case study land resources

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1 Land Resources

• Published: May 2016
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Land Resources are resource endowments for economic development in order to improve the quality of life and living condition of the people over time. The present survey of research on land resources attempts a review of papers dealing with application of landform studies in socio-economic development. Study of landforms is essential for better land use, land capability, land evaluation, land development and land management. In the present study major characteristics of physical attributes of land and land based resources have been attempted, reviewing the processes of land degradation and desertification, landslides, coastal processes, glacial features and climate change and role of landforms in urban development and natural hazard zonation. The rapidly growing studies on land resources have undergone a rapid change in content, methodology and approach to the study of landforms and their application in social and economic spheres. It has been observed that depletion of land resources is the greatest challenge in this century. Pressure on land is rapidly increasing due to increasing population for finite land resources.

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Allocation Efficiency, Influencing Factors and Optimization Path of Rural Land Resources: A Case Study in Fang County of Hubei Province, China

1 School of Public Administration, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), Wuhan 430074, China; moc.361@1102nibgnayguc (B.Y.); moc.361@0429gnahzd (D.Z.)

Zhanqi Wang

2 Department of Geography, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269, USA; ude.nnocu@gnahzob

Land resource allocation efficiency (LRAE) is a significant indicator in weighing regional socioeconomic development. The study of LRAE can provide useful references for optimizing the layout of rural land use and conducting village planning against the background of rural revitalization strategy. Taking Fang County of Hubei Province as an example, we constructed an efficiency measurement index system based on economic, social, and ecological objectives. The slack-based measure with undesirable output (SBM-Undesirable) model and geodetector model were used to evaluate the rural LRAE, influencing factors and optimization paths from 2011 to 2017. The results suggest that: (1) the rural LRAE in Fang County shows a steady upward trend, with an average increasing rate of 9.204%. The townships in the north and south of the study area have a low LRAE value, and townships in the central area have a high LRAE value. The number of villages at low or medium-low LRAE is decreasing, and the number of villages with medium-high or high LRAE continued to increase from 2011 to 2017. (2) The spatial variation in LRAE in Fang County is affected by physical geography conditions, rural development conditions, and urban-rural relations. The impact of the proportion of primary industry and rural population has always been influential on the LRAE. Physical geography conditions have a relatively strong impact on the LRAE, but their values are decreasing. The influences of the Engel coefficient, urbanization rate and gap between the rural and urban resident’s income have been continuously enhanced. (3) All land types have obvious input redundancies, and reducing these redundancies can help achieve the optimal allocation of rural land resources. In the future, it is of significance to prioritize low-carbon and green developments, and to promote sustainable rural development.

1. Introduction

Land is the fundamental resource for human survival and development by providing essential goods and services, such as food production, conservation of water and soil, climate regulation, environmental cleaning [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. However, there is a limited supply of land, therefore humans must intensely utilize land resources [ 4 , 5 ]. Particularly, the paradoxof limited land resources and a large population has become increasingly evident in China [ 6 , 7 ]. Rapid urbanization and economic development in this country have resulted in some serious issues, e.g., land resources mismatch (it refers to land misuse, such as farmland fragmentation, soil pollution, and the abandonment of cultivated land), environmental pollution, and extensive use of land resources [ 8 , 9 , 10 ]. Efficient land resource utilization is an important way to address these issues by achieving the maximum economic, social, and ecological benefits with a certain amount of inputs of resources and technology [ 1 , 11 , 12 ]. Therefore, improving land resource allocation efficiency (LRAE) is of great significance in promoting optimal utilization of land resources and guaranteeing sustainable regional development.

LRAE is a significant indicator in weighing regional socioeconomic development [ 13 , 14 , 15 ]. Scholars have conducted some research on the LRAE, including urban land allocation efficiency [ 13 ], agricultural land allocation efficiency [ 16 , 17 ], carbon emission efficiency [ 5 , 18 ], and their eco-environmental impacts [ 19 , 20 , 21 ]. As regards the research methods, location entropy [ 22 ], Cobb−Douglas production function [ 23 ], spatial Lorenz curve [ 24 ], and spatial econometric model [ 25 ] were applied to investigate the LRAE in terms of efficiency measurement, influencing factors, and their regional differences. In addition, some scholars analyzed the relationship between LRAE and socioeconomic development in regard to population growth [ 26 , 27 ], economic transformation [ 28 , 29 ], eco-environmental constraints [ 30 , 31 ], and resource utilization [ 32 , 33 ]. In general, these studies primarily focused on the LRAE of a specific land resource and have ignored the overarching efficiency of land resources. Land is a system, including numerous land resource types, e.g., construction land, arable land, woodland, water, grassland, and unutilized land. Exploring the overarching LRAE from the perspective of a land system is more objective to reveal the current situation of regional land resources and to facilitate their optimal utilization.

Recently, the concept of green and low-carbon development, which refers to a socioeconomic development mode and it places great emphasis on the importance of environmental protection, energy conservation and emissions reduction to promote sustainable regional development, continues to deepen. Some literature has focused on the studies of regional ecological security, carbon emissions, and environmental constraints and green development [ 30 , 34 , 35 , 36 ]. Hence, it is necessary to analyze the LRAE with the examination of eco-environmental constraints. However, few studies have discussed this topic. In this regard, we attempt to fill this gap by considering the multi-objective constraints (i.e., economy, society and ecology) of the LRAE in order to drive sustainable regional development.

Urbanization, as one of the most drastic processes of human transformation of land surface morphology, has profoundly changed regional land resource structures in China [ 37 , 38 , 39 ]. Existing literature primarily focuses on studies of the urbanization area, while the rural land, one of the important land sources for urbanization purposes, needs to be further explored. Therefore, we attempted to conduct a case study in rural areas of Fang County in Hubei Province and build a measurement index system of LRAE with regards to economic, social, and ecological objectives in this paper. Moreover, SBM-undesirable model and geodetector model were employed to investigate the rural LRAE, influencing factors, and optimization paths from 2011 to 2017. This study can provide a useful decision-making basis for optimizing rural land-use planning and rural public space governance.

2. Study Area

Fang County is located in the northwest of Hubei Province, China. It is in the hinterland of Qinba Mountain, covering a vast territory of 5117.86 km 2 ( Figure 1 ). In total, there are 20 townships and 291 villages in this region. Fang County is a typical mountainous area, with woodland being the main land-use type. Other land-use types include cultivated land, garden land (In the classification of land planning, garden land belongs to a kind of agricultural land. The garden can be subdivided into orchard, tea garden and other garden), grassland, water area, construction land and unutilized land. Farming is the main agricultural type, and the main economic crops are rice, wheat, corn, soybean and cotton. In 2017, there were 106,500 households and a population of 401,200 in the rural area of the county. Food production reached 98,100 tons, and the total economic income was 8.275 billion Yuan in 2017.

Location, elevation, and distribution of land-use types of Fang County in 2017.

3. Methodology and Data Sources

3.1. variable selection and data description.

LRAE refers to the optimization degree of land-use structures under a certain technical level. The index system includes both inputs and outputs. In this paper, we selected the input variables that included three aspects: land, labor, capital. Land refers to different land resource types, including cultivated land, garden, woodland, grassland, transportation land, water areas, construction land, and unutilized land. Labor refers to the population engaged in the primary industries. Capital refers to the fixed capital investment in rural areas. The output variables include the economic, social, and ecological benefits, as well as the undesirable outputs. In this study, the total GDP in rural areas was taken as the output variable of economic benefits [ 40 ]. The social benefits were represented by the annual income of the rural residents [ 41 ]. The ecological benefits were used to measure the impact of the land resource utilization on the eco-environment, which were represented by ecosystem services values [ 42 , 43 ]. In recent years, low-carbon land-use transformation is an important component of “green development” [ 44 , 45 ]. The carbon emissions from land use in rural areas are quite different. As the main sources of carbon emissions, production and residential land have negative effects on the regional eco-environment. On the other hand, ecological land, such as woodland, grassland, and water areas, can promote environmental purification through carbon absorption, which has a positive effect on the environment [ 46 ]. Therefore, we chose carbon emissions as the undesirable output. A summary of input and output variables is shown in Table 1 .

Index system of rural land resource allocation efficiency measurement.

Based on results from existing research [ 16 , 35 ], we formulate the total carbon emission as below:

where E k is the total carbon emission, i is a land-use type, e i represents the carbon emission from land-use type i , A i is the area of land-use type i , and δ i represents the carbon emission coefficient for land-use type i . By referring to previous studies [ 36 , 46 ], the carbon emission coefficients are determined as follows: 0.421 ton/(hm 2 ·a) for cultivated land, −0.731 ton/(hm 2 ·a) for garden land, −0.614 ton/(hm 2 ·a) for woodland, −0.022 ton/(hm 2 ·a) for grassland, 47.792 ton/(hm 2 ·a) for transportation land, −0.253 ton/(hm 2 ·a) for water areas, 33.651 ton/(hm 2 ·a) for construction land, 0.032 ton/(hm 2 ·a) for unutilized land.

The estimation of ecosystem services values mainly refers to the research results of Xie et al. [ 47 ]. Its formula is given as follows:

where E S V is the ecosystem services value (dollars), A k represents the area of land-use type k (hm 2 ), and V C k is the value coefficient for land-use type k (dollars/hm 2 ·a).

3.2. SBM-Undesirable Model

SBM-undesirable model was introduced by Tone [ 48 ]. This model was developed by the DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) model with the non-radial and non-angle. It can measure the invalid state of the relaxation variable from both input and output dimensions, which can overcome the radial angle shortcomings of traditional data envelope analysis, making the efficiency measurement more accurate [ 49 ]. The principles are as follows. We suppose that there are n decision units in the LRAE measurement system, and each unit contains three decision vectors, including inputs, desirable outputs, and undesirable outputs. The three vectors are x ∈ T m , y g ∈ T S 1 , y b ∈ T S 2 . Their corresponding matrixes are X = ( x i j ) ∈ T m × n , Y g = ( y i j g ) ∈ T S 1 × n , Y b = ( y i j b ) ∈ T S 2 × n . If X > 0 ,   Y g > 0 ,   Y b > 0 , then we set Q :

Therefore, the formula of SBM-undesirable model is:

where ρ is rural LRAE ( 0 ≤ ρ ≤ 1 ); m is the number of evaluation units; S − , S g , S b are slack variables for input, desirable output, and undesirable output, respectively, and S − ≥ 0 , S g ≥ 0 , S b ≥ 0 ; μ is weight vector and μ ≥ 0 .

3.3. Geodetector Model

The geodetector model was proposed to detect the spatial differentiation of geographical elements, factor influence, and multifactor interaction recognition [ 50 ]. The model was widely used in health risk assessment, socioeconomic, and ecology and environment studies [ 51 , 52 , 53 ]. Its formula is given as follows:

where q is the detector factors influencing the LRAE; n h is the number of sample units in the lower level regions; n is the number of sample units in the entire research area; L is the number of lower level regions; σ 2 is the variance of the rural LRAE in the entire research area; σ h 2 is the variance of the lower level research area. q ranges between [0, 1]. When q = 0 , it means that indicator has no effect on the rural LRAE; q = 1 indicates that the indicator has the strongest influence on the rural LRAE.

