Measuring sense of place in social-ecological systems: a review of literature and future research needs

ABSTRACT As humanity pushes deeper into the Anthropocene, Social-Ecological Systems (SESs) across the world are facing mounting pressures. Managing, protecting and understanding these systems require research into their complex and interlinked nature. One area that has been met with increased research in recent times is Sense of Place (SoP), broadly defined as the emotional bond that people have with a ‘place’. There has been substantial growth in the number of studies seeking to understand and quantify SoP across different contexts to help integrate it into decision-making processes. This targeted scoping review aims to explore the environmental literature for examples of applied studies that measure SoP in social-ecological contexts with a focus on how SoP has been quantified and measured. Our results show a growing body of literature as well as a number of clear knowledge gaps. The majority of studies to date have focussed on the Global North (accounting for 79% of the published papers), particularly the USA and Australia, with the distribution of authors closely mirroring this same pattern. Marine and freshwater ecosystems were understudied in comparison to terrestrial ecosystems. Mixed methods were most commonly used to collect data, with interviews and surveys being the most common instruments. Further research into why SoP is being measured is required, but preliminary investigations indicate there is a perceived applicability to policy and planning. We explore these findings and identify research directions.


Introduction
It has long been recognised that humanity has moved into the Anthropocene, the era in which we are now exerting greater geophysical force on the planet than natural processes (Steffen et al. 2007;Gaffney and Steffen 2017).This is having impacts on natural and physical systems as well as human health and wellbeing (Corvalan et al. 2005;Nash et al. 2021).Socialecological systems (SESs) across the world are being impacted by a raft of stressors, including climate change (IPCC 2018), biodiversity loss (Brondizio et al. 2019) water scarcity (Shojaei-Miandoragh et al. 2020) and reduced food security (Cvitanovic et al. 2016).Managing such threats requires a sound understanding of both the social and ecological aspects of these complex and interlinked systems (Berkes and Folke 2000).It is only in more recent times that the potential influence of human connection to and perceptions of SESs on sustainability efforts are being recognised (Bunch 2016).At the same time, the connections between human behaviour, feelings and emotions and 'just transitions' towards sustainability are receiving more attention (Bennett et al. 2019).
An example of this socially oriented research is the exploration of Sense of Place (SoP) (Masterson et al. 2017).SoP refers to the emotional bond that people have with a place (van Putten et al. 2018).The concept began with the seminal work of Tuan (1977Tuan ( , 1974) ) where it was presented as a novel, qualitative approach in the field of geography.In the 1980s the importance of SoP for natural resource management was recognised (Williams and Roggenbuck 1989) and in the ensuing decades the understanding of SoP evolved from a static and stable phenomenon through to something much more flexible, networked and progressive (see Raymond et al. 2021 for an overview).SoP has been explored in a range of disciplines and its definition tailored to suit those contexts (reviewed by Lewicka 2011).It has also been used both synonymously and separately for terms, such as place attachment, place dependence (Masterson et al. 2017), identity (Marshall et al. 2012), perception of place (Atwell et al. 2009) and rootedness (McAndrew 1998).SoP has been considered as a phenomenon in its own right, as well as being considered as one of the multiple ecosystem services, or 'benefits people obtain from ecosystems' (Reid et al. 2005, p. v).Within the context of SESs, Hausmann et al. (2016, p. 117) suggest SoP 'embeds all dimensions of peoples' perceptions and interpretations of the environment, such as attachment, identity or symbolic meaning, and has the potential to link social and ecological issues'.It is this definition that we adopt for the following scoping review.
Generally speaking, SoP has been shown to have physical and psychological benefits and economic value (Hausmann et al. 2016).It can motivate people to care for the environment and impact how they respond to environmental change (Masterson et al. 2017).More specifically, SoP has been shown to be an important predictor of pro-environmental behaviour (Alonso-Vazquez et al. 2019) can be an indicator of community resilience (Faulkner et al. 2018) and sustainability transitions (Frantzeskaki et al. 2018), and can be a powerful motivating force for adaptation in people as it connects directly with the things they care about (Amundsen 2015).Furthermore, a shared SoP between stakeholders can help build social cohesion (Enqvist et al. 2019;Rodríguez-Morales et al. 2020).It has also been used to understand a diverse range of human/nature relationships, such as, exploring how land claimants feel about not having physical access to their land (Cundill et al. 2017) and understanding the relationship between the difficulty of living in a place and the attachment inhabitants feel to that place (Hinojosa et al. 2019;Butts and Adams 2020).It is important to note that the relationship between SoP and other variables is not always direct or positive.For example, Huber and Arnberger (2016) showed that local residents who supported or opposed a biosphere reserve in Austria both showed strong elements of place attachment, while Cross et al. (2011) showed that farmers with a strong place identity may well oppose conservation practices based on financial limitations.
Given the strong relationship between SoP and SESs, it stands to reason that an understanding of the former could greatly inform the management and protection of the latter and as such should be of interest to policy-makers, practitioners and researchers alike.This has been clearly acknowledged by scholars in the field, with a number of key overarching reviews published in the last 7 years seeking to identify the significance of SoP in understanding SESs, natural resource management and biodiversity conservation (Hausmann et al. 2016;Masterson et al. 2017;van Putten et al. 2018).Reviews such as these are crucial for clearly articulating what SoP is and why it should be studied, but there remains a key role for a review that explores how SoP is measured and in which contexts.This is particularly important considering the increase in empirical studies measuring SoP that have been conducted in disparate locations with varying methods.
This study seeks to address this need by undertaking a targeted scoping review, exploring the literature focussing on the measurement and application of the concept of SoP.Specifically, we are interested in -once SoP has been measured, is that information being used for policy, research, management or some other application?We aim to, (i) develop a comprehensive understanding of the various methodologies for measuring SoP, (ii) identify which groups and which environments have been the focus of study, (iii) understand why SoP is being measured and what the outcomes or applications of the research are and (iv) identify the current gaps in the SoP measurement literature.

