Towards science in support of decision making: characterizing the supply of carbon cycle science

As concern about climate change grows, so does interest in deliberately managing the carbon cycle to reduce atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. Given the scientific and technical nature of knowledge of the carbon cycle, one would expect that carbon science would be directly of use to society in considering this objective. However, carbon science is not currently organized or conducted in such a way that it can be usable to the wide diversity of decision makers who might potentially be involved in managing the carbon cycle. This paper reviews the science policies and actors governing the production or “supply” of carbon cycle science, and suggests alternatives for enabling the supply to better meet demand.     

Reconciling the supply of scientific information with user demands: an analysis of the problem and review of the literature

Policy makers around the world are calling for the production and diffusion of more useful information for environmental decision-making. Ideally, useful information expands alternatives, clarifies choice and enables policy makers to achieve desired outcomes. Decision makers, however, often lack the useful information needed for good decision-making. By concentrating efforts on increasing the supply of scientific information, scientists may not be producing information considered relevant and useful by decision makers, and may simply be producing too much of the wrong kind of information. Users may have specific information needs that go unmet, or may not be aware of the existence of potentially useful information. This paper defines the practical problem of reconciling the supply of scientific information with users’ demands so that scientists produce information that decision makers need and use in policy decisions. Literature from a variety of disciplines and topics is reviewed to: explain the goals of reconciling the supply and demand of scientific information; define what constitutes useful information; explore lessons learned from experience and describe the characteristics and conditioning factors that shaped those experiences; and identify various alternative strategies and processes that forge stronger science policy linkages. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research.     

The neglected heart of science policy: reconciling supply of and demand for science

The funding of scientific research is almost always justified in terms of the potential for achieving beneficial societal outcomes. In pursuing a particular societal outcome, how can we know if one research portfolio is better than another? In this paper we conceptualize: (1) science in terms of a “supply” of knowledge and information, (2) societal outcomes in terms of a “demand” function that seeks to apply knowledge and information to achieve specific societal goals, and (3) science policy decision-making as a process aimed at “reconciling” the dynamic relationship between “supply” and “demand.” The core of our argument is that “better” science portfolios (that is, portfolios viewed as more likely to advance desired societal outcomes, however defined) would be achieved if science policy decisions reflected knowledge about the supply of science, the demand for science, and the relationship between the two. We provide a general method for pursuing such knowledge, using the specific example of climate change science to illustrate how research on science policy could be organized to support improved decisions about the organization of science itself.     

The opportunities and responsibility for carbon cycle science in the U.S.

Strategies to address climate change increasingly include options to manage the terrestrial and oceanic portions of the carbon cycle, whether as part of national commitments to international treaties, or as elements of entrepreneurial business plans. Carbon cycle science has much to contribute to informing these strategies, but must consider how to organize so as to best provide more “usable science.” Experience in other areas of earth systems science demonstrates that for knowledge to be more useful to decision makers and others outside the scientific community, deliberate mechanisms must be created to prioritize, conduct and disseminate research that are informed by the needs of the target audience. Carbon cycle science has not yet explored operating in this more deliberate mode. Carbon management thus presents an opportunity for some portion of carbon cycle research to become more directly relevant to societal decision-making through innovative ways of organizing research and operating programs.     

Developing biofuels industry in small economies: Policy experiences and lessons from the caribbean basin initiative

With increasing concerns about rising energy demand and cost, diminishing oil reserves, and climate change, Central American and Caribbean (CAC) nations have the opportunity to become producers of low-carbon sustainable biofuels for domestic consumption and foreign exchange earnings. While the region has a number of comparative advantages for developing a vibrant biofuels sector, including favorable climate and significant agricultural experience, the experience under the favorable Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) has exposed significant technical and non-technical barriers that must be overcome. Using information compiled through interviews with industry executives, government policy makers and civil society stakeholders, we provide a critical analysis of this experience focusing on non-technical barriers to investment. Survey results suggest that political uncertainty, poor regulatory frameworks, and lack of institutional commitment and business incentives are the main non-technical barriers. Having laid out the challenges, we propose potential policy positions to stimulate growth of the regional biofuels sector. Results point to the need to prioritize enhancing national legislation, developing risk prevention plans, creating supply and demand side incentives and increasing multilateral collaboration. While these findings are derived from the Caribbean Basin experience, they may also be applicable to small economies in other regions that are considering policies for biofuels industry development.     

Matching knowledge brokering strategies to environmental policy problems and settings

The benefits of utilizing intermediaries to broker understanding between environmental scientists and policy makers have become widely touted. Yet little is known about the tasks boundary spanners undertake to develop environmental policy solutions and how these tasks fit into frameworks intended to advance public policy decision making. Such frameworks may be constructed to aid decision makers in differentiating between the types of environmental policy issues that confront them or the policy settings in which they are operating. Consequently, this paper examines how six different knowledge brokering strategies; informing, consulting, matchmaking, engaging, collaborating and building capacity might be employed in responding to different types of environmental policy problems or policy settings identified in decision aiding frameworks. Using real world examples, four frameworks are reviewed. They are; Lindquist's [Lindquist, E.A., 1988. What do decision models tell us about information use? Knowledge in Society 1 (2), 86–111; Lindquist, E.A., 1990. The third community, policy inquiry, and social scientists. In: Stephen Brooks, S., Gagnon, A. (Eds.), Social Scientists, Policy and the State. Praeger, New York; Lindquist, E.A., 2001. Discerning policy influence: framework for a strategic evaluation of IDRC-Supported research] decision regimes, Turnhout et al.’s [Turnhout, E., Hisschemoller, M., Eijsackers, H., 2007. Ecological indicators: between the two fires of science and policy. Ecological Indicators 7 (2), 215–228] science policy typology, Holling's [Holling, C.S., 1995. What barriers? What bridges? In: Gunderson, L.H., Holling, C.S. (Eds.), Barriers and Bridges to the Renewal of Ecosystems and Institutions. Columbia University Press, New York, pp. 3–34] adaptive cycle and Kurtz and Snowden's [Kurtz, C.F., Snowden, D.J., 2003. The new dynamics of strategy: sense-making in a complex and complicated world. IBM Systems Journal 42 (3), 462–483] Cynefin domains. For the different problem types or policy settings described in the decision aiding frameworks primary knowledge brokering strategies are identified. While the frameworks differ in their conceptual constructions, the applicability of specific knowledge brokering strategies serve as a commonality across particular problem types and policy settings.     