Previous studies on rural geography and land use have pointed out that physical geographical conditions are the basic elements that determine the spatial distribution of different types of land use, and they further impact the quantitative structure and spatial layout of land resources [ 11 , 53 ]. Meanwhile, rural population, socioeconomic development and industrial structures may lead to changes of land-use pattern and functions in rural areas [ 10 , 54 , 55 ]. In addition, urban-rural relations can impact the rural land-use structure to some extent [ 56 ]. Therefore, we built an indicator system to analyze the factors affecting the spatial heterogeneity of rural LRAE from three aspects, i.e., physical geographic conditions, rural development conditions and the urban-rural relationship. Specifically, physical geographic conditions refer to slope (X1) and elevation (X2). Rural development conditions refer to the proportion of primary industry (X3), rural population (X4) and Engel coefficient (X5). The urban-rural relationship refers to the urbanization rate (X6) and the gap between urban-rural per capita income (X7).

A summary of the variables representing influencing factors of rural LRAE is shown in Table 2 .

The variables representing influencing factors on rural land resource allocation efficiency (LRAE).

3.4. Data Sources

Land-use data in this study was obtained from the Bureau of Natural Resources and Planning in Fang County. Based on the continuity and availability of data, we chose the duration of 2011 to 2017 as our study period. Socioeconomic data was obtained from the Statistics Yearbook of Fang County in 2012–2018. The 30-m spatial resolution DEM data was obtained from the website of the Geospatial Data Cloud, Chinese Academy of Sciences ( http://www.gscloud.cn ).

4. Results and Discussion

4.1. dynamic measurement and analysis of rural lrae, 4.1.1. analysis of rural lrae at the county scale.

Based on the SBM-undesirable model, we calculated the rural LRAE at county scale of the study area from 2011 to 2017, as shown in Figure 2 . The results indicated that the efficiency from 2011 to 2017 was 0.389, 0.401, 0.408, 0.502, 0.513, 0.624, and 0.646, respectively. It showed a steady upward trend, with an average increasing rate of 9.204%. It may be due to the continuous efforts on rural development by local government in recent years. Some policies, such as the new rural construction, urban-rural overall development, poverty alleviation and rural revitalization programs, optimized the land-use structures and promoted the LRAE to some extent.

The rural LRAE at county scale of the study area from 2011 to 2017.

4.1.2. Analysis of Rural LRAE at Township Scale

The rural LRAE at township scale was obtained by using the SBM-undesirable model from 2011–2017 ( Figure 3 ). We also divided the LRAE values under the same classification scheme: low efficiency (<0.30), medium-low efficiency (0.30–0.50), medium-high efficiency (0.50–0.80), and high efficiency (>0.80). Overall, the townships in the north and south of the study area had low LRAE value, and townships in the central area had a high LRAE value. Chengguan, Hongta, Jundian, and Hualongyan in the central area always belonged to medium-high or high efficiency. In 2011, four townships had reached efficient LRAE (high level), namely, Damuchang, Chengguan, Hongta, and Hualongyan, which were concentrated in the central area of the county. Six townships had reached medium-high level, which were more evenly distributed across the county. Seven townships were at medium-low level, namely, Yerengu, Mengusi, Qingfeng, Zhongba, Jiudao, Shangkan, and Shahe. Three towns were at low level, namely, Wutai, Yaoping, and Huilong. In 2013, the high-level townships remained unchanged, but the efficiency of Chengguan, Hualongyan, and Damuchang and Hongta decreased. Eight townships were at the medium-high level, among which the efficiency of Wanyuhe, Baihe, Yaohuai, Chengtu, and Jundian increased, while Yinjifu decreased. There were six townships at the medium-low level, namely, Mengusi, Jiudao, Wutai, Shahe, Hongta, and Huilong, and their efficiencies were rising. Yinjifu and Yaoping remained the low-level efficiency. In 2015, a total of five townships were at the high-efficiency level. There were eight townships at medium-high level, which was the same as 2013. Hongta dropped from high-level to medium-high level efficiency, and Yinjifu and Shahe had improved rapidly and reached medium-high level efficiency. Five townships were at medium-low level, with the efficiency of Yerengu decreasing. However, there were two townships at low-level efficiency. The rural LRAE improved rapidly in 2017. There were eight townships reaching high-level efficiency. Hongta, Baihe, and Mengusi moved up to high level. Yerengu, Yaohuai, and Shangkan moved to medium-high level. The efficiency of Huilong and Jiudao improved, but they remain at medium-low level. Wutai was the only township with low efficiency.

Spatiotemporal distribution of rural LRAE at township scale in Fang County from 2011 to 2017.

4.1.3. Analysis of Rural LRAE at Village Scale

We took 135 villages in the study area as the research units and used the SBM-undesirable model to calculate the rural LRAE from 2011–2017. The results were analyzed based on the ArcGIS software ( Figure 4 ). Temporally, the number of villages at low or medium-low allocation efficiency level was decreasing, and the number of medium-high or high allocation efficiency level villages continued to increase from 2011 to 2017. In 2011, 233 villages were at low or medium-low level, 204 in 2013, 197 in 2015, and only 135 in 2017. In contrast, there were 72 villages at medium-high or high level in 2011, 101 in 2013, 108 in 2015, 170 in 2017. This indicated that the LRAE in Fang County was steadily increasing during the study period. Spatially, the LRAE showed a pattern of low–high–low from north to south in the study area. Villages in Chengguan, Hongta, Jundian, and Hualongyan of the central area always belonged to medium-high or high efficiency. To the south and north of the study area are mountains with high elevation and poor transportation infrastructure. The overall economic level in these villages is low, and largely sloping land conditions have further led to unfavorable cultivation and low land productivity. These factors result in low LRAE. On the other hand, the central region is characterized by river valley plains, which are relatively flat. Fertile soils make the cultivated land rich and further improve the land-use efficiency. In addition, the administrative center of this county is the central area, which has advantages in population, economy, transportation, and locational conditions. These factors have stronger space spillover effects on the surrounding villages which drive rural development. Therefore, land resource utilization in the central area is more intensive and the LRAE is at a higher level.

Spatiotemporal distribution of rural LRAE at village scale in Fang County from 2011 to 2017.

4.2. Analysis of Influencing Factors on Rural LRAE

We calculated the values of the factors X1–X7 based on the geodetector model ( Figure 5 ). The results showed that the spatial variation of LRAE was affected by physical geography, rural development conditions, and urban-rural relations. The influence values of these factors varied greatly. Overall, the orders of the factors were: proportion of primary industry (X3), rural population (X4), slope (X1), elevation (X2), Engel coefficient (X5), urbanization rate (X6), and gap between urban-rural per capita income (X7). Specifically, the proportion of primary industry had the strongest influence on the LRAE. The influence value was increasing year by year. Primary industry refers to agricultural production in rural areas, which has difficulty in supporting rural development [ 57 ]. In recent years, the government has been promoting rural development in Fang County and implementing a new mode of modern agricultural production and management. Several new industries including leisure agriculture, rural tourism, and local home-staying experience have also been developing. All these measures have driven rural development and improved the LRAE to some extent.

The results of influencing factors of rural LRAE in Fang County from 2011 to 2017.

The second important factor was rural population. Generally, population determines the demand of land for production, housing, transportation, and rural labor force. These factors further reflect the development potential of rural industry and land resource structure, which in turn affects the rural LRAE. Physical geography conditions, such as slope and elevation, have a strong influence on rural LRAE, but their importance is decreasing. The reason is that physical conditions are the basic factors determining the spatial distribution of land resources [ 58 ], which affect population distribution and land-use efficiency to some extent. However, with continuous development in rural areas, the constraints of physical geography conditions on land resource allocation are weakening. The Engel coefficient represented the economic development level of rural residents. In recent years, the living conditions have been improved significantly, which had a strong positive effect on the rural LRAE. The urbanization rate also had a great impact on the LRAE. The continuous outflow of rural residents to urban areas led to some issues, such as labor shortages, abandoned arable land, and idle rural settlements in some rural areas. These restricted the improvement of the LRAE to some extent. Additionally, urbanization took up a lot of rural land resources, and the land-use types converted from agricultural to urban land use [ 8 ]. This had a significant negative impact on the availability of rural land resources. The gap between urban-rural per capita income had the lowest impact on the LRAE, but its influence has been getting stronger. Therefore, some efforts should be made to narrow this gap and enhance rural development potential.

4.3. Optimal Path of Rural Land Resources Allocation

The SBM-undesirable model can not only measure the LRAE, but also improve the input-output volumes that have not reached the optimal efficiency. In this paper, we optimized the inputs and outputs of the LRAE based on the quantity and structure of rural land resources allocation of Fang County in 2017 ( Table 3 ).

Input and output optimization of rural land resources allocation in Fang County. Unit: %.

Overall, there was obvious input redundancy (It means extensive utilization and waste of land resources, and reducing them can save energy, protect the eco-environment, and achieve the goal of ecological and green developments) in all land resource types in Fang County. By reducing these input redundancies, land resources can be optimized ( Figure 6 ). Specifically, the redundancy rate of cultivated land was 8.47%, among which Baihe, Damuchang, Qingfeng, and Yerengu had the highest redundancy ratios, and Chengguan, Hualongyan, and Zhongba had the lowest ratios. With rapid urbanization in China, numerous farmers swarmed from their hometowns, causing a lot of cultivated land to be abandoned. At the same time, the requisition–compensation balance of farmland policy primarily focused on the quantity of cultivated land, but the quality and ecology were neglected, which affected the sustainable use of cultivated land [ 59 ]. Therefore, the government should pay more attention to the protection of cultivated land resources to achieve their efficient and sustainable utilization in mountainous areas. The redundancy rates of garden land, woodland, and grassland were 41.82%, 26.59%, and 35.87%, respectively. They were in a relatively high level of redundancies. The three land resource types, serving as “carbon sinks”, were important to reduce carbon emissions. In future, redundant land could be used as a reserve area for environmental protection and ecological compensation. The redundancy rates of transportation land and construction land were relatively low, with 7.74% and 11.51%, respectively. Recently, a large number of rural populations have been moving to urban areas. However, the area of transportation land and construction land has been increasing. It is necessary to manage the two land resource types and optimize their spatial layouts in the future. The degree of redundancy of the water areas was relatively high, with a rate of 24.28%. Water areas were mainly used for agricultural irrigation and drainage, which needed to fit the local conditions and be adapted with production land, e.g., cultivated land and garden land, to avoid wastage of resource allocation. Unutilized land had a redundancy rate of 27.08%, with a serious condition of redundancy. We should strengthen the exploitation and utilization of the unutilized land, and take them as important reserve sources to supplement cultivated land.

Optimal land-use map of Fang County in 2017.

From the perspective of outputs, after optimization of the rural land resources, the total GDP of the rural areas, annual income of rural residents, and ecosystem services values were expected to increase by 13.53%, 2.29%, and 19.55%, respectively. However, the total carbon emissions would increase by 3.43%. Excessive carbon emissions have some negative impacts on the eco-environment and affect the sustainable use of land resources. Therefore, it is important to prioritize ecological and green developing (This is a socioeconomic development mode, which places great emphasis on the importance of environmental protection, energy conservation and emissions reduction to promote sustainable regional development), and to optimize the spatial pattern of land use. Only in this way can we improve the LRAE and promote sustainable rural development.

