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. 2016 Jan 27;11(1):e0145978. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0145978

Table 1. The number and percentage of priority questions that deal with each of the major categories examined in the projects.

These include: climate change; socio-political issues or policy; human demographic issues (population size etc.); human related systems (including agriculture, human settlements, human-dominated landscapes, infrastructure etc.); freshwater systems (e.g., freshwater, rivers, water market etc.); marine systems; ecosystem services; cross-boundary issues (political boundaries, neighboring countries etc.); descriptive questions: those that describe and study problem/threat; proactive questions: questions that deal with solutions and action to address problem. The table provides the number and percentage of questions in each category. A question can assigned to none, a single or more than one category.

Israel questions1 UK (2006) questions2 UK (2010) questions3 US (2011) questions4 Canada (2011) questions5 Global (2009) questions6 Switzerland (2012) questions7 US (2014) questions8
Focus of project Biodiversity conservation Policy-relevant ecology Qs Conservation policy Conservation science and policy Conservation and resource management policy Biodiversity conservation Action-oriented conservation science Resource management policy
Total number of selected questions 45 100 69 40 40 100 44 40
Climate change 2 (4.4%) 11 (11%) 14 (20.3%) 11 (27.5%) 3 (7.5%) 20 (20%) 3 (6.8%) 12 (30%)
Socio-political issues 11 (24.4%) 6 (6%) 15 (21.7%) 9 (22.5%) 16 (40%) 26 (26%) 5 (11.4%) 5 (12.5%)
Human demography 1 (2.2%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 2 (5%) 3 (7.5%) 7 (7%) 0 (0%) 2 (5%)
Human related systems 15 (33.3%) 34 (34%) 15 (21.7%) 20 (50%) 6 (15%) 27 (27%) 8 (18.2%) 21 (52.5%)
Freshwater systems 4 (8.9%) 15 (15%) 18 (26.1%) 3 (7.5%) 8 (20%) 8 (8%) 2 (2.3%) 4 (10%)
Marine systems 5 (11%) 17 (17%) 5 (7.2%) 7 (17.5%) 3 (7.5%) 11 (11%) 0 (0%) 5 (12%)
Ecosystem services 5 (11%) 4 (4%) 12 (17.4%) 5 (12.5%) 7 (17.5%) 18 (18%) 0 (0%) 4 (10%)
Cross-boundary issues 4 (8.9%) 1 (1%) 0 3 (7.5%) 1 (2.5%) 8 (8%) 0 (0%) 1 (2.5%)
Descriptive: describe and study problem/threat 17 (37.8%) 52 (52%) 26 (37.7%) 27 (67.5%) 17 (42.5%) 41 (41%) 18 (40.9%) 33 (82.5%)
Proactive: deal with solutions and action to address problem 34 (75.6%) 45 (45%) 42 (60.9%) 9 (22.5%) 21 (52.5%) 57 (57%) 26 (59.1%) 9 (22.5%)

Sources (Table 1):

1. This paper.

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