Tigran Keryan

River ecosystems are increasingly vulnerable to intensified human pressures associated with population growth and rising living standards, leading to structural changes and altered ecosystem service (ES) provision. The lower course of the Hrazdan River (Armenia) exemplifies these impacts, as it flows through Yerevan, the capital city, and receives substantial inputs of largely untreated wastewater. To assess resulting changes in ES, this study applies a multi‐method approach combining field‐based ecological assessments with social survey research. This integrated framework enables the comparison of actual ES flows with stakeholder perceptions, capturing both biophysical conditions and societal values. Results reveal a marked discrepancy between perceived and actual ES provision. While regulating and maintenance services are relatively highly prioritised by stakeholders, many essential ecosystem functions remain poorly understood, indicating significant knowledge gaps and limited public engagement. At the same time, the availability and quality of key services are severely degraded, contributing to tensions between stakeholders and decision‐makers. These findings point to persistent management challenges, including mismatches between top–down governance and bottom–up engagement. The study highlights the importance of integrating ecological data with social perspectives to support more effective, inclusive and conservation‐oriented management strategies for heavily impacted river systems.

The Caucasus region is recognized as a biodiversity hotspot. Nature conservation and nature-based tourism are promoted to preserve the region's vulnerable mountain ecosystems. Understanding the cultural value of the ecosystems and the services they provide is essential for conservation efforts. In our study, we use the case of Dilijan National Park, Armenia, to develop a framework to assess the potential of cultural ecosystem services. This framework can be adapted into various assessment matrixes calibrated for local cases in mountain regions. To make the assessment more comprehensive and the results spatially interpretable, we developed a 5-level scoring system using a set of criteria for 2 river catchments in Dilijan National Park. We then conducted an assessment of the rivers' ecological statuses under the condition of no visitors as a reference for further comparisons. To avoid biases, the scoring system for some aspects of the spatial assessment, such as the preference for land use/land cover, was justified using participatory methods. The results highlight a significant potential for cultural ecosystem services in areas where recreational amenities and infrastructure are close to rivers. The mixed-methods approach used for the overall assessment of the cultural ecosystem services potential indicated that, while visitors do exert some pressure on ecosystems, the impacts observed in the 2 catchment areas under study remained relatively low and fell within the carrying capacity of these vulnerable ecosystems.

While a substantial body of literature has been built on rural well‐being, due to the great heterogeneity of rural territories, the literature is highly fragmented, even contradictory. Moreover, no systematic review of the entire domain exists to guide rural decision‐makers. Debated conceptualization, contradicting results, and pressing policy requirements make it timely to deliver a systematized state‐of‐the‐art on rural well‐being to anchor public policies in the rural development domain. By systematically reviewing the scholarly literature on rural well‐being and all documents developed by government and private entities that academia highlighted as relevant to this subject, the study provides a bibliometric and thematic analysis of the domain without a time limit. Thirty‐three rural well‐being dimensions and over 9,000 indicators within these dimensions have been identified, their interconnections established and their relevance to international development goals highlighted. The study presents the structure and content of this indicator database and provides suggestions for rural researchers and policymakers on how to use it to build their own well‐being framework. It also provides an overview of each rural well‐being dimension by discussing the key theories, the main inconsistencies, the most relevant studies and authors, the fundamental measurement frameworks, and the indicators used.

The Caucasus region includes six countries, and four share a common past as republics of the Soviet Union: the three countries of the South Caucasus, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, as well as a part of Russia. The Soviet heritage inevitably shaped the evolution of their academic systems including the roles academic institutions play in society. This common history still impacts the perception of innovative approaches, their integration into academic systems and their implementation in real life. Transdisciplinarity, introduced to the Caucasus region via international research and development collaboration, could strengthen the role of academic institutions in the region. But what are the conditions in the Caucasus countries for implementing transdisciplinary approaches? In this chapter, we bring together different perspectives from across the academic system as well as civil society in the South Caucasus countries. We describe the transition of the institutional landscape of knowledge production from the Soviet Union to date, introduce activities that helped advance transdisciplinary approaches and detail conditions affecting the implementation of transdisciplinarity in respective academic systems. Furthermore, we outline the needs and propose ways forward to strengthen the foundation for transdisciplinary research and teaching in the Caucasus region.

In this chapter, we shed light on the potentials of transdisciplinary research and teaching integration in post-Soviet countries as a way of contributing to the discussion of complex societal problem-solving processes in these countries. The chapter explores future potentials and advantages of inter- or transdisciplinary research and teaching present in Armenia and Georgia, including contributions to solving complex societal problems in the Caucasus region. We draw lessons from specific challenges and opportunities for integrating and applying transdisciplinary approaches within academic institutions in Armenia and Georgia. To meet this goal, we conducted a qualitative research strategy using mixed methods, including analysis of scientific and legal documents, semi-structured expert interviews, and focus groups with students, teachers, and local stakeholders. We then analyzed findings from this investigation according to four interrelated dimensions for implementing transdisciplinarity in an academic system: (1) the societal role of universities; (2) the internal structure of the academic system; (3) practical organization of transdisciplinarity; and (4) societal conditions of governance. Within each dimension, we identified obstacles for transdisciplinary implementation and provide recommendations for overcoming them. Despite many challenges, our results show that transdisciplinarity facilitates a new culture of collaboration between academia and society for the South Caucasus countries, affirmed by case-based research on integrating transdisciplinary approaches into Armenian and Georgian universities. Based on our analysis and the lessons learned, we give general recommendations for successful transdisciplinary case study research design and implementation in the Caucasus region.

The project Transdisciplinarity for Sustainable Tourism Development in the Caucasus Region (CaucaSusT) initiated the integration of transdisciplinary approaches into partner universities in Armenia and Georgia. The aim was to develop cooperation between academics and nonacademic stakeholders from rural communities in the Caucasus mountain region. This paper uses the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) framework for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) beyond 2019 to reflect on the CaucaSusT project process and outcomes. We carried out qualitative research based on document analysis, individual interviews, and focus group discussions with participating students, teachers, and local stakeholders. The results are presented and discussed according to their relevance to the ESD framework's 5 priority areas. We conclude that the CaucaSusT project was successful in contributing to the priority areas of education and training, educators, and youth, but it contributed less to the priority areas of policy and communities within the short project lifetime. We found the UNESCO ESD framework was a useful tool for evaluating the project. Based on our analysis, we provide recommendations for successful ESD project design and implementation in the Caucasus mountain region.

The concept of transdisciplinarity (TD) has been introduced to find solutions for complex sustainability challenges via knowledge co-production by scientists and societal actors. The understanding of the societal role of universities is a critical factor when implementing transdisciplinarity in the academic systems of Post-Soviet countries, given their historic development. Using Armenia as a case, we adopted a qualitative research approach by analyzing legal documents, conducting semi-structured expert interviews and focus group discussions with a range of stakeholders. We identified discrepancies of expectations between stakeholders as challenges for a joint understanding of the societal role of universities, as well as differently perceived competences and motivations, which can lead to trust deficits. The results are discussed according to four main features of transdisciplinarity: focusing on real-life problems, transcending and integrating disciplinary paradigms, ensuring participatory research and teaching, and searching for unity of knowledge beyond disciplines. Findings show that no formal obstacles exist for implementing transdisciplinarity in two Armenian universities and that the societal understanding of the role of universities could be expanded. Yet, while society is in principle ready for collaboration, the initiative is expected to come from academia. A particular responsibility will lie with teachers from the younger generation to become key-agents for change.