the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 26 Jul 2024
Review article: Co-creating knowledge for drought impact assessment in socio-hydrology
Abstract. Drought impacts are increasingly recognised as socially influenced processes instead of mere hydro-climatic events. Yet, drought assessments continue to be entrenched in disciplinary boundaries or limited by top-down modelling approaches, excluding those who directly experience the impacts of droughts. Transdisciplinary approaches to knowledge co-creation offer a promising opportunity to advance socio-hydrology by considering the role of politics and power, economic visions, and differential agency in shaping drought outcomes, and the experiences and knowledge of those directly affected by drought events. However, transdisciplinary approaches to drought impact studies are limited to scattered empirical cases and miss coherent theoretical and methodological guidance. Drawing from a diverse body of literature on transdisciplinarity in sustainability science, integrated water resources management, socio-hydrology, science and technology studies, and political ecology, we develop an interdisciplinary conceptual framework to guide knowledge co-creation in drought impact assessment and adaptation. The framework stands on five major dimensions: 1) stakeholder analysis, 2) the scope of the co-modelling process, 3) a shared knowledge of drought, 4) model conceptualisation and implementation, and 5) awareness of power biases and knowledge imbalances. We discuss our framework's applicability space, limitations and contributions for advancing transdisciplinary approaches in future drought impact assessments.
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-2207', Anonymous Referee #1, 01 Sep 2024
General comments:
This study aims to propose a framework to guide transdisciplinary approaches to knowledge co-creation for drought impact assessment. Given the current lack of studies on transdisciplinary approaches applied to drought impact assessment, and to address this gap, the proposed interdisciplinary framework draws from five scientific fields (political ecology, transdisciplinarity in sustainability science, integrated water resources management, socio-hydrology, and science and technology studies). Five ‘major dimensions’ constituting this framework are identified to guide drought scientists and practitioners in developing and assessing the progression of co-produced assessments. Below is my general assessment of the manuscript, followed by specific comments supporting it.
Although I am convinced that developing frameworks to guide co-creation initiatives between scientists, practitioners, and laypeople for drought impact assessments is of utmost importance, I am not convinced that this study, in its current form, provides a robust and innovative framework. It could benefit from being more strongly supported by scientific evidence, which, in my opinion, is currently lacking.
I am aware that the manuscript was originally submitted as original research and might not have been intended as a review paper. While I agree with the editor's decision to consider it as a review, given that the methods clearly state they draw on existing literature, the manuscript still lacks substantial bibliographic evidence. The fields of literature referenced are vast, yet the specific studies informing the results are not identified, nor is it clear how these studies’ and scientific fields' findings or philosophies contributed to the development of the proposed guidelines. This makes it difficult to see the manuscript as a well-founded review or a conceptual framework genuinely based on the literature.
Furthermore, there seems to be, at least to me, a strong disconnect between the research needs that justify this study and whether the proposed framework actually addresses these specific needs. The justification for developing a conceptual framework for transdisciplinary co-creation in drought impact assessment is because such frameworks are currently lacking. This lack arises from the complexities and challenges posed by both the subject and object of this study: transdisciplinary approaches (subject) and drought impact assessments (object). These complexities include, but are not limited to for transdisciplinary approaches, e.g. diverse stakeholder perspectives, power imbalances, communication barriers, project duration, and the need for building trust, among others. For drought impact assessment, these can be things such as high contextual variability, dynamism, multiple scales and levels of analysis, complex interactions between natural and social systems, and data availability, etc.—only to mention a very few.
And while I must point out that these limitations are indeed mentioned in the manuscript, it is only briefly, non-exhaustively, and not as central to the article, building on these gaps as they should be, or far too late, in Section 3.5 about transdisciplinarity, which appears more like a discussion than part of the results. In the absence of clearly identified research and practical gaps, and an explanation of how and why this study addresses them, the purpose announced is, in my view, defeated. Therefore, the proposed framework, in addition to not being sufficiently robust, lacks evidence that it could effectively address drought impact assessment.
The suggested 'major dimensions' are quite general and could apply to any hazard or any aspect of natural resources management. They do not seem specific to drought impact assessment and are not innovative when compared to other frameworks for participatory modelling; for example, they could even fit as a subset of Ostrom's 8 rules for managing the commons.
This relates to another significant challenge for me, making the study quite difficult to follow: the lack of coherence and specificity in the terms, concepts, and definitions. ‘Co-creation of knowledge’: which knowledge related to drought? ‘(Co)-modelling’ is used too lightly and broadly: what type of models? What step? Models for what purpose or what rationale? Can we claim that all steps of all types of models for all purposes related to drought impact assessments should be co-created? If yes, why? This should be crystal clear early in the manuscript and not mentioned quickly as a form of discussion. And the proposed framework, which is quite broad, should also be more specifically tailored. The purpose of the co-creation process—‘drought impact assessment and adaptation,’ ‘drought impact assessment and adaptation modelling,’ ‘support the planning of drought adaptation scenarios,’ and ‘drought assessment’—are used interchangeably. Similarly, ‘major dimensions’ and ‘key dimensions’ are used inconsistently. At certain points, vague terms or a list of very similar words make the text heavy and redundant (I will detail these in the specific comments), or terms from the social sciences jargon are used that are not suited for hydrologists, despite the study's aim to address both audiences.Finally, the structure of the manuscript could be improved to enhance readability and robustness. The introduction is too long, lingers on concepts and explanations not pertinent to the comprehension of this study, and includes elements that would better fit in the sections on the state of the art or discussion. Conversely, the state of the art is incredibly short, lacks scientific evidence, and does not adequately guide the reader in understanding the concepts central to this study. There is no materials and methods section that provides the reader with the reasoning behind the development of the framework or the supporting evidence, which limits the study's replicability. Consequently, the results section is not appropriately supported. Something like Figure 2 should be in the methods section, not in the results. Moreover, the sub-sections 3.1 to 3.5, which explain the major dimensions, contain elements related to defining concepts which should be in Section 2, or discussion elements that would be better suited for the discussion section. At the same time, the discussion could apply to any transdisciplinary approach rather than the specific conceptual framework proposed in the study, which should be a transdisciplinary framework for drought impact assessment. Also, the discussion contains claims, such as practical implications and benefits, which, in my opinion, are not substantiated by this study or are not evident. There is a notable underestimation of how significant the limitations are and how they affect the validity of the results.
Some specific comments supporting these general observations are provided below. However, I suggest a thorough restructuring of the manuscript. This should include refining the research or practical gaps and objectives and narrowing down the research fields (e.g., 'science and technology studies,' 'political ecology,’ etc., are too broad); or, if not narrowed down, it should be clearly explained what the contributions of these fields are to the framework. The studies on which the framework was developed could be mentioned in the manuscript. For example, a list or table linking the studies, the field, and the specific results used for the framework could be provided in more detail as an annex and made available under the 'Data Availability' section. I am truly sorry if this review seems harsh, but I genuinely believe, as I mentioned at the beginning, that a transdisciplinary framework for drought impact assessment is valuable, and I am confident that the authors can significantly improve this work. I wish you the best of luck.
Best regards.
Specific comments:
Title: The title can be rephrased to set the expectations of the content, with the mention that this article proposes a conceptual framework for co-creating knowledge. As it is now, I would expect this article to be about the outcomes of a co-constructed drought assessment. Furthermore, I do not see what the mention of ‘socio-hydrology’ in the title adds, nor why as it supposedly draws from four other fields.
L16: Transdisciplinary approaches to knowledge co-creation offer a promising opportunity to advance socio-hydrology
As developed later in the text, transdisciplinarity includes co-creation so this sentence is somewhat redundant or misleading.
