eLTER at the "Workshop on the Ostrom Workshop 7 (WOW7)"

eLTER-related research was showcased at this year's "Workshop on the Ostrom Workshop 7 (WOW7)," held every five years at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. Pablo F. Méndez, a member of eLTER RI's social-ecological team, presented a synthesis of a two-decade-long case study from the Doñana LTSER Platform.

The synthesis provides an approach for institutional diagnosis aimed at transformative environmental governance in social-ecological systems (SES). It focuses on designing policies to address local environmental conflicts and systemic risks. This work builds on a recent collaborative effort involving eLTER RI researchers from several LTSER Platforms, exploring how to avert the risk of lock-ins in SES.

This research aims to enhance eLTER RI's capacity for environmental policy support by examining the role of long-term standardized observations in understanding the cumulative effects of local social-ecological lock-ins at the biosphere level. A particular emphasis is placed on supporting the EU's innovative policies to restore soil health across Europe, based on insights from eLTER PLUS Deliverable 9.4.

Future work will utilize several LTSER Platforms as case studies, complemented by ongoing Soil Health Living Labs in Spain, France, and Greece.