Design and Implementation of an Adaptive, Integrated Approach to Health and Sustainability in a Smallholder-Dominated Agroecosystem - Integrated Assessment of Health and Sustainability of Agroecosystems - page 30

Identifying
holarchical
scales

Sampling
study sites

Collating
secondary data

Developing a systemic
description of the
agroecosystem

Selection of stakeholder
driven
indicators

Selection of
research-based
indicators

Action planning

Monitoring,
evaluation,
assessment

Implementation
of interventions

Key
Italics = Participatory process; Bold = Stakeholder driven activities
Normal = Research-based activities

fIGuRe 2.1 Flowchart of the research process used to assess and implement health and
sustainability of a smallholder-dominated, tropical highlands agroecosystem. See CD for
color image.

political boundaries, while the biophysical holarchy was defined mainly by geocli-
matic and land use characteristics. The scale at which to carry out the study was
decided on based on three considerations. The first was that the health and sus-
tainability of smallholder farms was of most concern in this study. Second, the
integration of ecological, economic, and social factors gives rise to emergent prop-
erties that are key to the health and sustainability of smallholder farms. Last, the
principle stated by Izac and Swift (1994) that to assess sustainability at a given level
( n ) in the holarchy, both the level above ( n + 1) and that below ( n − 1) must also be
included in the assessment.

2.2.2 s A m p l i n g s t u D y s i t e s

Once the target hierarchical scales were identified, a sampling strategy for each
scale was decided. It was assumed that comparisons among sampling units within
each scale as well as an assessment of how they complement and interlink with oth-
ers would provide sufficient details on the main features of the agroecosystem as a
whole. In this study, two sampling units were used. The first were the study sites,