger scales. In this paper, we discuss how ResNet, a new pan-Canadian network of researchers working on place-based so…
Do methods used in social impact assessment adequately capture impacts? An exploration of the research-practice gap using hydroelectricity in Canada
Using social media images as data in social science research
We conducted a scoping review to identify and describe trends in the use of social media images as data sources to inform social science research in published articles from 2015 to 2019. The identified trends include the following: (1) there is increasing interest in social media images as research data, especially in disciplines like sociology, cultural studies, communication and environmental studies; (2) the photo sample size is often smaller …
Navigating Nature-Based Coastal Adaptation through Barriers: A Synthesis of Practitioners’ Narrative from Nova Scotia, Canada
Nature based coastal adaptation (NbCA) sustainably helps minimize sea-level rise impacts, using and enhancing the natural capacity of coastal ecosystems. Despite its relative advantages over conventional hard protection infrastructure, the implementation of NbCA is challenged by diverse barriers, many of which cannot be overcome in the absence of appropriate policy directives. This paper draws on organizational practitioners’ case study narrative…
Ecosystem services: A new framework for old ideas, or advancing environmental decision‐making? Learning from Canadian forerunners to the ES concept
Frameworks of ecosystem services (ES) are promoted as a new and important way to recognize, understand, and account for nature's benefits. We questioned assertions of the novelty of ES ideas and conducted a comparative analysis of approaches in planning, landscape architecture, and sustainable forest management against the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment ES framework. We conclude that the newer Millennium Ecosystem Assessment ES framing may assis…
From Climax Thinking toward a Non- equilibrium Approach to Public Good Landscape Change
Using social media images as data in social science research
We conducted a scoping review to identify and describe trends in the use of social media images as data sources to inform social science research in published articles from 2015 to 2019. The identified trends include the following: (1) there is increasing interest in social media images as research data, especially in disciplines like sociology, cultural studies, communication and environmental studies; (2) the photo sample size is often smaller …
Does noticing energy infrastructure influence public support for energy development? Evidence from a national survey in Canada
Leverage points for sustainable wool production in the Falkland Islands
Navigating conflicting landscape aspirations: Application of a photo-based Q-method in Transylvania (Central Romania)
Using photography to elicit grazier values and management practices relating to tree survival and recruitment
A history of the future of higher education for sustainable development
Thirty years of academic dialogue and reinvention about environmental and sustainability education conceals the consistency of rhetoric that literature holds. This paper argues that higher education for sustainable development does not call for the invention of anything disconcertingly new. In fact, four simple, long‐standing concepts contribute most of the philosophy, disciplinary content and pedagogy required: liberal education, interdisciplina…
Learning (or living) to love the landscapes of hydroelectricity in Canada: Eliciting local perspectives on the Mactaquac Dam via headpond boat tours
Climate adaptation in ‘new world’ cultural landscapes: The case of Bay of Fundy agricultural dykelands (Nova Scotia, Canada)
Leveraging Social Media to Understand Younger People’s Perceptions and Use of Hydroelectric Energy Landscapes
Large industrial projects change communities, landscapes, and ecosystems, with significant impacts for local people. But, conventional project evaluations often underestimate wide-ranging local interests, especially those of young people. To address this gap, we collected data from Instagram, where a younger demographic dominates the medium, focusing on two hydroelectricity proposals in Canada: the in-progress Site C Dam in British Columbia, and …
Digital archives, big data and image-based culturomics for social impact assessment: Opportunities and challenges
Baselines of acceptability and generational change on the Mactaquac hydroelectric dam headpond (New Brunswick, Canada)
Exploring mental systems within regenerative agriculture: Systems thinking and rotational grazing adoption among Canadian livestock producers
Australian Graziers Value Sparse Trees in Their Pastures: A Viewshed Analysis of Photo-Elicitation
The temperate grazing region of southeastern Australia is experiencing a rapid decline in tree cover that threatens key ecosystem functions. Graziers are stewards of most of the trees remaining outside reserves, and hold the power to reverse the decline. Influencing graziers’ decision making about vegetation management requires an understanding of their landscape values. We asked 25 graziers to photograph features they considered significant on t…
Coastal resident perceptions of nature‐based adaptation options in Nova Scotia
Climate change risks to coastal communities may overwhelm current management strategies. The emergence of nature‐based solutions could provide alternative approaches for climate adaptation; however, studies on their public acceptability are limited. This research focuses on the human dimensions of nature‐based coastal adaptation solutions. The research sought to understand the kind of environmental changes participants were experiencing in their …
