actionable science @ doi se climate science...
TRANSCRIPT
Actionable Science @ DOI SE Climate Science Ctr.
Implementing a decision-oriented project portfolio
Jerry McMahon Director, SECSC 2do. Congreso de Areas Naturales Protegidas de Puerto Rico August 29, 2014
U.S. Department of the Interior
U.S. Geological Survey
Developing successful partnerships for fostering global change resilience
• Understanding global change processes, including land use and climate change, involves teasing apart the interactions of complex systems, operating at multiple scales…the science is challenging.
• But…want to avoid the real danger of developing brilliant answers to questions that people don’t care about.
• Fostering climate resilience, at a project level or across a portfolio of projects, requires researchers to step out side their comfort zone, understand what matters to people, and make sure that their research sheds light on making decisions that address key values for decisionmakers and stakeholders.
Department of Interior Climate Science Center Network
DOI Secretarial Order 3289: Producing actionable science that helps individuals and organizations understand and adapt to global change.
SECSC vision for science that “adds up”
– In general: Actionable science provides data, analyses, projections, tools that support “smart” global change adaptation decisions, helping decisionmakers achieve the objectives that matter to them.
– It is ideally co-produced by scientists and decision-makers, and creates rigorous, understandable, and usable information.
– In particular, for the SECSC, actionable science seeks to:
– Understand decisionmakers objectives
– Characterize and understand the effects of climate change on these objectives
– Utilize research-based information to make management decisions that accomplish objectives.
Decision Analytic Approach Or, avoiding coming up with great answers to questions no one has asked
1. Problem Framing
• Decision maker(s) & stakeholders
• Values/risk attitudes objectives
• Matching of scales
• Alternative Actions
2. Consequences • Predictive models that
link actions to objectives
3. Identify Preferred Policy
• Integration of parts
• Trade-off analysis
Actionable science challenges All aspects of this process for doing landscape-scale, actionable science are complicated by “wicked decision context”
– Many stakeholders with variety of values; No definitive problem formulation; no clear right or wrong answer; no clear stopping rule.
• Complex, coupled human-natural systems
• Scale mismatch
• Adaptation response in face of global change: a moving target
• Managers, scientists, and public are not experienced with handling these challenges
Coupled human-natural systems are influenced by processes occurring at multiple spatial, temporal, and
governance scales
Source: Cahoon, USGS
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Management must deal with a “scale mismatch” phenomenon… that is, scales at which an environmental systems varies and the scales at which governance
occurs are not well matched
Global change processes create a moving target in terms of adaptation decisions
• How long do you continue to fight a “rear guard action?”
• What is the basis for deciding it is time to start transitioning from the current mission (based on historical objectives and historical climate and land use conditions) to a new mission, given uncertainty about – the trajectory of some of the large-scale drivers (e.g.,
drought, sea-level rise, saltwater intrusion, land use change)
– what future objectives can be achieved at or near a refuge?
– What the future objectives even are? And who will define them?
(Wise et al., 2014, GEC)
General lack of preparation on part of decision makers, scientists, and public for making wise
decisions in the face of these challenges • Mental maps don’t account for multi-
scale complexity
– Dealing with broad scale change (space and time)
– Dealing with intergenerational objectives/values
• Thinking fast-thinking slow
– Thinking fast: short term recognition of risks and rewards
– Thinking slow: longer term recognition of risks and
rewards
• General scientific literacy
– Now: relations between stressors and response
– Longer term: see Mental Maps
1. Problem Framing
• Values and objectives of decision maker(s) & stakeholders
• Alternative Actions
2. Consequences
• Predictive models that link actions to objectives
3. Identify Preferred
Policy
• Integration of parts
• Trade-off analysis
SECSC “actionable science” niche (activities that wouldn’t happen without
the NCSU-USGS collaboration)
• Our understanding of this niche is evolving…
• From primarily “standard” climate science… – impacts of climate/land use stressors on endpoints
• …toward a “conversation and listening”-directed science model…science focused by what people care about in the context of decisions they have to make. – Continue to discuss and understand the challenges above
– Decision focused research projects; “co-production” of knowledge
– Broader public conversations and education
– Training the next generation of scientists: GCF program
Where and when do we manage?
Develop Decision Framework to Optimally Allocate Conservation Efforts
Stakeholder workshop to refine climate model output
High-resolution climate models needed to capture the effects of complex topography and micro-climates over the island.
Observations – January Climatology
Sample of downscaling for 1 week