5. Conclusions and Policy Implications

5.1. summary.

In this paper, we conducted a case study in Fang County of Hubei Province and investigated the LRAE, its influencing factors and optimization path of the region from 2011–2017 by using SBM-undesirable model and geodetector model. The main conclusions are as follows:

(1) From 2011 to 2017, the rural LRAE values in Fang County were 0.389, 0.401, 0.408, 0.502, 0.513, 0.624, and 0.646, respectively. The efficiency showed a steady upward trend, with an average increasing rate of 9.204%. The townships in the north and south of the study area had low LRAE values, and townships in central area had high LRAE values. Chengguan, Hongta, Jundian, and Hualongyan in the center area always belonged to medium-high or high efficiency. Temporally, the number of villages at low or medium-low allocation efficiency level was decreasing, and the number of medium-high or high allocation efficiency level villages continued to increase from 2011 to 2017. Spatially, the LRAE showed a pattern of low-high-low from north to south in the study area.

(2) The spatial variation of LRAE in Fang County was affected by physical geography conditions, rural development conditions, and urban-rural relations. The different factors varied greatly. The impact of the proportion of primary industry and rural population has always been influential to the LRAE. Physical geography conditions, such as slope and elevation, had a relatively strong impact on the efficiency, but their values were decreasing. The influences of the Engel coefficient, urbanization rate and the gap between the rural and urban resident’s income on the LRAE have been continuously enhanced.

(3) In the process of rural land resource allocation in Fang County, all land resource types had obvious input redundancies. The redundancy rates of garden land, woodland, and grassland were at a high level, and that of cultivated land and transportation land were at a low level. Reducing these redundancies can help achieve the optimal allocation of rural land resources. From the perspective of outputs, the total GDP of rural areas, annual income of rural resident, and ecosystem services values were expected to increase by 13.53%, 2.29%, and 19.55%, respectively, after optimization of land resource allocation. However, the total carbon emissions would also increase by 3.43%. Therefore, it was of significance to prioritize low-carbon and green developments, and to promote sustainable rural development.

5.2. Policy Implications

Land is the fundamental resource in rural areas. It can provide several functions and services, such as rural settlements, food production, and ecological services [ 37 , 60 ]. It is also an important carrier for realizing rural revitalization strategy [ 61 ]. The Chinese rural land system includes the separating of the “three rights” of land, i.e., ownership rights, contractor rights, and operating rights [ 62 , 63 ]. Famers can have the contractor rights and operating rights, and ownership rights belong to the country. If one famer does not want to operate his or her farmland, he or she could transfer the operating rights to another famer, but the first famer also has the contractor rights. It is also called the farmland transfer in China [ 64 ]. This system can effectively avoid farmland being abandoned and improve land-use efficiency [ 65 ].

Based on the study on rural LRAE in this paper, we attempt to put forward the following policy implications to promote the utilization and management of rural land resources in China. First, the government should continue to deepen reform of the rural land system and improve the system for separating the “three rights” of rural land. We should carry out farmland transfer as soon as possible. Meanwhile, policy makers should pay attention to the cultivation of new agricultural operation entities so as to lay a good foundation for the modernized agricultural production. Second, the government should rely on the reform of the rural homestead system to revitalize idle homesteads in rural areas. Some measures, such as paid transfers or paid selling, could be taken to reduce the redundancy of rural construction land and improve the rural land market trading system to protect farmers’ legal rights. Third, comprehensive land consolidation in rural areas should be conducted to promote the overall improvement of farmland and construction land in order to revitalize inefficient land resources. In this way we could optimize land-use structure and improve land use-efficiency. Lastly, the government should promote the development of rural industrialization. We should develop new industries, such as recreational agriculture, rural tourism and cultural experiences, to further help to increase farmers’ incomes and promote rural revitalization.

However, this study has several limitations. First, the selection of the index system and the interaction mechanism between the influencing factors need to be further improved. Second, how to guide the implementation of village planning and land spatial governance based on the results of this study is unclear. Hence, future studies should focus on formulating an optimal land resource utilization plan based on spatial distribution and regional differences of LRAE, and to promote the overall development of urban and rural areas under the background of national rural revitalization.

Author Contributions

B.Y. and Z.W. conceived and designed this study. B.Z. analyzed the data. D.Z. drew the figures. B.Y. wrote the paper. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

This research was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71673258), and the Fundamental Research Funds for National Universities, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) (Grant No. G1323519339).

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Case Study on Land Resources

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Current World Environment

An international research journal of environmental science.

ISSN:0973-4929, Online ISSN:2320-8031

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Natural Resource Management in Eastern Himalaya: A case study of fringe Villages of Shergaon Forest Division, Arunachal Pradesh

Govinda Pangging 1 * , Madhubala Sharma 1 , Chaman Lal Sharma 1 and Aribam Sandeep Sharma 1

Corresponding author Email: [email protected]

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12944/CWE.11.3.15

The natural resource management (NRM) practice has been considered as an important aspect of ethnic communities. The present study emphasized on the documentation of NRM practices of the Sherdukpen tribe of Arunachal Pradesh. The study was done in the three fringe villages Membachur, Mukhuthing and Thongre of Shergaon Forest division, West Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh. The data was collected  from 97 informants through questionnaire. The NRM practices of Sherdukpen tribe consisted of traditional maize cultivation, management of individual forest, community forest, etc. About 90% of the tribe are involved in farming practice. The average agricultural land holding and average individual forest land holding per HH that range from 0.72 ha to 1.2 ha and 0.6 ha to 0.8 ha, respectively.

Copy the following to cite this article:

Pangging G, Sharma M, Sharma C. L, Sharma A. S. Natural Resource Management in eastern Himalaya: A case study of fringe Villages of Shergaon Forest Division, Arunachal Pradesh. Curr World Environ 2016;11(3). DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12944/CWE.11.3.15

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Pangging G, Sharma M, Sharma C. L, Sharma A. S. Natural Resource Management in eastern Himalaya: A case study of fringe Villages of Shergaon Forest Division, Arunachal Pradesh. Curr World Environ 2016;11(3). Available from: http://www.cwejournal.org/?p=16

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Article Publishing History

Introduction Natural resource management (NRM) has been considered as one of the important social-cultural practices of the local community since time immemorial. It has been practiced worldwide for meeting the social, cultural and economic needs. The eastern Himalaya is world widely renowned as a biodiversity hotspot. 1  The traditional knowledge system (TKS) of local people is unique and  is used for managing the valuable natural resources. 2,3  However, resource utilization is mostly done at sustenance level. 4,5  Traditional forest management is an important aspect of NRM that has direct or indirect link with other land use systems like farming system, agroforestry, etc., 4  The informal institution, locally known as village council, plays a significant role in the management and resolving inter/intra village conflict in NRM practices. 6,7  The traditional knowledge of ethnic community helps in the utilization & conservation of natural resources. 8 Arunachal Pradesh is one of the 29 states of India, which is an integral part of eastern Himalaya. 9  It has diverse ethnicity, biological diversity, endemism and unique natural resource management practices. The Shedukpen tribe is one of the tribes of Arunachal Pradesh and mainly settled in the West Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh. 10  The agriculture is the main occupation of Sherdukpen tribe. 11  and they also practice terrace cultivation for agriculture. 12 The main agricultural and horticultural crops raised are tomato, potato and apple. 11  The faunal resources are conserved at the regional level through imposing taboos, totem and establishment of sacred sites. 13,14  The religious practices of the tribe also help in the conservation of biological diversity by utilizing certain plants. 15 The village council of Sherdukpen is called Jung and it play an important role in the management and conservation of natural resources. 10  Hunting has been considered as a traditional practice of Sherdukpen tribe and the village council played an important role in its regulation at village level. 13  The forest has been classified into five types: Blu dongsek (Community forest) , khik donsek (Village forest) , Sangthing dongsek (Individual forest) , Donsek achok (Sacred groves) and Nyor see (Grazing land). 10 The present study aims to document the NRM practices of Sherdukpen tribe of Arunachal Pradesh, which may help in the conservation of biological resources and also assist in finding the gap in the existing NRM practices, which will collectively contribute in the attainment of sustainable development through NRM. 16,17,18 Materials and Methods Three fringe villages of Shergaon Forest Division, Arunachal Pradesh viz. Membachur, Mukhuthing and Thongre have been selected for the study. The study site was located in the West Kameng District of Arunachal Pradesh. It is situated between 91⁰30’ to 92⁰40’ E longitude and 26⁰56’ to 28⁰01’ N latitude. The land use pattern of the West Kamang district consisted of cultivable land, forest land, pastoral land, etc. (Table 1). The household survey was done with standardized questionnaire through random sampling and 97 households were interviewed. The information related to social aspects, economical aspect and ecological aspect were collected from the respondents based on age groups, educational status, gender, village head (Gaon Bura), etc. The data was collected for a period of 4 months i.e., December, 2011 to April, 2012. Table 1: Land use pattern of West Kameng district.

Source: Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Ministry of agriculture, Govt. of India (2011-2012) Results and Discussion Socioeconomic Condition Sherdukpen tribe is found to be the dominant tribe among the selected villages viz., Membachur, Mukhuthing and Thongri. About 90% of the respondent follows the Buddhism religion. The prevalent family type found is joint family that ranges from 78% to 86%. The highest number of family members per household is found in Membachur village, which is 6 (six), followed by Thongri (5) and Mukhuthing (5). The highest literacy rate is found in Thongri village, which is 61%, followed by Membachur (40%) and Mukhuthing (35%). In all the selected villages, traditional village council and Panchayati raj institution are co-existing and plays an important role in the management of natural resources (Table 2). Table 2: Socio-cultural status of Shedukpen tribes of fringe villages of Shergaon Forest division.

The average annual income of the household of the selected fringe villages varies from Rs. 47,000 to Rs. 1,35,000. Farming is the main occupation of the tribe and ranges from 90% to 95%. However, merely 5% to 15% of the populations are under government job (Table 3). Table 3: Economic aspect of the Shedukpen tribe.

The highest average agricultural land holding per household (HH) is found in Thongri village, which is about 1.2 ha, followed by Membachur village (0.8 ha) and Mukhuthing village (0.72 ha). The highest average forest land holding per HH is found in both Mukhuthing village and Membachur village which is about 0.8 ha (Table 4). Table 4: Landholding of the villages.

Documentation of Natural Resource Management of Sherdukpen tribe The NRM practices of the Sherdupen tribe consists of traditional maize cultivation, community forest, individual forest management, etc. (Table 5). Table 5: Documentation of traditional natural resource management practices of Sherdukpens tribe.