Do methods used in social impact assessment adequately capture impacts? An exploration of the research-practice gap using hydroelectricity in Canada
Flood risk mapping in southwestern Nova Scotia: Perceptions and concerns
Flood risk mapping allows for informed decision making regarding personal and community planning. Resistance to flood risk mapping can be driven by potential decline of property values. This paper explores resistance to flood risk mapping through the lens of climax thinking. Climax thinking is a novel theory guiding explorations of resistance to proposed land use changes. The aim of this study was to understand flood experiences, the presence of …
You keep using that word: Disjointed definitions of resilience in food systems adaptation
Navigating Nature-Based Coastal Adaptation through Barriers: A Synthesis of Practitioners’ Narrative from Nova Scotia, Canada
Nature based coastal adaptation (NbCA) sustainably helps minimize sea-level rise impacts, using and enhancing the natural capacity of coastal ecosystems. Despite its relative advantages over conventional hard protection infrastructure, the implementation of NbCA is challenged by diverse barriers, many of which cannot be overcome in the absence of appropriate policy directives. This paper draws on organizational practitioners’ case study narrative…
Farm management fragmentation in Nova Scotia does not affect farm habitat provision
Farmland comprises an important opportunity for biodiversity conservation worldwide. The likelihood of a farmer fostering habitat for biodiversity has been studied from the perspective of personal or economic drivers. Beyond farm area, the geographic characteristics of the farmland itself—such as parcel sizes, numbers, and distribution—are rarely considered. This paper uses a landholder survey (n = 350, 37% response rate) to explore the variety o…
Do practitioners of holistic management exhibit systems thinking
Holistic management (HM) is a decision-making framework, first developed in grazing systems, which combines intensive, rapid rotation of grazing livestock with adaptive and holistic decision making. Holistic management's use of systems thinking concepts may help farmers cope with increasing complexity on their farms. We used Q-methodology, a mixed method approach for identifying discourses, to understand the levels and types of systems thinking e…
Identifying energy discourses in Canada with Q methodology: Moving beyond the environment versus economy debates
Drawing inspiration from the literature on social imaginaries and cultural models, this study explores contending perspectives on energy and sustainability, moving beyond a simplistic understanding of support or opposition to specific energy developments. With a comparative study in three regions of Canada, we use Q methodology to identify five key discourses on energy issues: (1) climate change is a primary concern, (2) maintain the energy econo…
Adaptive capacity and learning to learn as leverage for social–ecological resilience
Adaptive capacity is increasingly recognized as essential for maintaining the resilience of social–ecological systems and for coping with environmental change. Four main requirements enable societies to successfully adapt to change: (1) the will and intention to maintain social–ecological resilience, (2) knowledge about current problems and the desired direction of change, (3) proactive behavior, and (4) the capacity to change existing patterns o…
A history of the future of higher education for sustainable development
Thirty years of academic dialogue and reinvention about environmental and sustainability education conceals the consistency of rhetoric that literature holds. This paper argues that higher education for sustainable development does not call for the invention of anything disconcertingly new. In fact, four simple, long‐standing concepts contribute most of the philosophy, disciplinary content and pedagogy required: liberal education, interdisciplina…
Australian Graziers Value Sparse Trees in Their Pastures: A Viewshed Analysis of Photo-Elicitation
The temperate grazing region of southeastern Australia is experiencing a rapid decline in tree cover that threatens key ecosystem functions. Graziers are stewards of most of the trees remaining outside reserves, and hold the power to reverse the decline. Influencing graziers’ decision making about vegetation management requires an understanding of their landscape values. We asked 25 graziers to photograph features they considered significant on t…
Using photography to elicit grazier values and management practices relating to tree survival and recruitment
An Interdisciplinary Perspective on Carbon Capture and Storage Assessment Methods
Climate change is one of the most serious threats facing humankind. Mitigating climate change will require a suite of actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a new technology aimed at mitigating climate change by capturing and storing carbon dioxide, typically in deep geological reservoirs. CCS has risks characteristic of new technologies, as well as risks unique to this technology and its application. Larg…
Navigating conflicting landscape aspirations: Application of a photo-based Q-method in Transylvania (Central Romania)
An analysis of Canadian STARS-rated higher education sustainability policies
Identifying energy discourses in Canada with Q methodology: Moving beyond the environment versus economy debates
Drawing inspiration from the literature on social imaginaries and cultural models, this study explores contending perspectives on energy and sustainability, moving beyond a simplistic understanding of support or opposition to specific energy developments. With a comparative study in three regions of Canada, we use Q methodology to identify five key discourses on energy issues: (1) climate change is a primary concern, (2) maintain the energy econo…