Scoping review
To address the aims of this study, a scoping review was undertaken.Scoping reviews are described as 'a form of knowledge synthesis that addresses an exploratory research question aimed at mapping key concepts, types of evidence, and gaps in research related to a defined area or field by systematically searching, selecting, and synthesizing existing knowledge' (Colquhoun et al. 2014(Colquhoun et al. , 1294)).While related to a traditional systematic review (Moher et al. 2015), there are distinctions that make scoping reviews the best methodology to address the aims of this study.For example, systematic reviews are generally focussed on answering very specific and well-defined questions by following a rigid protocol (Peters et al. 2015), whereas scoping reviews seek to map key concepts and can be less specific allowing for broader exploration of the literature (Levac et al. 2010).It is not uncommon for a scoping review to act as a precursor to a systematic review (Munn et al. 2018).
While our research question does focus on a specific element of SoP (i.e. its measurement), this is still an overly broad area for a meaningful systematic review (Munn et al. 2018;Snyder 2019).Similarly, a narrative review was deemed to be too ad hoc and lacked a defined methodology (Moher et al. 2015;Snyder 2019).As such, a scoping review was chosen as it represents a logical 'first step' in exploring the literature and creates an opportunity to examine the extent, range and nature of research activity and identify research gaps.The scoping review process outlined below follows the framework presented by Arksey and O'Malley (2005) that has been adopted, adapted and extended by numerous other researchers (Levac et al. 2010;Althor and Witt 2020;Fakoya et al. 2020;Karcher et al. 2021).

Developing the keyword string
The first step in undertaking a scoping review is to develop the keyword string, which is used to search for literature relevant to the research aims (Arksey and O'Malley 2005).Initial keyword string development followed established methods (Fogarty et al. 2019;Louder et al. 2021), whereby a preliminary search of the relevant literature was conducted and three review articles (Hausmann et al. 2016;Masterson et al. 2017;van Putten et al. 2018) were identified for their timeliness, focus and coverage of the broader literature.Keywords were then identified from these reviews following a full readthrough by the lead author and consultation between the two authors (JD and CC).The keywords were then used to perform a structured search in the SCOPUS database so that a comprehensive search string could be developed (Althor and Witt 2020;Badullovich et al. 2020).SCOPUS was chosen as the preferred search system as it has a large and multidisciplinary database that focusses on traditional academic literature (Gusenbauer and Haddaway 2020).While Google Scholar is a valid search engine, its results also consist of a high proportion of grey literature (Martín-Martín et al. 2018).Given that the focus of this scoping review was on empirical research, we opted for a database that has been found suitable for use in systematic reviews (Gusenbauer and Haddaway 2020).SCOPUS was chosen over the Web of Science because of the former's increased effectiveness in identifying social science articles (Martín-Martín et al. 2018).
The initial search was structured as: For our purposes SoP and place attachment are seen as overlapping phenomena (Brown and Raymond 2007;Hausmann et al. 2016) While there are a range of related terms for SoP, place attachment was explicitly mentioned in the keywords of Masterson et al. (2017)  'Social-ecological' is a commonly used term, but not all papers use the exact phrase.Indeed, Hausmann et al. (2016) implicitly covers social-ecological systems without using the phrase.To account for this, 'social and ecological' was included in the search string.Given the focus of the review, the results were limited to environmental research.
This search string returned a total of 191 articles.The top 80 cited papers (cited between 382 and 10 times) from the initial search then had their abstracts screened to identify key papers that were prominent, practical examples of research.Including the top 80 cited allowed for the inclusion of comparatively less cited, but more recent articles.Seven articles were identified from this group for their relevance to the research question (Raymond et al. 2009;Brown and Reed 2012;Marshall et al. 2012;Urquhart and Acott 2014;Cundill et al. 2017;Frantzeskaki et al. 2018;Oteros-Rozas et al. 2018).These papers were used as benchmarks or 'internal-checks' (Badullovich et al. 2020) to ensure that any further search strings developed were still returning to the relevant literature.They were also used to refine the search string further; each paper was read by the lead author (JD) and relevant keywords extracted for the search string.
Additional terms were also added based on the experiential knowledge of the authors.The search string was modified, and a process of iterative searching was undertaken until all benchmark papers were returned in the final search.This resulted in the following keyword string: This search was conducted in November 2020 and returned 162 papers, with all benchmark papers present.