Furthermore, it is stated that the aim is to advance socio-hydrology, but then on L19, the contrast presented is about ‘drought impact studies,’ creating some confusion about the focus of the study.L32: Although originating from meteorological, hydrological or soil moisture anomalies, droughts are
This sentence is inaccurate. Please rephrase to correctly account for both the contributions of hydro-climatic and anthropogenic drivers to the occurrence of droughts.L36: ‘A rich geographical scholarship’
I suggest rephrasing as ‘scholarship’ is vague and many disciplines other than geography have ‘theorised the interplay between hazards and the socio-economic processes that make some more vulnerable and exposed than others’. Alternatively, it could be deleted, as it does not add much.L38 &40: I wouldn’t use the word “climate justice and political ecology scholarship” and then give only two studies as an example.
L39&41: Disasters or drought-related disasters, which are entire concepts on their own, are parachuted here, while previously, the text only focused on 'drought occurrences'.
L40-43: The sentence is convoluted and lacks clarity. It attempts to connect too many concepts—drought-related disasters, social constructions of water scarcity, differential agency, power asymmetries, uneven experiences of drought impacts, water (in)security, and political drivers—without a clear or coherent structure, making it difficult to understand the main point.
L47-56: The paragraph is very redundant. It repeatedly stresses the importance of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research without clearly distinguishing between the two or showing how they work together. The mention of the debate over the definition of transdisciplinary research seems unnecessary and does not directly support the main points about integrating perspectives and promoting mutual learning. Several parts convey overlapping ideas (e.g., "need for interdisciplinary research and participator approaches" and "need to include societal perspectives"). To avoid redundancy, the paragraph could be condensed to focus more sharply on the main message: the importance of integrating various disciplinary perspectives and incorporating non-academic voices in drought research.
L56-85 are not suitable for the introduction because they dive too deeply into some definitions, distinctions, and relationships between concepts, which can overwhelm the reader and diverge from the goal of progressing from a general overview of the state of the art to the identified research or practical gap. While it is important to provide enough detail about these concepts, this level of detail is more appropriate for a review on such concepts, or the methods or state-of-the-art sections.
Considering that these paragraphs are kept and moved to more appropriate sections of the manuscript:Figure 1, in my view, could be improved. While it conveys the idea of a concatenation of concepts, this is already explained in the text and does not need an illustration. The caption is somewhat repetitive: the relationship is simply that they are concatenated. By the same logic, transdisciplinarity might be better represented as the largest encompassing square, also incorporating co-creation. The explanations for the ‘co-’ terms seem quite simplified, focusing more on what follows ‘co-’ than on the overall concept itself. Additionally, the figure is not referenced again in the text, raising questions about its necessity. In Table 1, more concepts are introduced—such as “co-design, co-dissemination, emergent and exploratory knowledge, traditional boundaries, co-implementing.” If these terms are included (which I am not sure is necessary), it would be helpful to provide more detail on what they entail, and perhaps clarify the relationships between them and the ones in Fig1, which may not be solely horizontal.
L80-83: I don’t understand the mention of the scientific fields (sustainability, social-ecological systems, hydrological sciences, socio-hydrology) also considering that some (e.g. hydrology and SES) are not used for theoretical background.
L83: Finally, the research gaps or limitations for the development of a transdisciplinary framework for drought assessments are mentioned. In my view, the entire introduction should build towards these. However, these gaps or limitations are only briefly mentioned and not elaborated upon; they are a selection of many gaps and, most importantly, not specific to transdisciplinary approaches or drought assessments.
L86: Our paper advances the field of socio-hydrology by developing an interdisciplinary conceptual framework to guide scientists and practitioners in the co-creation of drought impact assessments.
Once again, why socio-hydrology? What are the boundaries of (i) socio-hydrology that (ii) this framework aims to expand or challenge? Additionally, it would be helpful to be more specific about what is meant by "practitioners", and I am uncertain whether conceptual frameworks that are not "practically” applied or ground-truthed can truly interest or benefit them. If so, please detail why and how.L87: “Given the limited literature on transdisciplinary approaches specifically focused on drought, we review and integrate knowledge developed in other scientific fields and disciplines.”
The specific literature on transdisciplinary approaches focused specifically on drought is indeed limited. However, there are numerous studies, including reviews, on transdisciplinary frameworks for disaster management and integrated resources management. What I find puzzling is the decision to draw from other broad bodies of literature, rather than building on studies from the field of collaborative or participatory modelling, such as those related to floods (e.g., DIANE), integrated water management (WPI+), eutrophication (DEMO), and agricultural policy (SEAMLESS). This reasoning is not provided as there are no methods section.
In particular, WPI(+) is a highly developed, extensively studied, and widely applied inter- and transdisciplinary framework that addresses water scarcity and integrates all aspects mentioned in this study, including power asymmetries and the social construction of water scarcity.L89: The term "core aspects" in the introduction is quite vague and should be quickly defined or simplified here, rather than being left only to be exemplified in the results.
L90-95 are very confusing. The text states that the aim is to "enhance the understanding of co-creation" by identifying "key dimensions necessary for ensuring the co-creation of knowledge... through the development of an interdisciplinary framework." This creates a circular logic: the aim is to develop a framework, but then it says that developing the framework is part of the aim. The framework should be the outcome, not a part of the process for achieving the aim.
Also, the term "key dimensions" is used in this paragraph, whereas "major dimensions" was used earlier in the text. Please, be consistent with the terminology.L91: to what ‘modelling’ refers to?
L95: ‘development of drought-specific co-creation protocols and tool”.
So this framework for knowledge co-creation would also guide practitioners to develop their own framework for knowledge co-creation? Additionally, what exactly are "co-creation tools"?Section 2 aims to present the state of the art but is quite short and misses crucial elements to fulfill this role. It consists of two paragraphs: the first highlights the slow shift in socio-hydrology research towards droughts and the need for more transdisciplinary studies. What constitutes the state of the art is the second paragraph, which only mentions three studies and focuses solely on recent research on collaborative modelling.
L115-118: The statement, “Although these approaches advance the frontiers of co-modelling in drought research, they often allocate the co-design space to a specific phase of the drought knowledge generation process,” contradicts the definition provided in Table 1. According to Table 1, co-modelling involves "decision-making processes in highly cooperative contexts (collaboration and/or joint action) with high levels of participation for key stakeholders in all phases of the modelling process, including collaboration and joint action after the modelling process."
Also, what do “co-design space” and “drought knowledge generation process” mean?L118: what is meant by “mature” in “A mature knowledge co-creation approach”. Furthermore the second part of the this statement is assumed knowledge and lacks supporting evidence.
There is a clear absence of a section on materials and methods, or alternatively, methods and theory, that develop the theoretical framework underlying the conception of this study. While this is a critical review aiming to conceptually develop a framework, it does not mention any studies from which the framework key dimensions are identified, nor does it specify which aspects of the broad scientific fields the framework relies upon. There is no evidence that these dimensions are derived from an analysis of a comprehensive body of literature. Without such justification, the framework in Section 3 appears to be based solely on the authors' choices, which does not provide a robust foundation for a study, let alone a framework for practitioners.
I would expect for example a table with the following columns: Body of Literature/Scientific Field, Studies, Results of These Studies, and How These Results Lead to the Key Dimensions.L121: No evidence supporting this study being a critical review is provided.
L122: The term ‘comprehensive analytical lens’ is misleading, as drought risk, disaster, impacts, adaptation, and co-creation approaches are not examined, let alone in a comprehensive or holistic way. The complex issues related to these topics are not raised in the first place. This raises the question: what is the need for implementing dimensions 1-5? On what basis do these ‘major dimensions,’ presented as guidelines for implementing co-creation processes for drought assessment, originate? What is the justification for drawing from five broad fields of literature to derive these dimensions?