In the present study, agriculture is reported as a the main occupation of Sherdukpen tribe, which is similar to the findings of Shimrah et al. 11  The leaves of Quercus sp. is traditionally utilized for Zea mays cultivation, which help in replenishing the nutrient loss, mulching, etc., and similar finding was reported by Dollo et al., 10  Forest played an important role in meeting the needs of social, cultural and religious aspect of Sherdukpen tribe. It has been classified based on ownership, such as (i) community forest and (ii) individual forest. The community forest (CF) is further classified into two sub-types based on the function such as (i) CF (exclusively for religious purposes) and (ii) CF (meeting the requirement of the local people). However, five types of forest have been reported based on land use viz., community forest, village forest, individual forest, sacred groves and community grazing land by Dollo et al., 10  Hunting has been reported to be traditional practices of Sherdukpen, which is similar to the finding of Mazumdar et al., 13  The village council is a traditional institution, which played an important role in the management and conservation of forest resources, which is similar to findings of Mazumdar et al., 13 The NRM practices of the Sherdukpen tribes are diverse and this practice not only helps in meeting the basic needs of the community but also helps in the protection of biological diversity. At present, the traditional land use systems are under constant anthropogenic pressure due to change in land use pattern. In Arunachal Pradesh, the area of maize cultivation has been declining gradually from 15.1% (1990-91) to 12.07% (2013-14). 18  A similar trend has been found in the studied fringe villages of the Shergaon Forest Division. Although, the traditional maize cultivation provides various goods and environmental services viz. staple food, supplements the fodder requirement during the winter, soil and water conservation, conservation of Quercus sp ., etc. This form of farming need to be preserved and restored as it fulfills all the aspects of sustainable development principle. At present, the area under horticultural crop in Arunachal Pradesh has tremendously increased from 7.4% (1990-91) to 22.86% (2013-14). 18  Both cash cropping and horticultural crop are also exerting pressure on the Community forest land, which are gradually converted due to better economic return and scarcity of land resource. Moreover, the use of inorganic chemical inputs in these land use systems is a matter of concern, which needs to be replaced with organic farming and complimentary land use systems. Conclusion The NRM practices of Sherdukpen tribe consist of traditional maize cultivation, cash cropping, horticultural crop, individual forest and community forest management. These natural resource management practices meet all the needs of the community viz., social, cultural and economic needs. However, change in forest and traditional agricultural land use system to cash cropping and horticulture may affect the traditional NRM practices of Sherdukpen tribe in the long run and is a matter of concern from the conservation of biological diversity point of view. At the transaction stage of state development, the interlinking of sectoral policies should be emphasized and there should be a synergy between development activities and conservation of biological diversity at all levels. Acknowledgement The authors are grateful to the villagers of Membachur, Thongri and Mukhuthing village of Rupa, West Kameng district and DFO, Shergaon Forest Division, Arunachal Pradesh for extending their cooperation. References  

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• Bharali, S and Khan, M.L. Religious taboo among the tribes of West Kameng – an excellent traditional system of conserving biodiversity. Current Science . 103(8) (2012).
• Samal, P.K., Mazumdar, K., Megejee, D., and Dollo, M.  Culture linked biodiversity conservation values of Monpas and Sherdukpens of Arunachal Pradesh. In Ramakrishnan, P.S., Saxena, K.G., Rao, K.S. and Sharma, G (eds.), Cultural Landscape The basis for linking biodiversity conservation with the sustainable development, UNESCO , NIE , New Delhi 92-103 (2012)
• Convention on Biological diversity. Rio de Janeiro (Brasil), 5 th June 1992.
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Creating culturally-informed protocols for a stunting intervention using a situated values-based approach ( WeValue InSitu ): a double case study in Indonesia and Senegal

• Annabel J. Chapman 1 ,
• Chike C. Ebido 2 , 3 ,
• Rahel Neh Tening 2 ,
• Yanyan Huang 2 ,
• Ndèye Marème Sougou 4 ,
• Risatianti Kolopaking 5 , 6 ,
• Amadou H. Diallo 7 ,
• Rita Anggorowati 6 , 8 ,
• Fatou B. Dial 9 ,
• Jessica Massonnié 10 , 11 ,
• Mahsa Firoozmand 1 ,
• Cheikh El Hadji Abdoulaye Niang 9 &
• Marie K. Harder 1 , 2  

BMC Public Health volume  24 , Article number:  987 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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International development work involves external partners bringing expertise, resources, and management for local interventions in LMICs, but there is often a gap in understandings of relevant local shared values. There is a widespread need to better design interventions which accommodate relevant elements of local culture, as emphasised by recent discussions in global health research regarding neo-colonialism. One recent innovation is the concept of producing ‘cultural protocols’ to precede and guide community engagement or intervention design, but without suggestions for generating them. This study explores and demonstrates the potential of an approach taken from another field, named WeValue InSitu , to generate local culturally-informed protocols. WeValue InSitu engages stakeholder groups in meaning-making processes which ‘crystallize’ their envelope of local shared values, making them communicable to outsiders.

Our research context is understanding and reducing child stunting, including developing interventions, carried out at the Senegal and Indonesia sites of the UKRI GCRF Action Against Stunting Hub. Each national research team involves eight health disciplines from micro-nutrition to epigenetics, and extensive collection of samples and questionnaires. Local culturally-informed protocols would be generally valuable to pre-inform engagement and intervention designs. Here we explore generating them by immediately following the group WeValue InSitu crystallization process with specialised focus group discussions exploring: what local life practices potentially have significant influence on the environments affecting child stunting, and which cultural elements do they highlight as relevant. The discussions will be framed by the shared values, and reveal linkages to them. In this study, stakeholder groups like fathers, mothers, teachers, market traders, administrators, farmers and health workers were recruited, totalling 83 participants across 20 groups. Themes found relevant for a culturally-informed protocol for locally-acceptable food interventions included: specific gender roles; social hierarchies; health service access challenges; traditional beliefs around malnutrition; and attitudes to accepting outside help. The concept of a grounded culturally-informed protocol, and the use of WeValue InSitu to generate it, has thus been demonstrated here. Future work to scope out the advantages and limitations compared to deductive culture studies, and to using other formative research methods would now be useful.

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Although progress has been made towards the SDG of ‘Zero Hunger by 2025’, the global rates of malnutrition and stunting are still high [ 1 ]. Over the past 20 years, researchers have implemented interventions to reduce undernutrition, specifically focussing on the first 1000 days of life, from conception to 24 months [ 2 ]. However, due to both differing determinants between countries [ 3 , 4 ] as well as varying contextual factors, it is clear that no single fixed approach or combination of approaches can be relied on when implementing stunting interventions [ 5 , 6 , 7 ]. Furthermore, when external researchers design interventions for local areas in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) they can often overlook relevant local cultural factors that consequently act as barriers to intervention uptake and reduce their effectiveness, such as geographical factors and the levels of migration in certain populations [ 8 , 9 ], or social norms or perceptions relating to accepting outside help, and power dynamics related to gender [ 10 , 11 , 12 ]. The inclusion of cultural level factors in behaviour change interventions has been proposed as a requirement for effective interventions [ 13 ]. However, despite the breadth of literature highlighting the negative impacts from failing to do this, the lack of integration or even regard of local culture remains a persistent problem in Global Health Research [ 14 ], possibly hindering progress towards the SDGs. Thus, there is a need for approaches to integrate local cultural elements into intervention design.

This lack of understanding of relevant local culture, social norms and shared values also has ethical implications. The field of Global Health Ethics was predominantly developed in the Global North, in High Income Countries (HICs), embedding values common in those countries such as the prominence of individual autonomy [ 15 , 16 ]. Researchers from HICs carrying out research in LMICs may wrongly assume that values held in the Global North are universal [ 14 ] and disregard some local values, such as those related to family and collective decision making, which are core to many communities in LMICs. It is therefore important for outside researchers to have an understanding of relevant local values, culture and social norms before conducting research in LMICs so as not to impose values that do not align with local culture and inadvertently cause harm or offence [ 16 , 17 ]. The importance of this is compounded by the colonial history that is often present in relationships between research communities in HICs and LMICs, and the fact that the majority of the funding and leading institutions are still located in the Global North [ 18 , 19 ]. Thus, conscious steps must be taken to avoid neo-colonialism in Global Health Research [ 20 ]. From a health-equity perspective, it is essential to ensure that those in vulnerable communities are not hindered from involvement in interventions to improve nutrition. Encouraging uptake by such communities could be provided if salient local shared values, norms and culture were taken into account [ 21 ].

In a recent paper, Memon et al., (2021) highlight the usefulness of first creating a cultural protocol that can precede and guide subsequent stages of community engagement or intervention design to ensure that salient local values are known to external researchers coming into the community [ 16 ]. We adopt the use of the concept of a cultural protocol, referring to locally-generated guidance about key values, norms, behaviours and customs relevant to working with the local community. However, we prefer the term, ‘culturally-informed protocol’ since this relates to only cultural elements deemed salient by the researchers, and locally, rather than any comprehensive notion of culture, nor extending beyond the research context.

Memon et al. (2021), point out links between the creation of such a protocol and existing codes of practice that have already been created for some cultures such as the Te Ara Tika, a Guideline for Māori Research Ethics [ 22 ]. Currently, research and interventions in Global Health can be informed by a stage of formative research involving one-to-one interviews, focus groups or direct observations, which can sometimes be ethnographic in nature such as within Focussed Ethnographic Studies or Rapid Assessment Procedures [ 23 , 24 , 25 ]. Although these methods can be effective to inform intervention designs, they have disadvantages like: can take long periods to complete [ 26 ], can be resource intensive [ 26 ] and can lack cultural acceptability [ 27 ]. These limitations may account for the frequent neglect of their use generally, highlighted by Aubel and Chibanda (2022) [ 14 ]. Additionally, none of these methods work towards making explicit local values, or towards the creation of a culturally-informed protocol. In brief, the literature suggests a need to develop alternative methods of Formative Research for understanding locally relevant cultural elements, that are less time-consuming and can generate data that is more easily translatable to intervention design. In addition, these approaches must be applicable in different cultures. Additionally, the protocols produced must be actionable and practical not only for guiding interactions between research teams but also for guiding the initial stages of intervention design.

The work presented here aims to address several of these needs. It includes an exploration of the usefulness of the WeValue InSitu ( WVIS ) approach because that has previously been shown, in environmental management domains, to offer a way to gather in-depth values-based perspectives from a target population [ 28 , 29 ] It was first created through action research, and co-designed to enable civil society organisations to better understand and measure the values-based aspects of their work [ 30 ]. The core WeValue InSitu process (detailed in Table 1 ) involves the crystallization of shared values, with a facilitator guiding a group of participants with shared experiences, through cycles of tacit meaning-making (using a stage of photo-elicitation and triggering) [ 31 ], until they can articulate more explicitly their shared values, in concise and precise statements. These statements are then linked together in a framework by the participants. In an example case in Nigeria, the results of the WVIS approach hinted at the creation of a culturally-informed protocol through an analysis of the shared values frameworks to find cultural themes for the creation of an indicator tool that was used to evaluate several development scenarios based on their social acceptability [ 29 ].

Furthermore, it has been found that if a group of WVIS participants take part in a specialised focus group discussion (FGD), named Perspectives EXploration (PEX:FGD) immediately afterward the main workshop, then they easily and articulately express their perspectives on the topics raised for discussion - and with allusions to the shared values they had crystallised just prior. In an example from Shanghai, the PEX:FGDs focussed on eliciting perspectives on climate change, which were shown to be closely linked with the cultural themes existing within the shared values frameworks produced immediately prior [ 32 ]. In that case, the PEX:FGDs allowed the cultural themes generated during the main WVIS workshop to be linked more closely to the research question. Those results suggested that the WVIS plus PEX:FGD approach could be used to create a specialised culturally-informed protocol for improved intervention design.