Screening the literature
The 162 papers were randomised before 50 were selected for screening.A list of criteria for inclusion was developed by two authors (JD and CC) before both authors independently screened the subset by reviewing the title, abstract and keywords.Initial criteria for inclusion were that papers must: • Cover SoP, place attachment or some derivative/ analogue.• Involve the evaluation or measurement of SoP.
• Focus on a social-ecological system, either explicitly or implicitly • Be a primary piece of academic literature (not a conference proceeding, literature review, or grey literature) Following the screening process, the two authors met to discuss differences in opinion and to refine the criteria for inclusion further before independently screening another subset of 20 papers.The refined criteria for inclusion were that papers must: • Cover SoP, place attachment or some derivative/ analogue.If the title, abstract and keywords are not definitive, the paper should be included.
• Involve the evaluation or measurement of SoP or involve the measurement of a possible indicator of SOP.However, it is not enough for SoP to only be included after the sampling in the discussion.• Focus on a social-ecological system, either explicitly or implicitly.If the title, abstract and keywords are not definitive, the paper should be included.
• Be a primary piece of academic literature (not a conference proceeding, literature review, or grey literature).But if an article is reviewing a range of case studies or prior research, and then adding something new, it should be included.The same two authors (JD and CC) then met again to crosscheck their screening results.Once both authors were satisfied with the criteria for inclusion and the screening process, the lead author screened the remainder of the articles and would crosscheck any contentious papers with the second author as they arose.At the end of this process, 78 articles remained.These articles then underwent full-text screening, which reduced the group to 66 for full text qualitative analysis.Throughout the analysis process, a further four articles were removed following consultation between the first two authors, leaving the total number of articles analysed at 62.

Data analysis
The full text of all research articles that met the selection criteria (n = 62) underwent thematic coding in NVivo 12. Codes centred around each of the study aims: (i) develop a comprehensive understanding of the methodologies used to measure SoP The nature of each methodology (quantitative, qualitative or mixed) was coded, as was the actual sampling method (survey, focus group, interview, etc.) where applicable, the sample size was also coded.(ii) identify which groups and which environments have been the focus of study, Key stakeholders (study participants) were coded in each study, where multiple groups were identified and they were coded separately.The stakeholder status and name reflected the language used in the papers and was only coded to a level that had relevance to the findings.For example, a group of residents may have consisted of Indigenous and nonindigenous people as well as farmers and government officials, but if the study was explicitly looking at residents' SoP, then stakeholders were coded as residents.Alternatively, if a study was looking specifically at farmers' SoP, they were coded only as farmers (despite also being residents).The SES was also coded in each study.
Where multiple SESs were studied, each was coded separately and a code was added that indicated multiple SESs were being investigated.
Where papers explored the SoP associated with an SES or multiple SESs in multiple countries, all countries were coded.

(iii) understand why SoP is being measured and what the outcomes or applications of the research are.
Where explicitly stated, study outcomes and author motivations were coded.(iv) identify the current gaps in the SoP measurement literature While we did not directly code for the gaps themselves, we did search for features that could reveal gaps.In addition to the codes outlined in i-iii above, we also coded study location, author location (only first authors coded), disciplinary association (extracted from the Scope and Aims of each journal), study limitations and proposed future directions for research.
The coding process was both descriptive and analytic (Hay 2016), based on Grounded Theory Analysis (Glaser and Strauss 1967;Beech 2000) and took a non-linear approach, moving between predetermined codes derived from the study aims and emerging codes that were identified throughout the coding process, as per previous studies (e.g.Fogarty et al. 2019;Blythe and Cvitanovic 2020).For example, we began with coding the SES at the level of terrestrial, marine or freshwater, yet after coding multiple papers it became clear that another code could be added to account for multiple SESs in a single study (Combination).Similarly, some themes could be coded at a finer scale beyond the initial categories, e.g.'terrestrial' was further coded as urban, forest, farmland etc.
The coding was undertaken by the lead author, initially three papers were coded before the accuracy, and suitability of node structure and classification was discussed with the second author.From this point, the lead author would code 10-15 papers, taking extensive notes of their logic, thought process and justification for each code before meeting with the second author.At each meeting, the coding process was explored, and any points of uncertainty were discussed iteratively and agreed upon before the lead author would then code further 10-15 papers and repeat the steps above until all papers were coded.Throughout this process, the lead author revisited their coding to refine codes over time and to ensure that emergent themes were represented accurately.Upon completion a final review of all papers to check consistency and accuracy was undertaken.After coding was completed, the data were exported to Microsoft Excel and crosstabulation was conducted to investigate correlations between attributes.