Figure2:
Now, what were ‘major dimensions’, then ‘key dimensions’, became ‘drought co-creation dimensions’.
I don’t understand the choice of using a Venn diagram. The Venn typically highlights a shared understanding or commonality between overlapping circles, which is not the case here. It is not my understanding that the commonalities between these bodies of literature lead to or support these dimensions. So I don't see the value in representing them this way.
Why were these five broad scientific fields chosen? Why is the selection so general, and why couldn’t the literature be more specific?
Beside the use of the words ‘drought’ and co-modelling (and as mentioned many times already, in the absence of strong evidence), I really don’t see how this framework is innovative or specific to drought impacts assessment.
Such guidelines can be found in the governance of the commons, in the steps for conceptual and computational modelling, or practically any transdisciplinary approach—by Google-ing the steps of a transdisciplinary approach. This is extensively covered in the literature. Is it truly revolutionary to suggest that, when conducting a (transdisciplinary) study, we identify the stakeholders involved, delineate its time and space boundaries, and collaboratively frame the problem? The real challenge is, in fact, how to implement these steps effectively, and this is also well-covered in the literature.From L131 to 266, the five dimensions are described in very general terms with broad recommendations but lack practical or specific guidance for implementation in the context of drought. Additionally, there are numerous inaccuracies and contradictions between the underlying processes of drought and drought impacts and the key dimensions that are supposedly designed to address these issues. Moreover, there are several elements of general discussion that are misplaced and do not fit within this section.
How does it make sense that accounting for power imbalances and knowledge biases is addressed last among these dimensions, while the very first dimension is stakeholder identification and mapping? For example, L137 mentions: “[involving stakeholders] … upholds democratic ideals by emphasising inclusive processes. Secondly, it taps into stakeholders' insights and risk assessments to improve the quality of process outcomes. Lastly, it enhances the legitimacy of predetermined decisions, ultimately increasing their effectiveness in informing policy processes.” But this is not true if the power imbalances are not considered during this step.
This suggests that ‘knowledge’ is co-produced first, and only afterward do we reflect on biases and imbalances. There is also a similar inconsistency between dimensions 3.1 and 3.2 (which I will mention later). This highlights how these five dimensions are overlapping and highly interconnected, yet they are presented as a protocol or independent guidelines.
Regarding the lack of specificity in these dimensions, there is a lot of ambiguity or "neither-nor" statements. For instance, the guidelines are neither too well-defined nor too vague, leaving decisions to the "research analyst"—but who is this research analyst, and why are these decisions not co-decided with stakeholders?L142 : "Attention should be paid to verifying that these boundaries would not be too restricted to avoid the unintentional overlooking of some stakeholders, leading to the omission of relevant individuals associated with the phenomenon (Clarkson, 1995). Conversely, the boundaries cannot be too blurred. It is often impractical to include every stakeholder, requiring the establishment of well-founded criteria by the research analyst to determine a cutoff point (Clarke and Clegg, 1998)."
Additionally, the content in the first dimension on mapping stakeholders, particularly about setting boundaries for the study, is made redundant in the second dimension, Section 3.2, from L158 onwards, which also discusses the different types of boundaries.
The entire results section should be refocused to remove elements of discussion that are almost philosophical and too vague. The gaps in transdisciplinary approaches are identified far too late and, as I have mentioned earlier, would be better placed earlier in the manuscript, such as in the state of the art or methods section, where they should be presented more clearly rather than in a discussion-like manner.Section 3.4, which addresses conceptualising and implementing the model, should, in my opinion, be the most important section. Yet, it remains extremely general, overly simplistic, and overly discursive, with elements that are disconnected from reality. Moreover, there are no elements related to actually ‘implementing’ the model in that section.
L219 : “From a technical standpoint, co-modelling assumes that, given a suitable interactive environment, non-specialized people can collaboratively produce models that are meaningful to them, fostering valuable discussions and the creation of new knowledge,” and this is said to be true "irrespective of the type or purpose of the model" (L218).
But what exactly is a "suitable interactive environment"? Practically, such an environment rarely exists. There are far more limitations to this assumption than conditions that meet it. Without a clear definition of what constitutes a suitable interactive environment, it is an easy way to claim that co-modelling is always effective and possible. In reality, there are never truly ‘suitable interactive environments.’ Approaches will always face challenges such as power and knowledge imbalances, time and financial constraints, participation limitations, etc.L230: ok, but then it’s not co-modelling anymore.
L224 : “In transdisciplinary settings, the concept of 'constructing models' can take on diverse interpretations." It can, but the whole point of Table 1 is to provide clear definitions. Therefore, this section should be crystal clear about the guidelines according to the level of participation. Instead, it moves back and forth, without clearly distinguishing between participatory modelling, knowledge co-creation, co-modelling, and different degrees of participation—just floating in the text without a clear thread. It is very difficult to follow, and the purpose becomes unclear.
L240 : what is the base of such statement? Framed as such by what and who? “science and knowledge production processes’ is so broad. Do you mean ‘co-production’?
L240-251: does not add much to this section. It is very general and borad introductive litterature.
L253: what is ‘elite” stakeholders?
L255 to L262 identifies quite well some of the major limitations of implementing a transdisciplinary approach, most of which are linked to those who conduct them—referred to as ‘elite stakeholders’—and how these limitations often benefit them. However, the proposed solutions to address these limitations from L262 to L266 are overly simplistic. Based on the logic developed earlier, why would these ‘elite stakeholders’ analyse power relations that ultimately benefit them? Additionally, who would be responsible for the second solution mentioned in L264? If the process is iterative, how would agreement be reached on definitions and scenarios, and how would it prevent one group of stakeholders from favouring its vision or biases over another? In fact, what is more likely to happen is an exacerbation of biases when the same processes are repeated indefinitely. This is why the proposed solutions to counter these limitations are overly simplistic and inconsistent with the rest of the section.
L271 If, ‘positivist hydrologists’ is really the targeted audience, I would really suggest a more simple and straightforward structure.
L272: “hydrologists and others”..so everyone? Also, if the introduction focuses on how drought studies and approaches are highly siloed within the hydrological discipline, it seems contradictory to target the audience by discipline rather than by the reader's purpose..
Table 2, with the core aspects, should be in the results section. Why is this part of the discussion if these are (albeit still quite vague) guidelines or suggestions for implementing each of the dimensions? It is essentially a summary table of Sections 3.1 to 3.5. I suggest adding an extra column on the right for the number of each dimension. Also, as I have mentioned extensively earlier, I don't believe the dimensions and core aspects are independent; they are closely interconnected, with bullet points from one dimension relating to others (e.g., bullet points from Dimensions 1 and 5 complement each other). In my view, it defeats the purpose of co-modelling if, through this framework, we apply Dimensions 1 to 4 to produce something and only afterward, as a final step, reflect on the inherent biases of the tangible outcome of the ‘co-production’ process.
L280: what is the basis of such a statement?
L281: Indigenous knowledge is parachuted here. While it is a valuable suggestion, it should be introduced much earlier in the manuscript, specifically when discussing stakeholder selection.
L284: I do agree, as this is the issue with any conceptual framework that has not been groundtruthed. This framework itself has not been co-constructed, so it is unrealistic to expect it to applied without major challenges.
L285: ““Suboptimal decisions and compromises” are an understatement of what comes next. The limitations addressed impact a significant portion of the entire process. These limitations should have been identified as the initial research gaps on which this framework is built or aims to address. What is the point of constructing a framework based solely on studies from very general fields, which are completely disconnected from drought studies or drought in socio-hydrology? This makes the framework conceptual and biased by the authors, but unable to address the real-world challenges. The whole point of a framework for transdisciplinary approaches should be to deal with these limitations and build upon them.