In the study presented here, the WVIS approach was explored for the purpose of creating culturally-informed protocols to inform the planning of interventions within two localities of the UKRI GCRF Action Against Stunting Hub [ 33 ]. The work was carried out in two parts. Firstly, the WVIS main workshop was used to elicit cultural themes within the target communities, indicating key elements to consider to ensure ethical engagement. Secondly, the PEX focus group discussions focussed on life practices related to stunting which we explored for the purpose of tailoring the culturally-informed protocols to the specific purpose of improving the design of an example intervention. The Action Against Stunting Hub works across three sites where stunting is highly prevalent but via different determinants: East Lombok in Indonesia (estimated 36% of under-fives stunted), Kaffrine in Senegal (estimated 16% of under-fives stunted) and Hyderabad in India (estimated 48% of under-fives stunted) [ 34 ]. We propose that, the information about local shared values in a given site could be used to inform the design of several interventions, but for our specific exploration the focus here is a proposed ‘egg intervention’, in which pregnant women would be provided with an egg three times per week as supplement to their diet. This study proposes that identifying shared values within a community, alongside information about local life practices, provides critical cultural information on the potential acceptability and uptake of this intervention which can be used to generate culturally-informed protocols consisting of recommendations for improved intervention design.

In this paper we aim to explore the use of the WVIS approach to create culturally-informed protocols to guide engagement and inform the design of localised egg interventions to alleviate stunting in East Lombok, Indonesia and Kaffrine, Senegal. We do this by analysing data about local shared values that are crystallized using the WeValue InSitu ( WVIS ) process to provide clear articulation of local values, followed by an analysis of life practices discussed during PEX:FGD to tailor the culturally-informed protocols for the specific intervention design.

Study setting

This research was exploratory rather than explanatory in nature. The emphasis was on demonstrating the usefulness of the WeValue InSitu ( WVIS ) approach to develop culturally-informed protocols of practical use in intervention design, in different cultural sites. This study was set within a broader shared-values workstream within the UKRI GCRF Action Against Stunting Hub project [ 33 ]. The Hub project, which was co-designed and co-researched by researchers from UK, Indonesia, Senegal and India, involves cohorts of 500 women and their babies in each site through pregnancy to 24 months old, using cross-disciplinary studies across gut health, nutrition, food systems, micro-nutrition, home environment, WASH, epigenetics and child development to develop a typology of stunting. Alongside these health studies are studies of the shared values of the communities, obtained via the WVIS approach described here, to understand the cultural contexts of that diverse health data. In this study the data from East Lombok, Indonesia and Kaffrine, Senegal were used: India’s data were not yet ready, and these two countries were deemed sufficient for this exploratory investigation.

The WVIS approach

The WVIS approach is a grounded scaffolding process which facilitates groups of people to make explicit their shared values in their own vocabulary and within their own frames (details in Fig. 1 and activities in Table 1 ). The first stage of the WVIS is Contextualisation, whereby the group identifies themselves and set the context of their shared experiences, for example, as ‘mothers in East Lombok, Indonesia’. Subsequently, there is a stage of Photo Elicitation, in which the group are first asked to consider what is important, meaningful or worthwhile to them about their context (e.g., ‘being mothers in East Lombok, Indonesia’) and then asked to choose photos from a localised set that they can use as props to help describe their answer to the group [ 29 ]. After this, a localised Trigger List is used. This Trigger List consists of 109 values statements that act as prompts for the group. Examples of these values statements are included below but all the statements begin with “it is important to me/us that…”. The group are asked to choose which statements within the trigger list resonate with them, and those are taken forward for group intersubjective discussion. After a topic of their shared values has been explored, the group begin to articulate and write down their own unique statements of them. These also all begin with “It is important to me/us that…”. After discussing all pressing topics, the group links the written statements on the table into a unique Framework, and one member provides a narrative to communicate it to ‘outsiders’. The WVIS provides a lens of each group’s local shared values, and it is through this lens that they view the topics in the focus group discussions which immediately follow, termed Perspectives EXplorations (PEX:FGDs).

Schematic of the macro-level activities carried out during the WeValue InSitu ( WVIS ) main workshop session

This results in very grounded perspectives being offered, of a different nature to those obtained in questionnaires or using external frameworks [ 31 ]. The specific PEX:FGD topics are chosen as pertinent to stunting contextual issues, including eating habits, food systems and environments, early educational environments, and perceptions of stunting. The local researchers ensured that all topics were handled sensitively, with none that could cause distress to the participants. The data for this study were collected over 2 weeks within December 2019–January 2020 in workshops in East Lombok, Indonesia, and 2 weeks within December 2020 in Kaffrine, Senegal.

The PEX:FGDs were kept open-ended so that participants could dictate the direction of the discussion, which allowed for topics that may not have been pre-considered by the facilitators to arise. Sessions were facilitated by local indigenous researchers, guided in process by researchers more experienced in the approach, and were carried out in the local languages, Bahasa in East Lombok, Indonesia and French or Wolof in Kaffrine, Senegal.

Development of localised WVIS materials

Important to the WVIS approach is the development of localised materials (Table 1 ). The main trigger list has been found applicable in globalised places where English is the first language, but otherwise the trigger lists are locally generated in the local language, incorporating local vocabulary and ways of thinking. To generate these, 5–8 specific interviews are taken with local community members, by indigenous university researchers, eliciting local phrases and ways of thinking. This is a necessary step because shared tacit values cannot be easily accessed without using local language. Examples of localised Trigger Statements produced this way are given below: (they all start with: “It is important to me/us that…”):

…there is solidarity and mutual aid between the people

…I can still be in communication with my children, even if far away

…husbands are responsible for the care of their wives and family

…the town council fulfils its responsibility to meet our needs

…people are not afraid of hard, and even manual work

Study participants

The group participants targeted for recruitment, were selected by local country Hub co-researchers to meet two sets of requirements. For suitability for the WVIS approach they should be between 3 and 12 in number; belong to naturally existing groups that have some history of shared experiences; are over 18 years old; do not include members holding significantly more power than others; and speak the same native language. For suitability in the PEX:FGD to offer life practices with relevance to the research topic of stunting, the groups were chosen to represent stakeholders with connections to the food or learning environment of children (which the Action Against Stunting Hub refer to as the Whole Child approach) [ 33 ]. The university researchers specialising in shared values from the UK, and Senegal and Indonesia respectively, discussed together which stakeholder groups might be appropriate to recruit. The local researchers made the final decisions. Each group was taken through both a WVIS workshop and the immediately-subsequent PEX:FGD.

Data collection and analysis

Standard data output from the WeValue session includes i) the jointly-negotiated bespoke Statements of shared values, linked together in their unique Framework, and ii) an oral recording of a descriptive Narrative of it, given by the group. These were digitized to produce a single presentation for each group as in Fig. 2 . It represents the synthesised culmination of the crystallisation process: a portrait of what was ‘important’ to each stakeholder group. Separately, statements from the group about the authenticity/ownership of the statements are collected.

An illustrative example of one digitized Shared Values Framework and accompanying Narrative from a teacher’s group in East Lombok, Indonesia. The “…” refers to each statement being preceded by “It is important to us that…”

When these Frameworks of ‘Statements of Shared Values’ are viewed across all the groups from one locality (Locality Shared Values Statements), they provide portraits of ‘what is important’ to people living there, often in intimate detail and language. They can be used to communicate to ‘outsiders’ what the general cultural shared values are. In this work the researchers thematically coded them using Charmaz constructionist grounded theory coding [ 35 ] to find broad Major Cultural Themes within each separate locality.

The second area of data collection was in the post- WVIS event: the PEX:FGD for each group. A translator/interpreter provided a running commentary during these discussions, which was audio recorded and then transcribed. The specific topics raised for each group to discuss varied depending on their local expertise. This required completely separate workstreams of coding of the dataset with respect to each topic. This was carried out independently by two researchers: one from UK (using NVivo software (Release 1.3.1)) and one from the local country, who resolved any small differences. All the transcripts were then collated and inductively, interpretively analysed to draw out insights that should be relayed back to the Action Against Stunting Hub teams as contextual material.

The extracts of discussion which were identified as relevant within a particular Hub theme (e.g. hygiene) were then meta-ethnographically synthesised [ 36 ] into ‘Hub Theme Statements’ on each topic, which became the core data for later communication and interrogation by other researchers within the Action Against Stunting Hub. These statements are interpretations of participants’ intended meanings, and links from each of them to data quotes were maintained, enabling future interpretations to refer to them for consistency checks between received and intended meaning.

In this investigation, those Hub Theme Statements (derived from PEX:FGD transcripts) were then deductively coded with respect to any topics with potential implications of the egg intervention. Literature regarding barriers and facilitators to nutrition interventions indicated the following topics could be relevant: attitudes to accepting help; community interactions; cooking and eating habits; traditional beliefs about malnutrition; sharing; social hierarchies [ 12 , 37 , 38 ] to which we added anything related to pregnancy or eggs. This analysis produced our Egg Intervention Themes from the data.

The Major Cultural Themes and Egg Intervention Themes were then used to create a set of culture-based recommendations and intervention specific recommendations respectively for each locality. These recommendations were then combined to form specialized culturally-informed protocols for the egg intervention in each locality: East Lombok, Indonesia and Kaffrine, Senegal. The process is displayed schematically in Fig.  3 .

Schematic representation of the method of production of the culturally-informed protocol for each locality

The preparation of the localised WVIS materials at each site took 6 hours of interview field work, and 40 person hours for analysis. The 10 workshops and data summaries were concluded within 10 workdays by two people (80 person hours). The analysis of the PEX:FGD data took a further 80 person hours. Thus, the total research time was approximately 200 person hours.

The stakeholder group types are summarised in Table 2 . The data is presented in three parts. Firstly, the Major Cultural Themes found in East Lombok, Indonesia and in Kaffrine, Senegal are described – the ones most heavily emphasised by participants. Then, the Egg Intervention Themes and finally, the combined set of Recommendations to comprise a culturally-informed protocol for intervention design for each location. Quotations are labelled INDO or SEN for East Lombok, Indonesia and Kaffrine, Senegal, respectively.

Major cultural themes from frameworks and narratives

These were derived from the Locality Shared Values Statements produced in the WVIS .

East Lombok, Indonesia

Religious values.

Islamic values were crucially important for participants from East Lombok, Indonesia and to their way of life. Through living by the Quran, participating in Islamic community practices, and teaching Islamic values to their children, participants felt they develop their spirituality and guarantee a better afterlife for themselves and their children. Participants stated the Quran tells them to breastfeed their children for 2 years, so they do. Despite no explicit religious official curriculum in Kindergarten, the teachers stated that it was important to incorporate religious teaching.

“East Lombok people always uphold the religious values of all aspects of social life.”

“It is important for me to still teach religious values even though they are not clearly stated in the curriculum.” – Workshop 1 INDO (teachers).

“In Quran for instance, we are told to breastfeed our kids for 2 years. We can even learn about that ” – Workshop 3 INDO (mothers).

Related to this was the importance of teaching manners to children and preventing them from saying harsh words. Teachers stated that it was important to create a happy environment for the children and to ensure that they are polite and well-behaved. Similarly, mothers emphasised the need to teach their children good religious values to ensure they will be polite and helpful to their elders.

“Children don’t speak harsh words.”

“My children can help me like what I did to my parents”.

– Workshop 8 INDO (mothers).