Overview of the literature
The initial search for SCOPUS returned 561 papers.Following the refining and screening process, 62 articles underwent coding.The earliest publication was in 2009, with a marked increase in publication through 2019 (n = 18 papers) and 2020 (n = 12 papers) (Figure 1).

What methods were used to measure SoP?
Forty per cent of the studies analysed used a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches (n = 25).Thirty-one per cent used purely qualitative methods (n = 19) and 27% used purely quantitative (n = 17).One paper gathered data using a survey that we were unable to source to identify the methodology used (see Figure 2).
Of the papers that used purely qualitative approaches, interviews were by far the most common (n = 15).On eight occasions, these were used in conjunction with other qualitative approaches.Papers that took a purely quantitative approach primarily used surveys (n = 13).In 7 articles, this was the sole form of data collection.Papers that used mixed methods commonly adopted surveys (n = 20) or interviews (n = 13).Surveys and interviews were used alongside each other in mixed methods studies on 10 occasions.
There were 11 instances where SoP was being measured alongside other cultural ecosystem services.SoP was also often measured alongside other variables to develop an understanding of resilience, stewardship or other behaviour (n = 22).On nine occasions, a model was created where SoP was either used as a variable or where a SoP Index was being calculated directly (theoretically or in practice).For our purposes, a model did not include a conceptual framework, or a collection of statistical outputs measured separately and then compared.
Sample sizes varied depending on the sampling method used.For surveys, sample sizes ranged from n = 31 to n = 7650 with most studies having sample sizes in the hundreds.Interviews had sample sizes ranging from n = 10 to n = 618 with the majority of studies having samples in the tens (n.b.There were a small number of the studies (n = 5) where the exact sample sizes for surveys and interviews could not be ascertained from the methods or supplementary materials.Consequently, these were not included in the results).

Which groups were the focus of studies?
The type of stakeholders that were most commonly included as the focal participant group in the 62 empirical studies were residents of the regions (n = 33).Nine papers measured SoP for farmers.Indigenous groups and recreational groups were the next most common (n = 5 each), followed by environmental groups and fishers (n = 4 each) (Figure 3).There were further 16 stakeholder groups coded a total of 28 times, however none of them appeared in more than 3 articles.

Which environments were the focus of studies?
The majority of the studies that were included in the final sample were focussed on measuring SoP in the Northern Hemisphere (79%).The Southern Hemisphere was comparatively under-represented (19%).Australia and South Africa were the only Southern Hemisphere countries represented (Figure 4).One paper focussed on locations in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.The United States was the most commonly studied country (n = 16), followed by Australia (n = 8) and Spain (n = 6).Thirteen of the 24 countries had been studied on more than one occasion.The distribution of authors closely mirrored the distribution of studies, with the vast majority hailing from the United States (n = 18) then Australia (n = 9), Spain (n = 5), Canada, South Africa and the UK (n = 4 each).
While it was common for multiple ecosystem types to be the focus of a single study, the terrestrial environment was the most studied, being researched in 43 papers, 31 times as the sole ecosystem type.The marine environment was next, being researched in 22 papers, 16 times as the sole type.Then freshwater, 11 papers, 3 times as the sole type.Multiple environment types were explored in the same study on 12 occasions with freshwater and terrestrial being the most common combination (n = 6) then marine and terrestrial (n = 4).Two studies also measured SoP across marine, terrestrial and freshwater simultaneously (Figure 5).
Within terrestrial environments, it was common for the exact environment type to be undiscerned (n = 23), however when it was clearly defined, farmland (n = 8), urban (n = 8) and forest (n = 7) environments were the most common.The articles that focussed on the marine environment largely focussed on coastal environments (n = 21).The one study that looked offshore focussed on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.The freshwater study sites most commonly included rivers (n = 7).
Sustainability was the most represented research discipline (n = 11), then Landscape Research (n = 10), Environmental Management (n = 9), the Socialecological nexus (n = 8) and the Environment (n = 6).The papers in the Environment category had varied foci from environmental change to environmental communication.All other disciplines were represented five or fewer times (Figure 6).