L286: I would remove the term "panacea." I don’t think the literature, including on transdisciplinarity, suggests that any approach is a cure-all or universally effective solution.
L290: “Particularly in drought impact assessment research”—but where are these specific challenges? What is described is general and not specific to drought.
L291: “Including all stakeholders impacted by drought in the co-creation process is of paramount importance.” Please have a look at some of the preprints in this special issue, which present case studies of droughts affecting entire regions like California, Chile, Northeast Brazil, and the European drought of 2022. This statement is applicable only for very small areas.
L296: For whom is the implementation of this framework intended then? If it is for positivist hydrologists and practitioners, how would they navigate these issues? These represent significant limitations to the framework, yet there are no tangible or realistic suggestions provided to address them.
L301: what does ‘by this time’ refer to??
L306: “Learning from available case studies that might successfully cover some aspects of our framework when assessing drought impact” is what this study should have started with: to build a hypothesis before testing and validating it—steps that are lacking in this study. Also, which case studies are being referred to? Moreover, how does validating results based on similar studies lead to genuine learning? It would only reinforce existing biases. I would think the opposite: learning from studies that completely contradict your framework and findings, building on understanding why to address these caveats.
L308 to 310: not adding much and lacking basis.
L310: yet, there is no mention in the text of the importance of the local context in applying such a framework.
L314: It would have been very beneficial if this framework had aimed to address that. This framework itself, due to its disconnection from reality and its foundation on a very limited number of studies—without building on identified gaps and difficulties in transdisciplinary research applied to drought impacts or assessment—and drawing from fields chosen by the authors without explicit justification… also ends up prioritising familiarity.
The conclusion reiterates elements that have been strongly questioned in this review. Logically, if these points are addressed, the conclusion should be rewritten as well.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2207-RC1 -
AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Silvia De Angeli, 07 Nov 2024
We thank the reviewer for emphasizing the relevance of our topic and providing constructive feedback to enhance our work. Their insights will certainly help us present a more robust and innovative framework by expanding the literature basis of our review and clearly articulating the connections between the reviewed literature and our framework, which are currently implicit in the text.
Based on the reviewer’s suggestions, we will revise the manuscript to incorporate the following major improvements:
- Substantially reshape the introduction by:
- Reducing unnecessary explanations on co-production, co-creation, and co-modeling.
- Clarifying the research gaps and how our work addresses them.
- Expanding and strengthening the literature review that supports our findings.
- Include a "Methods" section to provide a clearer explanation of the methodology we followed, outlining our review approach and the rationale for drawing from the mentioned bodies of literature.
- Add a table to explicitly link the individual articles contributing to the conceptualization of each dimension with their respective body of literature.
- Enrich the description of each dimension (Sect. 3.1 to 3.5) by including more examples of applications and ways to operationalise each dimension into a transdisciplinary approach for drought impact assessment.
- Integrate more drought-specific insights into the discussions, ensuring a more solution-oriented focus.
- Carefully revise the manuscript to improve readability and ensure consistency in terminology.
In the attached document, we address all of Reviewer 1's feedback, including 10 major comments and 57 specific comments, and provide a detailed, point-by-point response to each of their concerns.
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AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Silvia De Angeli, 07 Nov 2024
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RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-2207', Anonymous Referee #2, 16 Sep 2024
The paper presents a framework for transdisciplinary research on drought. The framework has potential and provides basic guidelines, mainly focused on hydrologists, for conducting transdisciplinary research. While I believe the framework and the manuscript has the potential to make a valuable contribution to the existing literature, I do believe both the framework and the manuscript need some strengthening before it can be published.
Firstly, the introduction focuses on drought and drought impact assessments. While I do believe a framework for drought impact assessment would be valuable, it seems that the framework and manuscript here are not really focused on drought. The framework and descriptions in the manuscript are quite general and would apply to any water issue not only to drought. There are no specific aspects that only relate to drought. In addition, the framework seems to be focused on modelling. Drought impact assessment can take many forms, but the framework describes procedures for a co-modelling approach.
This is related to my second point. The introduction describes the differences between co-creation, co-production and co-modelling in detail and in a way that makes it seem important to consider the whole co-creation process and not only the co-modelling part. However, the description of the framework focuses mostly on co-modelling. It would be nice to see perhaps some other co-development methods aside from co-modelling. Could the co-creation process include a step where the appropriate methods are decided? Rather than focusing on modelling from the start? Alternatively, the paper could be rewritten so that from the start the focus is more on co-modelling, but doing this may be a missed opportunity for introducing hydrologists to transdisciplinary methods that go beyond co-modelling.
The description of the framework seems to be more about describing the problems of not taking a transdisciplinary approach and making the case for doing so, rather than describing the actual steps that should be taken to overcome these hurdles and to implement a transdisciplinary approach. An example is section 3.5: lines 240-262 describe how there may be power imbalances between stakeholders and that this can influence model construction and output and only in the last two sentences, in lines 262-266, there is some mention of what steps would be needed for a transdisciplinary approach. This also applies to the other sections describing the framework. Overall, this means that section 3 reads more like an introduction to the difficulties that come with doing transdisciplinary research rather than a description of a framework and concrete steps and examples for overcoming these difficulties. Section 4 introduces some steps for each part of the framework, but it would be nice to see these steps described in more detail, including some examples of how this could be done. These examples are being hinted at in section 4.2: “To propose suitable solutions to these and many other problems, a promising opportunity consists of learning from available case studies that might successfully cover some aspects of our framework when assessing drought impacts.” It would be nice to include a review of these examples and include the learning from that in the framework. Including this would make the framework more useful in the sense that it would provide hydrologists with guidance on which transdisciplinary methodologies to implement and how. In its current form, the framework does not really go beyond a description of the problem.One part of the framework is about setting a clear scope. However, I would argue setting a clear scope is part of any modelling study and isn't necessary transdisciplinary. The way one does it could be transdisciplinary, but I feel the description is very broad and not focused on the transdisciplinary aspects of setting the scope. In fact, the examples of time periods that are given here are very hydrological (a drought event, for example) and wouldn't allow for, for example, including policy processes that usually take longer than one drought event, but from a transdisciplinary perspective may be very important to include in the analysis.
Finally, section 2 is very short and does not contribute that much to the manuscript. I wonder why only the state in the art for socio-hydrology is described? Why not include sections on the state of the art in transdisciplinary research in sustainability science, integrated water resources management, socio-hydrology, science and technology studies, and political ecology? In addition, I feel section 2 is missing some socio-hydrological studies on participatory approaches. They may not be on drought, but there are several studies on co-creation or at least co-modelling within the socio-hydrological literature. Some of them may be limited in how much they include stakeholders, but I think they should be included in the discussion of the state of the art in socio-hydrology. Some examples include:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2024.131522
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2023.03.012
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2024.131248
https://doi.org/10.3390/hydrology9030049
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-5103-2022
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2015.05.008
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2015.09.009Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2207-RC2 -
AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Silvia De Angeli, 07 Nov 2024
We thank the reviewer for their thoughtful feedback on our paper. We appreciate the recognition of the potential of our framework for transdisciplinary research on drought and its value for hydrologists. We understand the reviewer's concerns regarding the need to strengthen both the framework and the manuscript. In response, we will carefully review their suggestions and make revisions to enhance the presented work.
Based on the reviewer’s suggestions, we will revise the manuscript to incorporate the following major improvements:
- We will revise the description of the framework's dimensions to better highlight the specific aspects related to drought research.
- A new paragraph will be added in Section 3.2 to better align the scope-setting process with transdisciplinary principles.
- We will include examples from existing case studies to illustrate practical applications of the framework and offer clearer guidance for hydrologists.
