Integrating scientific and local knowledge to enhance remediation efficacy using community-informed conceptual site models

Abstract:

Sustainable remediation seeks to balance social, economic, and environmental components of remediation projects to create long-term, sustainable solutions. However, remediation projects, especially in developing communities, oftentimes fail to fully incorporate stakeholders, emphasizing cost-effective technological advancement over social considerations. To overcome this limitation, this research provides a mechanism for integrating social and technical forms of knowledge at the onset of remediation projects within the traditionally used conceptual site model (CSM) framework. The new community-informed conceptual site models recognize and leverage the inherent knowledge and skills of local communities in contaminated areas and detail context-specific factors potentially impacting future remedial endeavors. By applying social science methods alongside data collection and analysis of quantitative information, the evolution of early CSMs provides remediation practitioners with a more comprehensive model with which to engage stakeholders and collectively determine project objectives. We applied this framework to a Colombian artisanal and small-scale gold mining community facing mercury contamination. Data from surveying and interviewing were utilized to create a series of three conceptual site models that incorporate the perspective of local community members. These CSMs illustrate the important community stakeholders, pinpoint sources of ongoing mercury contamination, demonstrate a basic knowledge of mercury transport and exposure from community members, and ultimately exhibit the heterogeneity in community risk perception of environmental contaminants. Results also demonstrate that by grouping stakeholders by sector of work and gender altered the CSMs, with individuals in agriculture and women perceiving greater hazards than other respondents. By adapting current methods to create CSMs through the frame-of-reference of different stakeholders, remediation practitioners can enhance overall stakeholder engagement efforts, build trust, and find alternative methods for communication.