Observations of indirect study elements including motivations, limitations and future directions
The motivations, limitations and future directions of the papers reviewed were often very specific to a given area, population or situation.While most papers did   outline their study limitations (n = 40), and future directions to be explored (n = 48), others either did not explicitly address this, or failed to touch on it at all.Similarly, the benefits of research or motivations behind the research were often not explicitly stated or were nuanced, which made clear coding difficult.Nonetheless, these elements are crucial to understanding why SoP should be measured at all.As a result, the following section is informed by both the formal coding process and general interpretations of the literature.n values are provided where relevant, but it is important to note that when exploring the literature in this way many definitions around the indirect elements may be debatable, and as such, we see what follows as an exploratory first step.
The clearest themes for motivation behind a study were a lack of existing research or the perceived novel nature of the proposed methodology, the stakeholders involved, or the environmental context.Many studies (n = 44) pointed to the likely policy, planning and management implications of their findings.However, any reference to where such lessons had been adopted or influenced policy previously was virtually non-existent.
The study limitations were not explicitly highlighted in all studies, but when they were (n = 40) they were generally concerned with the methodology, sample sizes and broader application of the findings.The challenges of self-reporting or selection bias in data collection were often acknowledged (n = 9) and while sample sizes varied depending on the methodology used (surveys generally had larger sample sizes than interviews and both had higher numbers than workshops or focus groups), there were numerous studies that identified small sample sizes and response rates as an issue.Others warned of the risk of generalising their findings to new areas or different demographics.These observations all point to the highly context-specific nature of each study.
Calls for future research were often linked to study limitations.On multiple occasions, studies that used exclusively quantitative or qualitative methods called for future research to adopt either the opposite approach or a mixed methods approach.Studies that recognised the risk in generalising their findings either called for more research in the same area, or new research in new locations.By far the most common theme in terms of future directions was a call to do similar research, either more comprehensively or with a broader focus (n = 20).

Identifying relationships between codes
The majority of the studies were conducted in the Northern Hemisphere by authors based in the Northern Hemisphere (n = 47 papers).In both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, studies with at least some focus on a terrestrial SES were most common (n = 34 and n = 9 respectively).While crosstabulation was performed on a range of themes, there were no other obvious patterns with respect to geography, stakeholder, disciplinary focus, SES and/or study location.

Discussion
This targeted scoping review has explored the environmental literature for examples of studies that measure SoP in social-ecological contexts.It builds on previous reviews that have looked at the importance of SoP for natural resource management and biodiversity conservation (Hausmann et al. 2016;Masterson et al. 2017;van Putten et al. 2018) and represents a step towards a more structured and targeted approach of reviewing, specifically exploring the literature so as to better understand how SoP has been measured and in which contexts.In doing so, our results demonstrate a growing body of literature on the topic whileshowing clear gaps in terms of geographical distribution of studies, the diversity of environment types studied and the representation of study participants.The methodologies adopted varied between studies, but interviews and surveys were most common.Further research into motivations behind measuring SoP is required, but preliminary investigations indicate there is a perceived applicability to policy and planning.The following section explores these findings, situates them within the broader literature and discusses their implications for the field of research moving forward.

What methods were used to measure SoP?
Our results show that the methods used to measure SoP across the published literature are diverse.Most common (40%) were mixed-methods approaches that integrate quantitative and qualitative components into the same study.Exclusively qualitative (31%) and quantitative (27%) approaches were comparatively less common.This is most likely due to the complexity of understanding SoP in SESs and methodological tradeoffs between developing an in-depth understanding of the topic (i.e.most commonly through qualitative research methods) and understanding how results can be applied or generalised across settings and contexts (i.e.breadth of results via quantitative research approaches) (Bryman 2016).Similarly, this pattern may be because SES research necessitates interdisciplinary approaches that can work across knowledge systems and values to elucidate an understanding of complex SESs (Kelly et al. 2019).There are clear trade-offs that need to be made when identifying the best method to adopt in any given study.Invariably, mixed methods are the most useful as they allow for both a breadth and depth of data collection to enable the clearest understanding of SoP.While such approaches are often seen as being more rigorous (McKim 2017), they invariably require more resources, be it funding, expertise or time.This may be an issue particularly in SES research (Creswell and Plano Clark 2011), where applied ecologists may be expected to use data collection methodologies developed by social scientists (St. John et al. 2014).The most common tools used in data collection were surveys and interviews.These tools are regularly used in place-based studies (Shackleton et al. 2021) and are often key elements or starting points for more complex SES data collection and analysis (Biggs et al. 2021) The findings of this scoping review also highlight the importance of considering which methods are most suited for a specific context.The values and knowledge systems of both researcher and study participants will impact which data collection methods will be most effective (Moon and Blackman 2014;Biggs et al. 2021).In addition to being mindful of the best method for a given context, researchers should also consider the best approach to implementing that method (Villamor et al. 2014).Participatory research, or securing the active involvement of a broad range of stakeholders in research (Few et al. 2007;Cvitanovic et al. 2019), is often advocated due to its ability to overcome barriers to knowledge exchange (Cvitanovic et al. 2015), provide robust data and lead to the adoption of research recommendations (Reed 2008;Cvitanovic et al. 2015).An example of participatory research often presented as an ideal is co-production, which seeks to move stakeholders from inputs to meaningful partners (Cvitanovic et al. 2019).It is important to note, however, that participatory fieldwork approaches bring with them numerous potential challenges and risks, including a tendency to be resource intensive and the possibility of alienating participants or reinforcing power imbalances if conducted ineffectively (Norström et al. 2020;Chambers et al. 2021).