- The definition of co-modelling will be expanded to encompass a range of modeling approaches beyond hydrological modeling, with Section 3.4 updated to reflect this broader scope.
- Section 2 will be removed and integrated into the Introduction to more effectively contextualize the research gap within the socio-hydrology field.
Moreover, we will revise the manuscript for better readability and consistency in terminology.
In the attached document, we will address Reviewer 2's feedback in 5 comments and provide a detailed, point-by-point response to their concerns.
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AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Silvia De Angeli, 07 Nov 2024
Interactive discussion
Status: closed
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-2207', Anonymous Referee #1, 01 Sep 2024
General comments:
This study aims to propose a framework to guide transdisciplinary approaches to knowledge co-creation for drought impact assessment. Given the current lack of studies on transdisciplinary approaches applied to drought impact assessment, and to address this gap, the proposed interdisciplinary framework draws from five scientific fields (political ecology, transdisciplinarity in sustainability science, integrated water resources management, socio-hydrology, and science and technology studies). Five ‘major dimensions’ constituting this framework are identified to guide drought scientists and practitioners in developing and assessing the progression of co-produced assessments. Below is my general assessment of the manuscript, followed by specific comments supporting it.
Although I am convinced that developing frameworks to guide co-creation initiatives between scientists, practitioners, and laypeople for drought impact assessments is of utmost importance, I am not convinced that this study, in its current form, provides a robust and innovative framework. It could benefit from being more strongly supported by scientific evidence, which, in my opinion, is currently lacking.
I am aware that the manuscript was originally submitted as original research and might not have been intended as a review paper. While I agree with the editor's decision to consider it as a review, given that the methods clearly state they draw on existing literature, the manuscript still lacks substantial bibliographic evidence. The fields of literature referenced are vast, yet the specific studies informing the results are not identified, nor is it clear how these studies’ and scientific fields' findings or philosophies contributed to the development of the proposed guidelines. This makes it difficult to see the manuscript as a well-founded review or a conceptual framework genuinely based on the literature.
Furthermore, there seems to be, at least to me, a strong disconnect between the research needs that justify this study and whether the proposed framework actually addresses these specific needs. The justification for developing a conceptual framework for transdisciplinary co-creation in drought impact assessment is because such frameworks are currently lacking. This lack arises from the complexities and challenges posed by both the subject and object of this study: transdisciplinary approaches (subject) and drought impact assessments (object). These complexities include, but are not limited to for transdisciplinary approaches, e.g. diverse stakeholder perspectives, power imbalances, communication barriers, project duration, and the need for building trust, among others. For drought impact assessment, these can be things such as high contextual variability, dynamism, multiple scales and levels of analysis, complex interactions between natural and social systems, and data availability, etc.—only to mention a very few.
And while I must point out that these limitations are indeed mentioned in the manuscript, it is only briefly, non-exhaustively, and not as central to the article, building on these gaps as they should be, or far too late, in Section 3.5 about transdisciplinarity, which appears more like a discussion than part of the results. In the absence of clearly identified research and practical gaps, and an explanation of how and why this study addresses them, the purpose announced is, in my view, defeated. Therefore, the proposed framework, in addition to not being sufficiently robust, lacks evidence that it could effectively address drought impact assessment.
The suggested 'major dimensions' are quite general and could apply to any hazard or any aspect of natural resources management. They do not seem specific to drought impact assessment and are not innovative when compared to other frameworks for participatory modelling; for example, they could even fit as a subset of Ostrom's 8 rules for managing the commons.
This relates to another significant challenge for me, making the study quite difficult to follow: the lack of coherence and specificity in the terms, concepts, and definitions. ‘Co-creation of knowledge’: which knowledge related to drought? ‘(Co)-modelling’ is used too lightly and broadly: what type of models? What step? Models for what purpose or what rationale? Can we claim that all steps of all types of models for all purposes related to drought impact assessments should be co-created? If yes, why? This should be crystal clear early in the manuscript and not mentioned quickly as a form of discussion. And the proposed framework, which is quite broad, should also be more specifically tailored. The purpose of the co-creation process—‘drought impact assessment and adaptation,’ ‘drought impact assessment and adaptation modelling,’ ‘support the planning of drought adaptation scenarios,’ and ‘drought assessment’—are used interchangeably. Similarly, ‘major dimensions’ and ‘key dimensions’ are used inconsistently. At certain points, vague terms or a list of very similar words make the text heavy and redundant (I will detail these in the specific comments), or terms from the social sciences jargon are used that are not suited for hydrologists, despite the study's aim to address both audiences.Finally, the structure of the manuscript could be improved to enhance readability and robustness. The introduction is too long, lingers on concepts and explanations not pertinent to the comprehension of this study, and includes elements that would better fit in the sections on the state of the art or discussion. Conversely, the state of the art is incredibly short, lacks scientific evidence, and does not adequately guide the reader in understanding the concepts central to this study. There is no materials and methods section that provides the reader with the reasoning behind the development of the framework or the supporting evidence, which limits the study's replicability. Consequently, the results section is not appropriately supported. Something like Figure 2 should be in the methods section, not in the results. Moreover, the sub-sections 3.1 to 3.5, which explain the major dimensions, contain elements related to defining concepts which should be in Section 2, or discussion elements that would be better suited for the discussion section. At the same time, the discussion could apply to any transdisciplinary approach rather than the specific conceptual framework proposed in the study, which should be a transdisciplinary framework for drought impact assessment. Also, the discussion contains claims, such as practical implications and benefits, which, in my opinion, are not substantiated by this study or are not evident. There is a notable underestimation of how significant the limitations are and how they affect the validity of the results.
Some specific comments supporting these general observations are provided below. However, I suggest a thorough restructuring of the manuscript. This should include refining the research or practical gaps and objectives and narrowing down the research fields (e.g., 'science and technology studies,' 'political ecology,’ etc., are too broad); or, if not narrowed down, it should be clearly explained what the contributions of these fields are to the framework. The studies on which the framework was developed could be mentioned in the manuscript. For example, a list or table linking the studies, the field, and the specific results used for the framework could be provided in more detail as an annex and made available under the 'Data Availability' section. I am truly sorry if this review seems harsh, but I genuinely believe, as I mentioned at the beginning, that a transdisciplinary framework for drought impact assessment is valuable, and I am confident that the authors can significantly improve this work. I wish you the best of luck.
Best regards.
Specific comments:
Title: The title can be rephrased to set the expectations of the content, with the mention that this article proposes a conceptual framework for co-creating knowledge. As it is now, I would expect this article to be about the outcomes of a co-constructed drought assessment. Furthermore, I do not see what the mention of ‘socio-hydrology’ in the title adds, nor why as it supposedly draws from four other fields.
L16: Transdisciplinary approaches to knowledge co-creation offer a promising opportunity to advance socio-hydrology
As developed later in the text, transdisciplinarity includes co-creation so this sentence is somewhat redundant or misleading.
Furthermore, it is stated that the aim is to advance socio-hydrology, but then on L19, the contrast presented is about ‘drought impact studies,’ creating some confusion about the focus of the study.L32: Although originating from meteorological, hydrological or soil moisture anomalies, droughts are
This sentence is inaccurate. Please rephrase to correctly account for both the contributions of hydro-climatic and anthropogenic drivers to the occurrence of droughts.L36: ‘A rich geographical scholarship’
I suggest rephrasing as ‘scholarship’ is vague and many disciplines other than geography have ‘theorised the interplay between hazards and the socio-economic processes that make some more vulnerable and exposed than others’. Alternatively, it could be deleted, as it does not add much.L38 &40: I wouldn’t use the word “climate justice and political ecology scholarship” and then give only two studies as an example.
L39&41: Disasters or drought-related disasters, which are entire concepts on their own, are parachuted here, while previously, the text only focused on 'drought occurrences'.