Togetherness within families and the community

The Locality Shared Values Frameworks stressed the importance of togetherness, both within family and community. Comments mentioned it being important that people rely heavily on their family and come together in times of need to support each other and provide motivation. This was also important more broadly, in that people in society should support each other, and that children grow up to contribute to society. This was also reflected in comments around roles within the family. Despite women being primary care givers, and men working to finance the family, participants stated that they follow a process of consultation to make decisions, and when facing hardships.

“that we have the sense of kinship throughout our society”.

“We have togetherness as mothers”.

“For the family side, whatever happens we need to be able to be united as a whole family. We need to have the [sense of] forgiveness for the sake of the children” – Workshop 2 INDO (mothers).

Attitudes about extra-marital pregnancy

In East Lombok, Indonesia, it was essential to both mothers and fathers that pregnancy happened within a marriage, this was to ensure that the honour of the family was upheld and that the lineage of the child was clear. The potential danger to health that early pregnancies can cause was also acknowledged.

“If they don’t listen to parents’ advice, there will be the possibility of pre-marital pregnancy happening, which will affect the family [so much].

The affect is going to be ruining the good name, honour and family dignity. When the children [are] born outside [of] marriage, she or he will have many difficulties like getting a birth certificate [and] having a hard time when registering to school or family” - Workshop 4 INDO (mothers).

“ To make sure that our children avoid getting married at a very young age and moreover [avoid] having free sex so that they will not get pregnant before the marriage” - Workshop 9 INDO (fathers).

Kaffrine, Senegal

The Major Cultural Themes which emerged from the Kaffrine data are described below. As these are grounded themes, they are different than those seen in East Lombok, Indonesia.

Access to healthcare

A recurring theme amongst the groups in Kaffrine were aspirations of affordable and easy-to-access healthcare. Community health workers stated the importance of encouraging women to give birth in hospitals and spoke of the importance of preventing early pregnancy which result from early marriages. Giving birth in hospitals was also a concern for Public Office Administrators who highlighted that this leads to subsequent issues with registering children for school. Mothers and fathers stated the importance of being able to afford health insurance and access healthcare so that they could take care of themselves.

“That the women give birth in the hospital” – Workshop 11 SEN (CHWS).

“To have affordable health insurance ” – Workshop 10 SEN (mothers).

“To have access to health care ” – Workshop 3 SEN (fathers).

“It is important that women give birth in the hospital in order to be able to have a certificate that allows us to establish the civil status” – Workshop 9 SEN (administrators).

Additionally, Community health workers spoke of their aspiration to have enough supplements to provide to their community so as to avoid frustration at the lack of supply, and mothers spoke of their desire to be provided with supplements.

“To have dietary supplements in large quantities to give them to all those who need them, so as not to create frustration” – Workshop 11 SEN (CHWS).

Another aspect of access to healthcare, was mistrust between fathers and community health workers. Community health workers explained that sometimes men can blame them when things go wrong in a pregnancy or consider their ideas to be too progressive. Thus, to these community health workers the quality of endurance was very important.

“Endurance (Sometimes men can accuse us of influencing their wives when they have difficulties in conceiving)” – Workshop 5 SEN (CHWs).

Another recurring theme was the importance of having secure employment and a means to support themselves; that there were also jobs available for young people, and that women had opportunities to make money to help support the family. This included preventing early marriages so girls could stay in school. Having jobs was stated as essential for survival and important to enable being useful to the community and society.

“To have more means of survival (subsistence) to be able to feed our families”.

“To have a regular and permanent job”.

“We assure a good training and education for our children so that they will become useful to us and the community”.

“ Our women should have access to activities that will support us and lessen our burden” – Workshop 3 SEN (fathers).

It was considered very important to have a religious education and respect for religious elders. Moreover, living by, and teaching, religious values such as being hard working, humble and offering mutual aid to others, was significant for people in Kaffrine.

“Have an education in the Islamic Culture (Education that aligns with the culture of Islam)”.

“Respect toward religious leaders” – Workshop 3 SEN (fathers).

“ To organize religious discussions to develop our knowledge about Islam ” - Workshop 10 SEN (mothers).

“ Have belief and be prayerful and give good counselling to people ” - Workshop 4 SEN (grandmothers).

Egg intervention themes from each country from perspectives EXplorations focus group discussion data

Below are results of analyses of comments made during the PEX:FGDs in East Lombok, Indonesia and Kaffrine, Senegal. The following codes were used deductively: attitudes to accepting outside help, traditional gender roles, food sharing, traditional beliefs, social hierarchies and understanding of stunting and Other. These topics were spoken about during open discussion and were not the subject of direct questions. For example, topics relating to traditional gender roles came up in East Lombok, during conversations around the daily routine. Thus, in order to more accurately reflect the intended meaning of the participants, these were labelled food practices, under the “Other” theme. If any of the themes were not present in the discussion, they are not shown below.

Attitudes to accepting outside help

Few mentions were made that focussed on participants attitudes to accepting outside help, but participants were sure that they would not make changes to their menus based on the advice of outside experts. Additionally, teachers mentioned that they are used to accepting help from local organisations that could to help them to identify under-developed children.

“ We don’t believe that [the outsiders are] going to change our eating habits or our various menus ” – Workshop 3 INDO (Mothers).

Traditional gender roles

In East Lombok, mothers spoke about how their husbands go to work and then provide them with daily money to buy the food for the day. However, this was discussed in relation to why food is bought daily and is thus discussed below in the topics Other – Food practices.

Food sharing

In East Lombok, Indonesia, in times when they have extra food, they share it with neighbours, in the hope that when they face times of hardship, their neighbours will share with them. Within the household, they mentioned sharing food from their plate with infants and encouraging children to share. Some mothers mentioned the importance of weekly meetings with other mothers to share food and sharing food during celebrations.

“ Sometimes we share our food with our family. So, when we cook extra food, we will probably send over the food to our neighbour, to our families. So, sometimes, with the hope that when we don’t have anything to eat, our neighbour will pay for it and will [share with] us.” – Workshop 3 INDO (Mothers).

“Even they serve food for the kids who come along to the house. So, they teach the kids to share with their friends. They provide some food. So, whenever they play [at their] house, they will [eat] the same.” – Workshop 2 INDO (Mothers).

Understanding of stunting

The teachers in East Lombok were aware of child stunting through Children’s Development Cards provided by local healthcare organizations. They stated that they recognise children with nutrition problems as having no patience period, no expression, no energy for activities and less desire to socialise and play with other children. The teachers said that stunted children do not develop the same as other children and are not as independent as children who are the proper height and weight for their development. They also stated that they recognise stunted children by their posture, pale faces and bloated stomachs. They explained how they usually use the same teaching methods for stunting children, but will sometimes allow them to do some activities, like singing, later, once the other children are leaving.

“ They have no patience period, don’t have any energy to do any of the activities. No expression, only sitting down and not mingling around with the kids. They are different way to learn. They are much slower than the other kids .” – Workshop 1 INDO (teachers).

“ When they are passive in singing, they will do it later when everyone else is leaving, they just do it [by] themselves ” – Workshop 1 INDO (teachers).

Specific views on eggs

In East Lombok, Indonesia, there were no superstitions or traditional beliefs around the consumption of eggs. When asked specifically on their views of eggs, and if they would like to be provided with eggs, women in East Lombok said that they would be happy to accept eggs. They also mentioned that eggs were a food they commonly eat, feed to children and use for convenience. Eggs were considered healthy and were common in their house.

“ We choose eggs instead. If we don’t have time, we just probably do some omelettes or sunny side up. So, it happens, actually when we get up late, we don’t have much time to be able to escort our kids to the school, then we fry the eggs or cook the instant noodles. And it happens to all mothers. So, if my kids are being cranky, that’s what happens, I’m not going to cook proper meals so, probably just eggs and instant noodles.” – Workshop 3 INDO (Mothers).

Other important topics – food practices

Some detailed themes about food practices were heard in East Lombok, Indonesia. The women were responsible for buying and preparing the food, which they purchased daily mainly due to the cost (their husbands were paid daily and so provided them with a daily allowance) and lack of storage facilities. They also bought from mobile vendors who came to the street, because they could buy very small amounts and get occasional credit. The mother decided the menu for the family and cooked once per day in the morning: the family then took from this dish throughout the day. Mothers always washed their fruits and vegetables and tried to include protein in their meals when funds allowed: either meat, eggs, tofu or tempeh.

“ One meal a day. They [the mothers] cook one time and they [the children] can eat it all day long. Yes, they can take it all day long. They find that they like [to take the food], because they tend to feel hungry.” – Workshop 6 INDO (Mothers).

“ They shop every day because they don’t have any storage in their house and the other factor is because the husband has a daily wage. They don’t have monthly wage. In the morning, the husband gives the ladies the money and the ladies go to the shop for the food. ” – Workshop 4 INDO (Mothers).

In Kaffrine, the following themes emerged relating to an egg intervention: they were different in content and emphasis to Lombok and contained uniquely local cultural emphases.

Mothers were welcoming of eggs as a supplement to improve their health during pregnancy and acknowledged the importance of good nutrition during pregnancy. However, they also mentioned that their husbands can sometimes be resistant to accepting outside help and provided an example of a vaccination programme in which fathers were hesitant to participate. However, participants stated that the Government should be the source of assistance to them (but currently was not perceived to be so).

“But if these eggs are brought by external bodies, we will hesitate to take it. For example, concerning vaccination some fathers hesitate to vaccinate their children even if they are locals who are doing it. So, educating the fathers to accept this is really a challenge” – Workshop 11 SEN (CHWs).

Some traditional gender roles were found to be strong. The participants emphasised that men are considered the head of the household, as expected in Islam, with the mother as primary caregiver for children. This is reflected in the comments from participants regarding the importance of Islam and living their religious values. The men thus made the family decisions and would need to be informed and agree to any family participation in any intervention – regardless of the education level of the mother. The paternal grandmother also played a very important role in the family and may also make decisions for the family in the place of the father. Community Health Workers emphasised that educating paternal grandmothers was essential to improve access to healthcare for women.

“There are people who are not flexible with their wives and need to be informed. Sometimes the mother-in-law can decide the place of the husband. But still, the husband’s [permission] is still necessary.” – Workshop 1 SEN (CHWs).

“[We recommend] communication with mothers-in-law and the community. Raise awareness through information, emphasizing the well-being of women and children.” – Workshop 1 SEN (CHWs).

“The [grand]mothers take care of the children so that the daughters in-law will take care of them in return So it’s very bad for a daughter in law not to take care of her mother in-law. Society does not like people who distance themselves from children.” – Workshop 4 SEN (grandmothers).

Social hierarchies

In addition to hierarchies relating to gender/position in the family such as grandmothers have decision making power, there was some mention of social hierarchies in Kaffrine, Senegal. For example, during times of food stress it was said that political groups distribute food and elected officials who choose the neighbourhoods in which the food will be distributed. Neighbourhood leaders then decide to whom the food is distributed, meaning there is a feeling that some people are being left out.

“ It’s political groups that come to distribute food or for political purposes…organizations that often come to distribute food aid, but in general it is always subject to a selection on the part of elected officials, in particular the neighbourhood leaders, who select the people they like and who leave the others ” – Workshop 11 SEN (CHWs).