Which groups were the focus of studies?
This review also identified that study participants within the existing body of literature seeking to quantify SoP are not overly diverse and that many key groups are missing.Local residents were most commonly the focus of the study; however, while their role in society (e.g.consultant, NGO staff, community decision-maker) or in relation to the social ecological system was often mentioned, it was rarely considered as a variable in data collection.This lack of diversity in stakeholder representation is problematic.Drawing preferentially on examples from the Global North leads to a misrepresentation of human behaviour for the rest of the world (Henrich et al. 2010).Furthermore, most of the study participants in the literature reviewed were adults and no studies identified via the scoping review protocol focussed solely on children or young adults.Further, transitory or visiting populations were rarely the focus and the perspectives of different cultural or demographic groups were rarely considered, thus missing the perspectives of a major component of local populations.It is entirely feasible that different communities and individuals within a larger group are likely to have different SoP depending on a range of factors, including their role in society or in relation to the social ecological system (Urquhart and Acott 2014;Ellis and Albrecht 2017).
A more diverse range of demographic representations and comparisons between different stakeholders is key for a number of reasons.Firstly, it is highly likely that different groups (even within the same location and context) will have different drivers and indicators for SoP.For example, we know that different groups in society can feel differently about environmental issues like climate change (Wang et al. 2018;Duggan et al. 2021) and research has shown that demographics can be one determinant in how ecosystem services are experienced (Dobbs et al. 2014).Further, appreciation of nature and environmental awareness can differ with age, gender and location (Müller 2014;Oliver et al. 2019).It is also highly likely that visitors will have different perceptions of a given place when compared to residents (Paraskevopoulou et al. 2019), certainly they have been shown to have different preferences for landscape attributes (Rambonilaza and Dachary-Bernard 2007).
Secondly, including diverse participants allows for the inclusion and appreciation of diverse ontologies and epistemologies -ways of knowing and ways of being (Moon and Blackman 2014).The very notion of a place, and therefore any sense of place, can differ significantly between cultures and groups (Country et al. 2015).When considering SoP within SESs we must acknowledge that culture and society are an intrinsic element of the equation (von Heland and Folke 2014).While the importance of including different ways of knowing and ways of being has been considered for some time in the area of natural resource management (Neilson and São Marcos 2019; Fache and Pauwels 2020) more work is needed in the area of SoP.One approach that could allow for the inclusion of more diverse voices is transdisciplinary knowledge production, or the inclusion of actors from outside of academia (Polk 2015).This has gained more attention in recent times and is seen as a key approach in addressing complex socialecological challenges (Plummer et al. 2022).

Which environments were the focus of studies?
This review identified a strong focus on SoP associated with regions in the Global North.This finding is not surprising considering the broader sustainability literature is similarly biased (Masterson et al. 2019).This trend is likely due to a range of factors.First, language barriers can lead to a publishing bias towards work in English with data from the Global North (Amano et al. 2016;Lebel and McLean 2018).Second, biased funding systems have been shown to preferentially favour the global north (di Marco et al. 2017).For a more comprehensive understanding of SoP, we need not repeat the same mistakes that have been seen in fields of research like psychology where western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic societies have historically been seen as representative of all of humanity (Henrich et al. 2010).More research is clearly required in the Global South, particularly in regions such as the tropics that are hyperdiverse, highly at risk due to environmental change and land-use intensification and desperately understudied (Barlow et al. 2018).
The review also highlights that most regions of the world currently have one or fewer applied SoP studies.This is particularly concerning when considering how context-specific SoP appears to be (Masterson et al. 2019), which should not be surprising considering that a 'place' is largely defined by its location and the processes within it and thus is inherently contextual.This is perhaps best articulated by Potschin and Haines-Young (2013) when exploring sustainability science: 'The importance of place is that it provides the context in which the problems can be recognised and articulated, and within which different values can be understood, conflicts resolved and choices made ' (p. 1054).To gain a greater understanding of SoP we must continue to study and measure it in diverse contexts.A number of steps could be taken to achieve this.
First, funders and research institutions need to support interdisciplinary research.Interdisciplinary research has a history of lower funding success (Bromham et al. 2016), possibly due to the perceived costs associated with building relationships within a diverse team (Cvitanovic et al. 2019), and even when collaborations can take place the full benefits and implications of such research are often not realised due to the unwillingness of institutions to break the mould and embrace novel ways of working and researching.Second, efficiencies in data collection could be identified.Larger scale explorations of SoP in particular could allow for a more efficient collection of information.An area worthy of further study in this space is citizen science and communitybased monitoring as data collection mechanisms (Chandler et al. 2017).This could be supported through the creation of a heuristic or rule of thumb for best practice in measuring SoP.Given the context-specific nature, a definitive set of rules would be ill-advised, but indications of best practice depending on context would certainly help extend the field.
Terrestrial environments were regularly the focus of studies, followed by marine and then freshwater systems.The reasons for this pattern are not immediately clear.Reviews into related areas such as SES framework application and cultural ecosystem services found varying amounts of literature focussing on each environment (Vihervaara et al. 2010;Partelow 2018).It is possible that the simple classification of SESs into Terrestrial, Marine and Freshwater neglects the fact that these systems are often dynamic and overlapping (Bigagli 2015;Refulio-Coronado et al. 2021).Further research is required to unpack these findings.