L40-43: The sentence is convoluted and lacks clarity. It attempts to connect too many concepts—drought-related disasters, social constructions of water scarcity, differential agency, power asymmetries, uneven experiences of drought impacts, water (in)security, and political drivers—without a clear or coherent structure, making it difficult to understand the main point.
L47-56: The paragraph is very redundant. It repeatedly stresses the importance of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research without clearly distinguishing between the two or showing how they work together. The mention of the debate over the definition of transdisciplinary research seems unnecessary and does not directly support the main points about integrating perspectives and promoting mutual learning. Several parts convey overlapping ideas (e.g., "need for interdisciplinary research and participator approaches" and "need to include societal perspectives"). To avoid redundancy, the paragraph could be condensed to focus more sharply on the main message: the importance of integrating various disciplinary perspectives and incorporating non-academic voices in drought research.
L56-85 are not suitable for the introduction because they dive too deeply into some definitions, distinctions, and relationships between concepts, which can overwhelm the reader and diverge from the goal of progressing from a general overview of the state of the art to the identified research or practical gap. While it is important to provide enough detail about these concepts, this level of detail is more appropriate for a review on such concepts, or the methods or state-of-the-art sections.
Considering that these paragraphs are kept and moved to more appropriate sections of the manuscript:Figure 1, in my view, could be improved. While it conveys the idea of a concatenation of concepts, this is already explained in the text and does not need an illustration. The caption is somewhat repetitive: the relationship is simply that they are concatenated. By the same logic, transdisciplinarity might be better represented as the largest encompassing square, also incorporating co-creation. The explanations for the ‘co-’ terms seem quite simplified, focusing more on what follows ‘co-’ than on the overall concept itself. Additionally, the figure is not referenced again in the text, raising questions about its necessity. In Table 1, more concepts are introduced—such as “co-design, co-dissemination, emergent and exploratory knowledge, traditional boundaries, co-implementing.” If these terms are included (which I am not sure is necessary), it would be helpful to provide more detail on what they entail, and perhaps clarify the relationships between them and the ones in Fig1, which may not be solely horizontal.
L80-83: I don’t understand the mention of the scientific fields (sustainability, social-ecological systems, hydrological sciences, socio-hydrology) also considering that some (e.g. hydrology and SES) are not used for theoretical background.
L83: Finally, the research gaps or limitations for the development of a transdisciplinary framework for drought assessments are mentioned. In my view, the entire introduction should build towards these. However, these gaps or limitations are only briefly mentioned and not elaborated upon; they are a selection of many gaps and, most importantly, not specific to transdisciplinary approaches or drought assessments.
L86: Our paper advances the field of socio-hydrology by developing an interdisciplinary conceptual framework to guide scientists and practitioners in the co-creation of drought impact assessments.
Once again, why socio-hydrology? What are the boundaries of (i) socio-hydrology that (ii) this framework aims to expand or challenge? Additionally, it would be helpful to be more specific about what is meant by "practitioners", and I am uncertain whether conceptual frameworks that are not "practically” applied or ground-truthed can truly interest or benefit them. If so, please detail why and how.L87: “Given the limited literature on transdisciplinary approaches specifically focused on drought, we review and integrate knowledge developed in other scientific fields and disciplines.”
The specific literature on transdisciplinary approaches focused specifically on drought is indeed limited. However, there are numerous studies, including reviews, on transdisciplinary frameworks for disaster management and integrated resources management. What I find puzzling is the decision to draw from other broad bodies of literature, rather than building on studies from the field of collaborative or participatory modelling, such as those related to floods (e.g., DIANE), integrated water management (WPI+), eutrophication (DEMO), and agricultural policy (SEAMLESS). This reasoning is not provided as there are no methods section.
In particular, WPI(+) is a highly developed, extensively studied, and widely applied inter- and transdisciplinary framework that addresses water scarcity and integrates all aspects mentioned in this study, including power asymmetries and the social construction of water scarcity.L89: The term "core aspects" in the introduction is quite vague and should be quickly defined or simplified here, rather than being left only to be exemplified in the results.
L90-95 are very confusing. The text states that the aim is to "enhance the understanding of co-creation" by identifying "key dimensions necessary for ensuring the co-creation of knowledge... through the development of an interdisciplinary framework." This creates a circular logic: the aim is to develop a framework, but then it says that developing the framework is part of the aim. The framework should be the outcome, not a part of the process for achieving the aim.
Also, the term "key dimensions" is used in this paragraph, whereas "major dimensions" was used earlier in the text. Please, be consistent with the terminology.L91: to what ‘modelling’ refers to?
L95: ‘development of drought-specific co-creation protocols and tool”.
So this framework for knowledge co-creation would also guide practitioners to develop their own framework for knowledge co-creation? Additionally, what exactly are "co-creation tools"?Section 2 aims to present the state of the art but is quite short and misses crucial elements to fulfill this role. It consists of two paragraphs: the first highlights the slow shift in socio-hydrology research towards droughts and the need for more transdisciplinary studies. What constitutes the state of the art is the second paragraph, which only mentions three studies and focuses solely on recent research on collaborative modelling.
L115-118: The statement, “Although these approaches advance the frontiers of co-modelling in drought research, they often allocate the co-design space to a specific phase of the drought knowledge generation process,” contradicts the definition provided in Table 1. According to Table 1, co-modelling involves "decision-making processes in highly cooperative contexts (collaboration and/or joint action) with high levels of participation for key stakeholders in all phases of the modelling process, including collaboration and joint action after the modelling process."
Also, what do “co-design space” and “drought knowledge generation process” mean?L118: what is meant by “mature” in “A mature knowledge co-creation approach”. Furthermore the second part of the this statement is assumed knowledge and lacks supporting evidence.
There is a clear absence of a section on materials and methods, or alternatively, methods and theory, that develop the theoretical framework underlying the conception of this study. While this is a critical review aiming to conceptually develop a framework, it does not mention any studies from which the framework key dimensions are identified, nor does it specify which aspects of the broad scientific fields the framework relies upon. There is no evidence that these dimensions are derived from an analysis of a comprehensive body of literature. Without such justification, the framework in Section 3 appears to be based solely on the authors' choices, which does not provide a robust foundation for a study, let alone a framework for practitioners.
I would expect for example a table with the following columns: Body of Literature/Scientific Field, Studies, Results of These Studies, and How These Results Lead to the Key Dimensions.L121: No evidence supporting this study being a critical review is provided.
L122: The term ‘comprehensive analytical lens’ is misleading, as drought risk, disaster, impacts, adaptation, and co-creation approaches are not examined, let alone in a comprehensive or holistic way. The complex issues related to these topics are not raised in the first place. This raises the question: what is the need for implementing dimensions 1-5? On what basis do these ‘major dimensions,’ presented as guidelines for implementing co-creation processes for drought assessment, originate? What is the justification for drawing from five broad fields of literature to derive these dimensions?
Figure2:
Now, what were ‘major dimensions’, then ‘key dimensions’, became ‘drought co-creation dimensions’.
I don’t understand the choice of using a Venn diagram. The Venn typically highlights a shared understanding or commonality between overlapping circles, which is not the case here. It is not my understanding that the commonalities between these bodies of literature lead to or support these dimensions. So I don't see the value in representing them this way.
Why were these five broad scientific fields chosen? Why is the selection so general, and why couldn’t the literature be more specific?
Beside the use of the words ‘drought’ and co-modelling (and as mentioned many times already, in the absence of strong evidence), I really don’t see how this framework is innovative or specific to drought impacts assessment.
