Meta-analyses of case studies: A method for studying regional and global environmental change

As case studies of global environmental change accumulate over time, ways of summarizing these findings and bringing them to the attention of policymakers become more necessary. In summarized form, these findings might, for example, tell us new things about regional and pan-regional trends in tropical forest cover. This paper proposes a method for analyzing and summarizing the findings from the case studies. It illustrates the method through a meta-analysis of local studies of forest cover change in Mexico, and discusses how the method can produce credible, insightful findings about global environmental change.