Understanding the 'Why' and addressing critical gaps in the existing SoP literature
As outlined above, this review has identified a number of emergent gaps in the existing SoP literature in terms of geographic focus, stakeholder representation and methodology.Another clear gap is the underrepresentation of Authors from the Global South.
This finding aligns with many areas of social ecological research; Maas et al. (2021) identified that 75% of top publishing ecologists were from the Global North.Similarly, Amarante et al. (2021) identified the majority of development research in the Global South is conducted by researchers from the Global North, and that research produced by academics from the Global South is less highly cited.This representation gap is problematic for a number of reasons.First, the lack of representation from the Global South undoubtedly offers a skewed understanding of phenomena that are globally relevant (Nuñez et al. 2019).Second, researchers from different locations may well have different ontologies and epistemologies that could impact research conclusions and lead to novel solutions for social ecological challenges (Moon and Blackman 2014).
This representation gap can, and should, be addressed in a number of ways.First, we must move away from 'helicopter' or 'parachute' research so as to better support local researchers from the global south to lead their own research (Minasny et al. 2020).Within this, we should seek to adopt participatory processes such as co-production, outlined above, that include diverse actors in the research process (Duggan et al. 2021).To further address this representation gap, systemic change in funding mechanisms is required.There is extensive evidence in a range of fields showing that despite efforts to ensure equal access to grants and funding, there are clear biases in the geographical distribution of funding success (Wahls 2016;Aagaard et al. 2020).Funders must work to build capacity and empower and enable local researchers in the global south.This dispersal of research funding only stands to benefit social ecological research.Further, funders should ensure that mechanisms are in place to maximise the likelihood that new knowledge generated through research processes can have tangible benefits for the communities in which they focus (Kelly et al. 2019).
When exploring indirect elements of studies such as motivations, limitations and future directions, several other gaps became clear.Interestingly, articles would often indicate that SoP was important for policy planning and management, be it as a way to ensure societal wellbeing in land use planning (García-Díez et al. 2020), or as a means to gain a more nuanced understanding of community resilience for conservation and community development (Faulkner et al. 2018), or more commonly because of the clear links between SoP and environmental stewardship (Krasny et al. 2014;García-Martín et al. 2018;Briggs et al. 2019).These findings in themselves are not surprising, -the link between SoP and people's attitudes towards the environment has long been recognised.As Larson et al. (2013, p. 226) acknowledge 'Integrating people's values and perceptions into planning is essential for the successful management of natural resources'.The surprising thing here, is the lack of tangible examples where SoP has been measured and then used to inform policy, planning or management.This suggests that further research is needed to understand the ways in which SoP has been, or could be, better accounted for within decision-making processes.
The above-mentioned gap is not exclusive to SoP research.The uptake of knowledge into decisionmaking processes faces a range of challenges and barriers at an individual and institutional level (see Shanley and López 2009 for an overview).SoP research is likely to be further disadvantaged due to the challenges in communicating the relevance and importance of any ecosystem service (Ruckelshaus et al. 2015).Waite et al. (2015) reviewed over 100 studies attempting to put a monetary value on a range of ecosystem services and found that only 17 of the reviewed studies actually had an impact on any decision-making.These ecosystem services covered included tangible things like tourism and fisheries.If researchers and practitioners fail to see their findings inform decision-making when using something as relevant to policy as monetary value, it is little wonder that an ecosystem service like SoP is largely ignored.Exploring the connection, or gap, between research and policy is a key area for future SoP research.
An increased focus on modelling SoP could well aid in addressing this gap.Policy makers may use models to inform decisions (Kolkman et al. 2016), and their understanding and appreciation of models has only increased amid the COVID-19 pandemic (McBryde et al. 2020).If researchers can integrate models with dynamic measures of SoP, it could lead to a metric being introduced into the policy lexicon and increase its perceived relevance.
The context-specific nature of SoP does not need to be a hindrance in filling these gaps.While there are inherent difficulties in developing a definitive singular approach for best practice in measuring SoP, steps can be taken to build a heuristic that indicates ideal best practice for SoP measurement in any given context.First, rules of thumb could be developed to choose effective methods for a given setting.Second, a framework is required that can guide how and where methods may be applied consistently across different contexts so that results may be compared effectively and efficiently between studies.With an increased understanding of SoP, there comes the opportunity to then span the science-policy interface and to actively incorporate SoP findings into policy, planning and management decisions (Posner et al. 2016).