Participants explained that during mealtimes, the family will share food from one large plate from which the father will eat first as a sign of respect and courtesy. Sometimes, children would also eat in their neighbour’s house to encourage them to eat.

“ Yes, it happens that we use that strategy so that children can eat. Note that children like to imitate so that’s why we [send them to the neighbour’s house]” – Workshop 11 SEN (CHWs)”.

Traditional beliefs about malnutrition

In Kaffrine, Senegal, some participants spoke of traditional beliefs relating to malnutrition, which are believed by fewer people these days. For example, uncovered food might attract bad spirits, and any person who eats it will become ill. There were a number of food taboos spoken of which were thought to have negative consequences for the baby, for example watermelon and grilled meat which were though to lead to birth complications and bleeding. Furthermore, cold water was thought to negatively impact the baby. Groups spoke of a tradition known as “bathie” in which traditional healers wash stunted children with smoke.

“ There are traditional practices called (Bathie) which are practiced by traditional healers. Parents are flexible about the practice of Bathie ” – Workshop 1 SEN (CHWs).

Causes of malnutrition and stunting were thought to be a lack of a balanced diet, lack of vitamin A, disease, intestinal worms, poor hygiene, socio-cultural issues such as non-compliance with food taboos, non-compliance with exclusive breastfeeding and close pregnancies. Malnutrition was also thought by some to be hereditary. Numerous signs of malnutrition were well known amongst the groups in Kaffrine. For example, signs of malnutrition were thought to be a big bloated belly, diarrhoea, oedema of the feet, anaemia, small limbs and hair loss as well as other symptoms such as red hair and a pale complexion. Despite this, malnutrition was thought to be hard to identify in Kaffrine as not all children will visit health centres, but mothers do try to take their babies heights and weights monthly. The groups were aware of the effect of poverty on the likelihood of stunting as impoverished parents cannot afford food. Furthermore, the groups mentioned that there is some stigma towards stunted children, and they can face mockery from other children although most local people feel pity and compassion towards them. Malnourished children are referred to as Khiibon or Lonpogne in the local language of Wolof.

“ It is poverty that is at the root of malnutrition, because parents do not have enough money [and] will have difficulty feeding their families well, so it is the situation of poverty that is the first explanatory factor of malnutrition here in Kaffrine” – Workshop 9 SEN (administrators).

“It can happen that some children are the victim of jokes for example of mockery from children of their same age, but not from adults and older ” – Workshop 9 SEN (administrators).

Pregnancy beliefs

In Kaffrine, Senegal, there were concerns around close pregnancies, and pregnancies in women who were too young, and for home births. Within the communities there was a stigma around close pregnancies, which prevented them from attending antenatal appointments. Similarly, there were superstitions around revealing early pregnancies, which again delayed attendance at health centres.

Groups acknowledged the role of good nutrition, and mentioned some forbidden foods such as salty foods, watermelon and grilled meat (which sometimes related back to a traditional belief that negative impacts would be felt in the pregnancy such as birth complications and bleeding). Similarly, drinking cold water was thought to negatively affect the baby. Beneficial foods mentioned included vegetables and meat, during pregnancy.

“ Often when a woman has close pregnancies, she can be ashamed, and this particularly delays the time of consultation” – Workshop 5 SEN (CHWs).

“Yes, there are things that are prohibited for pregnant women like salty foods” – Workshop 11 SEN (CHWs).

In Kaffrine, Senegal, some participants spoke of a traditional belief that if a pregnant woman consumes eggs then her baby might be overweight, or have problems learning how to talk. Despite this, mothers in Kaffrine said that they would be happy to accept eggs as a supplement, although if supplements are provided that require preparation (such as powdered supplements), they would be less likely to accept them.

“These restrictions are traditional, and more women no longer believe that eggs will cause a problem to the child. But if these eggs are brought by external bodies, we will hesitate to take it.” – Workshop 11 SEN (CHWs).

“They don’t eat eggs before the child starts speaking (the child only eats eggs when he starts talking). This is because it’s very heavy and can cause bloating and may also lead to intestinal problems.” – Workshop 4 SEN (grandmothers).

Other important topics – access to health services

For the participants in Kaffrine, Senegal, accessing health services was problematic, particularly for pre- and post-natal appointments, which faced frequent delays. Some women had access due to poor roads and chose to give birth at home. Access issues were further compounded by poverty and social factors, as procedures in hospitals can be costly, and women with close pregnancies (soon after an earlier one) can feel shame from society and hide their pregnancy.

“Women really have problems of lack of finances. There are social services in the hospital; but those services rarely attend to women without finances. Even when a child dies at birth they will require money to do the necessary procedure ” – Workshop 11 SEN (CHWs).

Creation of the culturally-informed protocols

Recommendations that comprise a culturally-informed protocol for intervention design in each locality are given in Table 3 .

The Major Cultural Themes, and specific Egg Intervention Themes drawn out from only 9–11 carefully planned group sessions in each country provided a rich set of recommendations towards a culturally-informed protocol for the localised design of a proposed Egg Intervention for both East Lombok, Indonesia and Kaffrine, Senegal. A culturally-informed protocol designed in this way comprises cultural insights which are worthy of consideration in local intervention design and should guide future stages of engagement and provide a platform from which good rapport and trust can be built between researchers and the community [ 16 ]. For example, in Kaffrine, Senegal, the early involvement of husbands and grandmothers is crucial, which reflects values around shared decision making within families that are noted to be more prevalent in LMICs, in contrast to individualistic values in HICs [ 16 , 39 ]. Similarly, due to strong religious values in both East Lombok, Indonesia and Kaffrine, Senegal, partnerships with Islamic leaders is likely to improve engagement. Past studies show the crucial role that religious leaders can play in determining social acceptability of interventions, particularly around taboo topics such as birth spacing [ 40 ].

The WVIS plus PEX:FGD method demonstrated here produced both broad cultural themes from shared values, which were in a concise and easy-to-understand format which could be readily communicated with the wider Action Against Stunting Hub, as well as life practices relevant to stunting in Kaffrine, Senegal and in East Lombok, Indonesia. Discussions of shared values during the WVIS main workshop provided useful cultural background within each community. PEX:FGD discussion uncovered numerous cultural factors within local life practices that could influence on the Egg Intervention engagement and acceptability. Combining themes from the WVIS workshop and PEX:FGDs allowed for specific recommendations to be made towards a culturally-informed protocol for the design of an Egg Intervention that included both broad cultural themes and specific Intervention insights (Table 3 ). For example, in Kaffrine, Senegal, to know that the husband’s authoritative family decision-making for health care (specific) is rooted in Islamic foundations (wider cultural) points to an Intervention Recommendation within the protocol, involving consultations with Islamic Leaders to lead community awareness targeting fathers. Similarly, in East Lombok, Indonesia the (specific) behaviour of breastfeeding for 2 years was underpinned by (wider cultural) shared values of living in Islam. This understanding of local values could prevent the imposition of culturally misaligned values, which Bernal and Adames (2017) caution against [ 17 ].

There are a number of interesting overlaps between values seen in the WVIS Frameworks and Narratives and the categories of Schwartz (1992) and The World Values Survey (2023) [ 41 , 42 ]. For example, in both Kaffrine, Senegal and East Lombok, Indonesia, strong religious values were found, and the groups spoke of the importance of practicing their religion with daily habits. This would align with traditional and conservation values [ 41 , 43 ]. Furthermore, in Kaffrine, Senegal participants often mentioned the importance of mutual aid within the community, and similar values of togetherness and respect in the community were found in East Lombok, Indonesia. These would seem to align with traditional, survival and conservation values [ 41 , 43 ]. However, the values mentioned by the groups in the WVIS workshops are far more specific, and it is possible that through asking what is most worthwhile, valuable and meaningful about their context, the participants are able to prioritise which aspects of their values are most salient to their daily lives. Grounded shared values such as these are generally neglected in Global Health Research, and values predominant in the Global North are often assumed to be universal [ 14 ]. Thus, by excluding the use of a predefined external framework, we minimized the risk of imposing our own ideas of values in the community, and increased the relevance, significance and local validity of the elicited information [ 28 ].

Participatory methods of engagement are an essential step in conducting Global Health Research but there is currently a paucity of specific guidance for implementing participatory methods in vulnerable communities [ 16 , 44 ]. In addition, there is acknowledgement in the literature that it is necessary to come into communities in LMICs without assumptions about their held values, and to use bottom-up participatory approaches to better understand local values [ 14 , 16 ]. The WVIS plus PEX:FGD methodology highlighted here exemplifies a method that is replicable in multiple country contexts [ 28 , 32 ] and can be used to crystallize local In Situ Shared Values which can be easily communicated to external researchers. Coupled with the specialised FGD (PEX:FGD), values-based perceptions of specific topics (in this case stunting) can be elicited leading to the creation of specific Culture-based recommendations. This therefore takes steps to answer the call by Memon and colleagues (2021) for the creation of cultural protocols ahead of conducting research in order to foster ethical research relationships [ 16 ]. We believe that the potential usefulness of the WVIS approach to guide engagement and inform intervention design is effectively demonstrated in this study and WVIS offers a method of making explicit local values in a novel and valuable way.

However, we acknowledge that our approach has several limitations. It has relied heavily on the local university researchers to debate and decide which participant stakeholder groups should be chosen, and although they did this in the context of the Whole Child approach, it would have been advantageous to have involved cultural researchers with a deeper understanding of cultural structures, to ensure sufficient opportunities for key cultural elements to emerge. This would have in particular strengthened the intervention design derived from the PEX:FGD data. For example, we retrospectively realised that our study could have been improved if grandmothers had been engaged in East Lombok. Understanding this limitation leads to suggestion for further work: to specifically investigate the overlap of this approach with disciplinary studies of culture, where social interactions and structures are taken into account via formal frameworks.

There are more minor limitations to note. For example, the WVIS approach can only be led by a trained and experienced facilitator: not all researchers can do this. A training programme is currently under development that could be made more widely available through online videos and a Handbook. Secondly, although the groups recruited do not need to be representative of the local population, the number recruited should be increased until theoretical saturation is achieved of the themes which emerge, which was not carried out in this study as we focussed on demonstrating the feasibility of the tool. Thirdly, there is a limit to the number of topics that can be explored in the PEX:FGDs within the timeframe of one focus group (depending on the stamina of the participants), and so if a wider range of topics need formative research, then more workshops are needed. Lastly, this work took place in a large, highly collaborative project involving expert researchers from local countries as well as international experts in WVIS : other teams may not have these resources. However, local researchers who train in WVIS could lead on their own (and in this Hub project such training was available).