Such guidelines can be found in the governance of the commons, in the steps for conceptual and computational modelling, or practically any transdisciplinary approach—by Google-ing the steps of a transdisciplinary approach. This is extensively covered in the literature. Is it truly revolutionary to suggest that, when conducting a (transdisciplinary) study, we identify the stakeholders involved, delineate its time and space boundaries, and collaboratively frame the problem? The real challenge is, in fact, how to implement these steps effectively, and this is also well-covered in the literature.From L131 to 266, the five dimensions are described in very general terms with broad recommendations but lack practical or specific guidance for implementation in the context of drought. Additionally, there are numerous inaccuracies and contradictions between the underlying processes of drought and drought impacts and the key dimensions that are supposedly designed to address these issues. Moreover, there are several elements of general discussion that are misplaced and do not fit within this section.
How does it make sense that accounting for power imbalances and knowledge biases is addressed last among these dimensions, while the very first dimension is stakeholder identification and mapping? For example, L137 mentions: “[involving stakeholders] … upholds democratic ideals by emphasising inclusive processes. Secondly, it taps into stakeholders' insights and risk assessments to improve the quality of process outcomes. Lastly, it enhances the legitimacy of predetermined decisions, ultimately increasing their effectiveness in informing policy processes.” But this is not true if the power imbalances are not considered during this step.
This suggests that ‘knowledge’ is co-produced first, and only afterward do we reflect on biases and imbalances. There is also a similar inconsistency between dimensions 3.1 and 3.2 (which I will mention later). This highlights how these five dimensions are overlapping and highly interconnected, yet they are presented as a protocol or independent guidelines.
Regarding the lack of specificity in these dimensions, there is a lot of ambiguity or "neither-nor" statements. For instance, the guidelines are neither too well-defined nor too vague, leaving decisions to the "research analyst"—but who is this research analyst, and why are these decisions not co-decided with stakeholders?L142 : "Attention should be paid to verifying that these boundaries would not be too restricted to avoid the unintentional overlooking of some stakeholders, leading to the omission of relevant individuals associated with the phenomenon (Clarkson, 1995). Conversely, the boundaries cannot be too blurred. It is often impractical to include every stakeholder, requiring the establishment of well-founded criteria by the research analyst to determine a cutoff point (Clarke and Clegg, 1998)."
Additionally, the content in the first dimension on mapping stakeholders, particularly about setting boundaries for the study, is made redundant in the second dimension, Section 3.2, from L158 onwards, which also discusses the different types of boundaries.
The entire results section should be refocused to remove elements of discussion that are almost philosophical and too vague. The gaps in transdisciplinary approaches are identified far too late and, as I have mentioned earlier, would be better placed earlier in the manuscript, such as in the state of the art or methods section, where they should be presented more clearly rather than in a discussion-like manner.Section 3.4, which addresses conceptualising and implementing the model, should, in my opinion, be the most important section. Yet, it remains extremely general, overly simplistic, and overly discursive, with elements that are disconnected from reality. Moreover, there are no elements related to actually ‘implementing’ the model in that section.
L219 : “From a technical standpoint, co-modelling assumes that, given a suitable interactive environment, non-specialized people can collaboratively produce models that are meaningful to them, fostering valuable discussions and the creation of new knowledge,” and this is said to be true "irrespective of the type or purpose of the model" (L218).
But what exactly is a "suitable interactive environment"? Practically, such an environment rarely exists. There are far more limitations to this assumption than conditions that meet it. Without a clear definition of what constitutes a suitable interactive environment, it is an easy way to claim that co-modelling is always effective and possible. In reality, there are never truly ‘suitable interactive environments.’ Approaches will always face challenges such as power and knowledge imbalances, time and financial constraints, participation limitations, etc.L230: ok, but then it’s not co-modelling anymore.
L224 : “In transdisciplinary settings, the concept of 'constructing models' can take on diverse interpretations." It can, but the whole point of Table 1 is to provide clear definitions. Therefore, this section should be crystal clear about the guidelines according to the level of participation. Instead, it moves back and forth, without clearly distinguishing between participatory modelling, knowledge co-creation, co-modelling, and different degrees of participation—just floating in the text without a clear thread. It is very difficult to follow, and the purpose becomes unclear.
L240 : what is the base of such statement? Framed as such by what and who? “science and knowledge production processes’ is so broad. Do you mean ‘co-production’?
L240-251: does not add much to this section. It is very general and borad introductive litterature.
L253: what is ‘elite” stakeholders?
L255 to L262 identifies quite well some of the major limitations of implementing a transdisciplinary approach, most of which are linked to those who conduct them—referred to as ‘elite stakeholders’—and how these limitations often benefit them. However, the proposed solutions to address these limitations from L262 to L266 are overly simplistic. Based on the logic developed earlier, why would these ‘elite stakeholders’ analyse power relations that ultimately benefit them? Additionally, who would be responsible for the second solution mentioned in L264? If the process is iterative, how would agreement be reached on definitions and scenarios, and how would it prevent one group of stakeholders from favouring its vision or biases over another? In fact, what is more likely to happen is an exacerbation of biases when the same processes are repeated indefinitely. This is why the proposed solutions to counter these limitations are overly simplistic and inconsistent with the rest of the section.
L271 If, ‘positivist hydrologists’ is really the targeted audience, I would really suggest a more simple and straightforward structure.
L272: “hydrologists and others”..so everyone? Also, if the introduction focuses on how drought studies and approaches are highly siloed within the hydrological discipline, it seems contradictory to target the audience by discipline rather than by the reader's purpose..
Table 2, with the core aspects, should be in the results section. Why is this part of the discussion if these are (albeit still quite vague) guidelines or suggestions for implementing each of the dimensions? It is essentially a summary table of Sections 3.1 to 3.5. I suggest adding an extra column on the right for the number of each dimension. Also, as I have mentioned extensively earlier, I don't believe the dimensions and core aspects are independent; they are closely interconnected, with bullet points from one dimension relating to others (e.g., bullet points from Dimensions 1 and 5 complement each other). In my view, it defeats the purpose of co-modelling if, through this framework, we apply Dimensions 1 to 4 to produce something and only afterward, as a final step, reflect on the inherent biases of the tangible outcome of the ‘co-production’ process.
L280: what is the basis of such a statement?
L281: Indigenous knowledge is parachuted here. While it is a valuable suggestion, it should be introduced much earlier in the manuscript, specifically when discussing stakeholder selection.
L284: I do agree, as this is the issue with any conceptual framework that has not been groundtruthed. This framework itself has not been co-constructed, so it is unrealistic to expect it to applied without major challenges.
L285: ““Suboptimal decisions and compromises” are an understatement of what comes next. The limitations addressed impact a significant portion of the entire process. These limitations should have been identified as the initial research gaps on which this framework is built or aims to address. What is the point of constructing a framework based solely on studies from very general fields, which are completely disconnected from drought studies or drought in socio-hydrology? This makes the framework conceptual and biased by the authors, but unable to address the real-world challenges. The whole point of a framework for transdisciplinary approaches should be to deal with these limitations and build upon them.
L286: I would remove the term "panacea." I don’t think the literature, including on transdisciplinarity, suggests that any approach is a cure-all or universally effective solution.
L290: “Particularly in drought impact assessment research”—but where are these specific challenges? What is described is general and not specific to drought.
L291: “Including all stakeholders impacted by drought in the co-creation process is of paramount importance.” Please have a look at some of the preprints in this special issue, which present case studies of droughts affecting entire regions like California, Chile, Northeast Brazil, and the European drought of 2022. This statement is applicable only for very small areas.
L296: For whom is the implementation of this framework intended then? If it is for positivist hydrologists and practitioners, how would they navigate these issues? These represent significant limitations to the framework, yet there are no tangible or realistic suggestions provided to address them.
L301: what does ‘by this time’ refer to??