Study limitations and future directions
This scoping review is designed to be a 'first step' in exploring the literature and identifying the range and nature of SoP measurement.As such, we acknowledge that we will not have reviewed the entirety of the literature in this space.We have, however, succeeded in collecting relevant literature to provide an adequate snapshot of the field and identify knowledge gaps.A comprehensive systematic review could follow and would serve to verify the findings outlined above while answering more specific questions (Peters et al. 2015).Future studies should seek to carry out systematic reviews that more deeply explore the relationships between themes or to unpack how SoP relates to or overlaps with other ecosystem services or indeed other metrics such as nature's contributions to people (NCP) (Díaz et al. 2018).Similarly, future studies will be required to capture the most recently published research.Timeliness is an innate challenge when conducting many forms of evidence synthesis (Haddaway and Westgate 2019), searching, screening and coding all take time, as does the peer review process (Azar 2004;Björk and Solomon 2013).Work is being conducted to establish and improve guidance for formalised evidence synthesis particularly in the environmental management space (Haddaway et al. 2016;Haddaway and Westgate 2019) and it is likely that this may well lead to a streamlining of the process, as well as providing a best practice for other elements of the review including caps for the number of papers to be screened and approaches for reviewing languages other than English.
Currently, there is no accepted best practice for capping the number of papers to be screened as when identifying benchmarks and building search strings, we opted for 80 as it was agreed that this represented a mix of well cited and recent publications.It must also be noted that this search focussed on publications written in English as this is the first language of the authors.While this represents a large portion of the published literature, there is a risk of not capturing important literature from researchers who publish in other languages.As such, future work should seek to include other languages.
In the early coding process, it was hoped to identify the spatial scale of studies.Given the varying definitions for categories of spatial scale and the large range of actual spatial scale between studies, this was not possible; however, future studies could focus solely on scale, and attempt to directly measure the size of study areas as opposed to using the scale definitions offered by the authors.Throughout the coding process we did identify a number of themes that we could only touch on briefly and for which deeper analysis was beyond the scope of this current research.A number of areas were of particular interest here, including the motivations behind measuring SoP and the perceived applicability to policy.Thus, we suggest that future research is needed that engages study authors directly to explore their understanding of the value and applicability of SoP, and their motivations for undertaking this research.Similarly, further analysis into the demographics of each stakeholder group would be extremely interesting, and while we were able to identify broadly the key stakeholders that participated in studies, we were unable to pick apart other characteristics such as age, gender and cultural demographics that may well relate to SoP or indeed the country of residence.Further to this, subsequent reviews could specifically analyse the kinds of question used in interviews and surveys.While this information was sometimes available in supporting documentation, it was beyond the scope of this review to analyse.

Conclusion
In this study, we have used a scoping review to explore the literature for research focussing on the measurement of SoP in relation to SESs.We identified that mixed methods were frequently adopted, with surveys and interviews common tools.Residents were the most common study participants.The Global North was most often the focus as were terrestrial ecosystems.The motivations for measuring SoP were less clear, but applicability to policy was often cited.Further research is clearly needed to advance our understanding of SoP and address these gaps in the literature.The field would benefit from an increase in the number and diversity of study foci.SESs in the Global and Geographical South could be explored more, as could the impact of demographics (e.g.age, socio-economic status, etc.).Larger scale studies are required that adopt whole of ecosystem thinking.Within this, consideration must be given to diverse ways of knowing and being and where applicable, steps must be taken to co-develop effective methods alongside the stakeholder groups they are meant for.
It is important to note that this research should not be undertaken in an ad-hoc manner.We suggest that research efforts should be guided by the development of a framework which would allow for consistency and comparison of results between studies, allowing for shared learnings and the creation of a community of practice.Further, focus must be given to the links between policy and practice.Knowledge of SoP is not enough for this phenomenon to be included in management decisions, we must explore how to improve uptake by managers and policy-makers and overcome the intangibility of SoP.One way this can be achieved is through participatory research approaches.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Left: Process of elimination of papers included in the final content analysis.Right: Number of articles published by year.Given the search was conducted in November 2020 and some journals publish future editions early online, we did pick up one article from 2021.As this is not reflective of the total number of papers published in that year, it has been left out of the figure.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Breakdown of methods used within qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods studies.

Figure 3 .
Figure 3. Stakeholder by number of articles.Where multiple stakeholder groups were the focus of the study they have been coded separately.There were a further 16 stakeholder groups coded a total of 28 times, however none of them appeared in more than three articles -see supplementary material for a full list.

Figure 4 .
Figure 4. Number of papers that have measured SoP in each country.Note: on multiple occasions, two or more countries were the focus of a single study.

Figure 5 .
Figure 5. Ecosystem types by number of articles.

Figure 6 .
Figure 6.Discipline by number of articles.