The need for better understanding, acknowledgement and integration of local culture and shared values is increasing as the field of Global Health Research develops. This study demonstrates that the WVIS plus PEX:FGD shared values approach provides an efficient approach to contextualise and localise interventions, through eliciting and making communicable shared values and local life practices which can be used towards the formation of a culturally-informed protocols. Were this method to be used for intervention design in future, it is possible that more focus should be given to existing social structures and support systems and a greater variety of stakeholders should be engaged. This study thus contributes to the literature on methods to culturally adapt interventions. This could have significant implications for improving the uptake of nutrition interventions to reduce malnutrition through improved social acceptability, which could help progression towards the goal of Zero Hunger set within the SDGs. The transferability and generalisability of the WVIS plus PEX:FGD approach should now be investigated further in more diverse cultures and for providing formative research information for a wider range of research themes. Future studies could also focus on establishing its scaling and pragmatic usefulness as a route to conceptualising mechanisms of social acceptability, for example a mechanism may be that in communities with strong traditional religious values, social hierarchies involving religious leaders and fathers exist and their buy-in to the intervention is crucial to its social acceptability. Studies could also focus on the comparison or combination of WVIS plus PEX:FGD with other qualitative methods used for intervention design and implementation.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request [email protected], Orcid number 0000–0002–1811-4597. These include deidentified Frameworks of Shared Values and Accompanying Narrative from each Group; deidentified Hub Insight Statements of relevant themes.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Hub PI, Claire Heffernan, for feedback on a late draft of the manuscript.

The Action Against Stunting Hub is funded by the Medical Research Council through the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), Grant No.: MR/S01313X/1.

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Values & Sustainability Research Group, School of Architecture, Technology and Engineering, University of Brighton, Brighton, UK

Annabel J. Chapman, Mahsa Firoozmand & Marie K. Harder

Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

Chike C. Ebido, Rahel Neh Tening, Yanyan Huang & Marie K. Harder

Department of Zoology and Environmental Biology, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria

Chike C. Ebido

Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Université Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD), Dakar, Senegal

Ndèye Marème Sougou

Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Islam Negeri Syarif Hidayatullah, Jakarta, Indonesia

Risatianti Kolopaking

Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization Regional Centre for Food and Nutrition (SEAMEO RECFON) Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia

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Laboratory of Cultural Anthropology, IFAN, Université Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD), Dakar, Senegal

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MKH formulated the initial research question and study design. AJC developed the specific research question. Data collection in Senegal involved CCE, NMS, AHD, FBD, RNT, CEHAN and JM. Data collection in Indonesia involved RA, RK, YH and MKH. Cultural interpretation in Senegal Involved AHD, FBD, NMS, RNT and JM. Analysis involved AJC and MF. AJC and MKH wrote the paper.

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Chapman, A.J., Ebido, C.C., Tening, R.N. et al. Creating culturally-informed protocols for a stunting intervention using a situated values-based approach ( WeValue InSitu ): a double case study in Indonesia and Senegal. BMC Public Health 24 , 987 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-18485-y

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Rainstorms impacts on water, sediment, and trace elements loads in an urbanized catchment within Moscow city: case study of summer 2020 and 2021

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• Sergey Chalov   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6937-7020 1 , 2 ,
• Vladimir Platonov 1 ,
• Oxana Erina 1 ,
• Vsevolod Moreido 1 , 3 ,
• Mikhail Samokhin 1 ,
• Dmitriy Sokolov 1 ,
• Maria Tereshina 1 ,
• Yulia Yarinich 1 &
• Nikolay Kasimov 1  

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In 2020 and 2021, the city of Moscow, Russia, has experienced two historical rainfall events that had caused major flooding of small rivers. Based on long-term observation datasets from the surrounding weather stations, regional mesoscale COSMO-CLM climate model results, and a detailed hydrological and water quality monitoring data, we performed a pioneer assessment of climate change and urbanization impact on flooding hazard and water quality of the urban Setun River as a case study. Statistically significant rise of some moderate ETCCDI climate change indices (R20mm and R95pTOT) was revealed for the 1966–2020 period, while no significant trends were observed for more extreme indices. The combined impact of climate change and increased urbanization is highly non-linear and results in as much as a fourfold increase in frequency of extreme floods and shift of water regime features which lead to formation of specific seasonal flow patterns. The rainstorm flood wave response time, involving infiltrated and hillslope-routed fraction of rainfall, is accounted as 6 to 11 h, which is more than twice as rapid as compared to the non-urbanized nearby catchments. Based on temporal trends before and after rainfall flood peak, four groups of dissolved chemicals were identified: soluble elements whose concentrations decrease with an increase in water discharge; mostly insoluble and well-sorted elements whose concentrations increase with discharge (Mn, Cs, Cd, Al); elements negatively related to water discharge during flood events (Li, B, Cr, As, Br and Sr); and a wide range of dissolved elements (Cu, Zn, Mo, Sn, Pb, Ba, La, Cs, U) which concentrations remain stable during rainfall floods. Our study identifies that lack of research focused on the combined impacts of climate change and urbanization on flooding and water quality in the Moscow urban area is a key problem in water management advances.

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Field studies were supported by Russian Science Foundation project 19–77-30004. The analytical experiments were done under Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Russian Federation project 075–15-2021–574. COSMO-CLM model setup is a part of RFBR project 21–55-53039. The methodology of this study is developed under the Interdisciplinary Scientific and Educational School of Lomonosov Moscow State University «Future Planet and Global Environmental Change» and Kazan Federal University Strategic Academic Leadership Program (“PRIORITY-2030”). The research is carried out using the equipment of the shared research facilities of HPC computing resources at Lomonosov Moscow State University. Streamflow patterns analysis was carried out under Governmental Order to Water Problems Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, subject no. FMWZ-2022–0003, project 3.7.

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Faculty of Geography, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Leninskie Gory, 1, 119991 GSP-1, Moscow, Russia

Sergey Chalov, Vladimir Platonov, Oxana Erina, Vsevolod Moreido, Mikhail Samokhin, Dmitriy Sokolov, Maria Tereshina, Yulia Yarinich & Nikolay Kasimov

Kazan Federal University, Kremlevskaya St., 18, 420008, Kazan, Russia

Sergey Chalov

Institute of Water Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Gubkina Str., 3, 119333, Moscow, Russia

Vsevolod Moreido

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Conceptualization, original draft preparation—Sergey Chalov; numerical experiments conducting and evaluation, precipitation data analysis, writing—Vladimir Platonov; the rainfall-runoff patterns analysis—Vsevolod Moreido; methodology, validation, writing—Oxana Erina, Dmitriy Sokolov, Maria Tereshina, Mikhail Samokhin; precipitation data preparation and visualization—Yulia Yarinich; review, editing—Nikolay Kasimov. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Chalov, S., Platonov, V., Erina, O. et al. Rainstorms impacts on water, sediment, and trace elements loads in an urbanized catchment within Moscow city: case study of summer 2020 and 2021. Theor Appl Climatol 151 , 871–889 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-022-04298-9

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Received : 31 August 2022

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Published : 07 December 2022

Issue Date : January 2023

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-022-04298-9

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Avelo Airlines continues to soar with PayPal’s strategic solutions

PayPal Editorial Staff

April 8, 2024

On April 28, 2021, Avelo Airlines took flight for the first time — ushering in a new era of convenient, affordable, and reliable air travel. 1 Their mission statement is to “inspire travel” and they accomplish this by reducing as much friction as possible for their customers. Avelo never charges a cancellation or change fee. Ever.

They serve over 48 destinations across the United States with an average ticket price of $100. Flying out of smaller, more convenient airports, saves their customers time and money so that they can fly easily and more often.

We spoke to Avelo’s Head of Finance and CFO Hunter Keay, and Chief Digital Officer, Sumit Goyal, to discuss their experience with PayPal Braintree, Pay Later, and Fraud Protection Advanced.

Success metrics

• 3% increase in approval rates. 3
• 22% higher AOV with Pay Later. 4
• 15.5% reduction in chargebacks. 5

The opportunity – Avelo wanted to simplify and streamline the checkout process to reduce friction for their customers.

Creating a seamless travel experience is paramount for Avelo Airlines. However, they encountered challenges with their prior processor and felt that they were not being heard. As a result, Avelo decided to explore other processing solutions, via a request for proposal (RFP). Their goal was to align with an innovative company that shared their vision for putting the customer first and minimizing friction. Avelo also wanted to offer their customers flexible payment options to help them easily budget their travel. And, to ensure that they were approving as many customers as possible, they wanted an adaptive machine-learning solution, to help protect them against evolving fraud. Innovation, reliability, scalability, and responsiveness were key factors in their decision-making process. Ultimately, Avelo Airlines chose PayPal.

Said Keay regarding the RFP process, “We spoke to a lot of really, good emerging fintech companies who provided compelling economics and value propositions. But PayPal was really the only one from a top to bottom perspective, from IT, economics, overall support, and collaboration. PayPal differentiated itself from the start.”

The solution – Avelo integrated PayPal Braintree’s platform to elevate their offerings and decrease turbulence.

With the integration of PayPal Braintree as their processor, Avelo has access to PayPal checkout, Venmo , Pay Later , Fraud Protection Advanced (FPA) , and much more. “The PayPal Braintree integration was our single biggest IT success story that we’ve ever had at this company,” said Keay. “Not just through the speed of integration but through the partnership and collaboration.”

And there are so many components to this collaboration. Avelo customers are adopting PayPal Checkout at rates that have exceeded Avelo’s key performance indicators (KPI’s). Keay explained that “We have better data when the customer books through PayPal and a greater ability to track the demographics, and to better know our customers.”

Knowing that their customers were interested in flexible ways to pay for their flights, Avelo integrated dynamic messaging for PayPal’s Pay Later solutions. Customers can choose between Pay in 4, a short-term, interest-free offer for purchases between $30-$1,500, or, Pay Monthly, a longer-term, interest-bearing offer for purchases between $199-$10,000. 2 By messaging the Pay Later solutions early in the checkout process, customers are aware of these options.

“Quite frankly Pay Later is delivering above and beyond our expectations,” said Keay. “We use dynamic messaging for Pay Later because it drives higher conversion, and it’s a beautifully simplistic product.”

FPA is like a traffic controller, providing Avelo with critical insights and control relating to the customers on their site. With PayPal’s advanced machine learning and analytics, FPA helps Avelo manage fraud and ensure that as many credit worthy customers as possible are being approved.

“The ability to adjust the filters in Fraud Protection Advanced has been exciting for us. The PayPal team confirmed that our fraud filters are optimized and that is evident in our conversion rates,” said Keay.

Collectively, these PayPal products provide Avelo with an integrated payments solution that delivers scalability, security, flexibility, and innovation, ensuring their customers a seamless checkout.

The impact – PayPal helps deliver higher approval and conversion rates, and rich data intelligence to help manage fraud.

The strong collaboration between Avelo and PayPal has been developed with exceptional care and attentiveness, yielding impressive results. Avelo has seen a 3% increase in overall approval rates since integrating PayPal Braintree. 3 According to Keay, “That increase is huge. And that means we are increasing the number of customers who are able to successfully checkout.”

PayPal Pay Later messaging assures customers that Avelo offers the most trusted brand in payments at checkout even if they choose to pay in full. “With Pay Later, we actually experienced a 22% increase in the average order value,” noted Keay. 4

“Fraud Protection Advanced (FPA) is working brilliantly as well,” said Keay. FPA helps streamline the checkout experience for trusted travelers by creating frictionless customer journeys that help increase conversion rates, reduce good customer declines, and increase customer lifetime value. FPA has helped Avelo to reduce their overall chargeback rate by 15.5%. 5

As Avelo Airlines continues to strive to make travel easier for their customers, PayPal’s solutions align with that goal. The strong collaboration and communication have proven instrumental in streamlining the customer checkout experience. PayPal’s strategic offerings help Avelo fuel growth to deliver convenient, nonstop flights so their customers can fly more, for less.

Avelo Case Study (PDF)

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