Policy support for rural economic development based on Holling’s ecological concept of panarchy
Globally, rural regions are searching for innovative growth opportunities to reinvigorate their economies. This paper examines the redevelopment of rural communities through an ecological lens – based on the notion of continuous cycles of adaptive change within complex systems as first identified within Holling's concept of panarchy. Panarchy suggests that complex systems have more than a single equilibrium point and, instead, have some inherent …
Farmer perceptions of wetlands and waterbodies: Using social metrics as an alternative to ecosystem service valuation
Learning (or living) to love the landscapes of hydroelectricity in Canada: Eliciting local perspectives on the Mactaquac Dam via headpond boat tours
Climate adaptation in ‘new world’ cultural landscapes: The case of Bay of Fundy agricultural dykelands (Nova Scotia, Canada)
Baselines of acceptability and generational change on the Mactaquac hydroelectric dam headpond (New Brunswick, Canada)
Digital archives, big data and image-based culturomics for social impact assessment: Opportunities and challenges
Of Climate and Weather: Examining Canadian Farm and Livestock Organization Discourses from 2010 to 2015
Producer organizations representing Canada’s farm and livestock sectors are powerful change agents and advocates for their industries, particularly during challenging times such as climate- or weather-related hardships. Such organizations have a complex role: engaging with policy-makers, as well as their memberships and the public, to pursue the interests of their specific communities. This paper includes an examination of how farm producer organ…
‘We secured the tussac’: Accounts of ecological discovery, exploitation and renewal in the Falkland Islands
Sheep farms dominate the Falkland Islands landscape and have for over a century. The introduction of sheep, and several other species, has significantly transformed the ecology of this archipelago—the near elimination of tussac grass being one of the most notable changes. Tracing back to early accounts of tussac grass in the ‘Falklands’, this paper captures its discovery, exploitation and current stage of renewal, including a closer look at the c…
Does noticing energy infrastructure influence public support for energy development? Evidence from a national survey in Canada
Leveraging Social Media to Understand Younger People’s Perceptions and Use of Hydroelectric Energy Landscapes
Large industrial projects change communities, landscapes, and ecosystems, with significant impacts for local people. But, conventional project evaluations often underestimate wide-ranging local interests, especially those of young people. To address this gap, we collected data from Instagram, where a younger demographic dominates the medium, focusing on two hydroelectricity proposals in Canada: the in-progress Site C Dam in British Columbia, and …
Leverage points for sustainable wool production in the Falkland Islands
Farm management fragmentation in Nova Scotia does not affect farm habitat provision
Farmland comprises an important opportunity for biodiversity conservation worldwide. The likelihood of a farmer fostering habitat for biodiversity has been studied from the perspective of personal or economic drivers. Beyond farm area, the geographic characteristics of the farmland itself—such as parcel sizes, numbers, and distribution—are rarely considered. This paper uses a landholder survey (n = 350, 37% response rate) to explore the variety o…
Do practitioners of holistic management exhibit systems thinking
Holistic management (HM) is a decision-making framework, first developed in grazing systems, which combines intensive, rapid rotation of grazing livestock with adaptive and holistic decision making. Holistic management's use of systems thinking concepts may help farmers cope with increasing complexity on their farms. We used Q-methodology, a mixed method approach for identifying discourses, to understand the levels and types of systems thinking e…
From Climax Thinking toward a Non- equilibrium Approach to Public Good Landscape Change
Climax thinking, place attachment, and utilitarian landscapes: Implications for wind energy development
Farming along desire lines: Collective action and food systems adaptation to climate change
We examine collective action in the food system of the Canadian Maritimes to determine its effect on the resilience and adaptive capacity of food producers, distributors, retailers and governance institutions. Our data suggest that beyond their immediate benefits for their participants, expressions of collective action generate higher‐level impacts which often translate into drivers of adaptive capacity. Drawing on a metaphor from urban design, w…
Beyond intrinsic: A call to combine scales on motivation and environmental values in wildlife and farmland conservation research
It has become common to explore farmer motivations for adopting land management changes on a scale from intrinsic to extrinsic, including in studies on “motivation crowding” that examine how external incentives can undermine or reinforce a farmer’s intrinsic reasons for protecting nature. We set out to do the same in a study on riparian management for the conservation of a species at risk in Nova Scotia, Canada. In our survey of 553 farmers in No…
Geography (34 works) · Environmental resource management (32 works) · Ecology (28 works) · Business (23 works) · Political science (22 works) · Economics (20 works) · Environmental Science (20 works) · Environmental planning (19 works) · Sociology (18 works) · Computer Science (17 works)