L306: “Learning from available case studies that might successfully cover some aspects of our framework when assessing drought impact” is what this study should have started with: to build a hypothesis before testing and validating it—steps that are lacking in this study. Also, which case studies are being referred to? Moreover, how does validating results based on similar studies lead to genuine learning? It would only reinforce existing biases. I would think the opposite: learning from studies that completely contradict your framework and findings, building on understanding why to address these caveats.
L308 to 310: not adding much and lacking basis.
L310: yet, there is no mention in the text of the importance of the local context in applying such a framework.
L314: It would have been very beneficial if this framework had aimed to address that. This framework itself, due to its disconnection from reality and its foundation on a very limited number of studies—without building on identified gaps and difficulties in transdisciplinary research applied to drought impacts or assessment—and drawing from fields chosen by the authors without explicit justification… also ends up prioritising familiarity.
The conclusion reiterates elements that have been strongly questioned in this review. Logically, if these points are addressed, the conclusion should be rewritten as well.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2207-RC1 -
AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Silvia De Angeli, 07 Nov 2024
We thank the reviewer for emphasizing the relevance of our topic and providing constructive feedback to enhance our work. Their insights will certainly help us present a more robust and innovative framework by expanding the literature basis of our review and clearly articulating the connections between the reviewed literature and our framework, which are currently implicit in the text.
Based on the reviewer’s suggestions, we will revise the manuscript to incorporate the following major improvements:
- Substantially reshape the introduction by:
- Reducing unnecessary explanations on co-production, co-creation, and co-modeling.
- Clarifying the research gaps and how our work addresses them.
- Expanding and strengthening the literature review that supports our findings.
- Include a "Methods" section to provide a clearer explanation of the methodology we followed, outlining our review approach and the rationale for drawing from the mentioned bodies of literature.
- Add a table to explicitly link the individual articles contributing to the conceptualization of each dimension with their respective body of literature.
- Enrich the description of each dimension (Sect. 3.1 to 3.5) by including more examples of applications and ways to operationalise each dimension into a transdisciplinary approach for drought impact assessment.
- Integrate more drought-specific insights into the discussions, ensuring a more solution-oriented focus.
- Carefully revise the manuscript to improve readability and ensure consistency in terminology.
In the attached document, we address all of Reviewer 1's feedback, including 10 major comments and 57 specific comments, and provide a detailed, point-by-point response to each of their concerns.
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AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Silvia De Angeli, 07 Nov 2024
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RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-2207', Anonymous Referee #2, 16 Sep 2024
The paper presents a framework for transdisciplinary research on drought. The framework has potential and provides basic guidelines, mainly focused on hydrologists, for conducting transdisciplinary research. While I believe the framework and the manuscript has the potential to make a valuable contribution to the existing literature, I do believe both the framework and the manuscript need some strengthening before it can be published.
Firstly, the introduction focuses on drought and drought impact assessments. While I do believe a framework for drought impact assessment would be valuable, it seems that the framework and manuscript here are not really focused on drought. The framework and descriptions in the manuscript are quite general and would apply to any water issue not only to drought. There are no specific aspects that only relate to drought. In addition, the framework seems to be focused on modelling. Drought impact assessment can take many forms, but the framework describes procedures for a co-modelling approach.
This is related to my second point. The introduction describes the differences between co-creation, co-production and co-modelling in detail and in a way that makes it seem important to consider the whole co-creation process and not only the co-modelling part. However, the description of the framework focuses mostly on co-modelling. It would be nice to see perhaps some other co-development methods aside from co-modelling. Could the co-creation process include a step where the appropriate methods are decided? Rather than focusing on modelling from the start? Alternatively, the paper could be rewritten so that from the start the focus is more on co-modelling, but doing this may be a missed opportunity for introducing hydrologists to transdisciplinary methods that go beyond co-modelling.
The description of the framework seems to be more about describing the problems of not taking a transdisciplinary approach and making the case for doing so, rather than describing the actual steps that should be taken to overcome these hurdles and to implement a transdisciplinary approach. An example is section 3.5: lines 240-262 describe how there may be power imbalances between stakeholders and that this can influence model construction and output and only in the last two sentences, in lines 262-266, there is some mention of what steps would be needed for a transdisciplinary approach. This also applies to the other sections describing the framework. Overall, this means that section 3 reads more like an introduction to the difficulties that come with doing transdisciplinary research rather than a description of a framework and concrete steps and examples for overcoming these difficulties. Section 4 introduces some steps for each part of the framework, but it would be nice to see these steps described in more detail, including some examples of how this could be done. These examples are being hinted at in section 4.2: “To propose suitable solutions to these and many other problems, a promising opportunity consists of learning from available case studies that might successfully cover some aspects of our framework when assessing drought impacts.” It would be nice to include a review of these examples and include the learning from that in the framework. Including this would make the framework more useful in the sense that it would provide hydrologists with guidance on which transdisciplinary methodologies to implement and how. In its current form, the framework does not really go beyond a description of the problem.One part of the framework is about setting a clear scope. However, I would argue setting a clear scope is part of any modelling study and isn't necessary transdisciplinary. The way one does it could be transdisciplinary, but I feel the description is very broad and not focused on the transdisciplinary aspects of setting the scope. In fact, the examples of time periods that are given here are very hydrological (a drought event, for example) and wouldn't allow for, for example, including policy processes that usually take longer than one drought event, but from a transdisciplinary perspective may be very important to include in the analysis.
Finally, section 2 is very short and does not contribute that much to the manuscript. I wonder why only the state in the art for socio-hydrology is described? Why not include sections on the state of the art in transdisciplinary research in sustainability science, integrated water resources management, socio-hydrology, science and technology studies, and political ecology? In addition, I feel section 2 is missing some socio-hydrological studies on participatory approaches. They may not be on drought, but there are several studies on co-creation or at least co-modelling within the socio-hydrological literature. Some of them may be limited in how much they include stakeholders, but I think they should be included in the discussion of the state of the art in socio-hydrology. Some examples include:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2024.131522
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2023.03.012
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2024.131248
https://doi.org/10.3390/hydrology9030049
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-5103-2022
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2015.05.008
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2015.09.009Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2207-RC2 -
AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Silvia De Angeli, 07 Nov 2024
We thank the reviewer for their thoughtful feedback on our paper. We appreciate the recognition of the potential of our framework for transdisciplinary research on drought and its value for hydrologists. We understand the reviewer's concerns regarding the need to strengthen both the framework and the manuscript. In response, we will carefully review their suggestions and make revisions to enhance the presented work.
Based on the reviewer’s suggestions, we will revise the manuscript to incorporate the following major improvements:
- We will revise the description of the framework's dimensions to better highlight the specific aspects related to drought research.
- A new paragraph will be added in Section 3.2 to better align the scope-setting process with transdisciplinary principles.
- We will include examples from existing case studies to illustrate practical applications of the framework and offer clearer guidance for hydrologists.
- The definition of co-modelling will be expanded to encompass a range of modeling approaches beyond hydrological modeling, with Section 3.4 updated to reflect this broader scope.
- Section 2 will be removed and integrated into the Introduction to more effectively contextualize the research gap within the socio-hydrology field.
Moreover, we will revise the manuscript for better readability and consistency in terminology.
In the attached document, we will address Reviewer 2's feedback in 5 comments and provide a detailed, point-by-point response to their concerns.
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AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Silvia De Angeli, 07 Nov 2024
Peer review completion
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Cited
2 citations as recorded by crossref.
Silvia De Angeli
Lorenzo Villani
Giulio Castelli
Maria Rusca
Giorgio Boni
Elena Bresci
Luigi Piemontese
The requested preprint has a corresponding peer-reviewed final revised paper. You are encouraged to refer to the final revised version.
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