Concept of technical support to science–policy interfacing with respect to the implementation of the European water framework directive

In the implementation of water policies, such as the European water framework directive (WFD), good interaction between policy development and implementation, and the science is of crucial importance. This requires new knowledge and insights to be taken into account in the policy design and development. It also requires the results of Research and Technology Development (RTD) projects, including ICT decision supporting instruments such as tools and models, to be transferred towards policy implementation. These science–policy interrelationships are, however, at this moment not as efficient as it should/could be. This is due to limited operational links with water managers in many water-related RTD projects, such that the needs of policy makers are not taken into account at a sufficient level. Due to this and other reasons, newly developed tools from the research community most often insufficiently transfer to operational use by water managers. Better research integration consequently is required at the various stages of policy developments (identification, design, implementation and review).Within the framework of the Harmoni-CA project for the European Commission, the development of a science–policy interfacing instrument is initiated in order to meet the above-mentioned science–policy gap problems [Quevauviller, Ph., Balabanis, P., Fragakis, C., Weydert, M., Oliver, M., Kaschl, A., Arnold, G., Kroll, A., Galbiati, L., Zaldivar, J.M., Bidoglio, G., 2005. Science–policy integration needs in support of the implementation of the EU water framework directive. Env. Sci. Policy 8 (3), 203–211; Arnold G.E., de Lange, W.J., Blind, M.W., 2005. The Conserted Action Harmoni-CA facilitating the dialogue and bridging the gap between research and WFD implementation. Env. Sci. Policy 8 (3), 213–218]. This paper describes a concept developed by the authors, on how the science–policy interfacing technically can be supported through the bi-directional linking of various types of information sources identified as potential means for enhancing the interfacing mechanism. The information sources identified are policy implementation tasks (at the policy side), and ICT tools, methodologies and guidances (as results of RTD projects). Experiences on the application of RTD results in policy implementation tasks are one of the glue elements between these information sources in combination with activity-related and contextual keywords.     

Emergetic ternary diagrams: five examples for application in environmental accounting for decision-making

In a recent paper, “A combined tool for environmental scientists and decision makers: ternary diagrams and emergy accounting.” [Giannetti BF, Barrella FA, Almeida CMVB. A combined tool for environmental scientists and decision makers: ternary diagrams and emergy accounting. J Clean Prod, in press] Ternary diagrams were proposed as a graphical tool to assist emergy analysis. The graphical representation of the emergy accounting data makes it possible to compare processes and systems with and without ecosystem services, to evaluate improvements and to follow the system performance over time. The graphic tool is versatile and adaptable to represent products, processes, systems, countries, and different periods of time.The use and the versatility of ternary diagrams for assisting in performing emergy analyses are illustrated by means of five examples taken from the literature, which are presented and discussed. It is shown that emergetic ternary diagram's properties assist the assessment of the system efficiency, its dependence upon renewable and non-renewable inputs and the environmental support for dilution and abatement of process emissions. With the aid of ternary diagrams, details such as the interaction between systems and between systems and the environment are recognized and evaluated. Such a tool for graphical analysis allows a transparent presentation of the results and can serve as an interface between emergy scientists and decision makers, provided the meaning of each line in the diagram is carefully explained and understood.     

Interdisciplinary production of knowledge with participation of stakeholders: A case study of a collaborative project on climate variability,human decisions and agricultural ecosystems in the Argentine Pampas

There is a growing perception that science is not responding adequately to the global challenges of the 21st century. Addressing complicated, “wicked” current and future environmental issues requires insights and methods from many disciplines. Furthermore, to reach social robustness in a context of uncertainty and multiple values and objectives, participation of relevant social actors is required. As a consequence, interdisciplinary research teams with stakeholder or practitioner involvement are becoming an emerging pattern for the organization of integrative scientific research or integrated assessments. Nevertheless, still there is need to learn from actual experiences that bring together decision makers and scholars from different disciplines. This paper draws lessons from a self-reflective study of the collaborative process in two interdisciplinary, multi-institutional, multinational research teams addressing linkages between climate variability, human decisions and agricultural ecosystems in the Argentine Pampas. During project design, attention must be placed on team composition, ensuring not only that the needed talents are included, but also recruiting investigators with an open attitude toward interdisciplinary interaction. As the project begins, considerable effort must be dedicated to shared problem definition and development of a common language. Simple conceptual models and considerable redundancy in communication are helpful. As a project evolves, diverging institutional incentives, tensions between academic publication and outreach or policy-relevant outputs, disciplinary biases, and personality issues play increasingly important roles. Finally, toward a project's end the challenge arises of assessing interdisciplinary, integrative work. The lack of consensus on criteria for assessment of results is often ranked as a major practical difficulty of this kind of research. Despite many efforts to describe and characterize collaborative research on complex problems, conditions for success (including the very definition of “success”) remain to be rigorously grounded on actual cases. Toward this goal, we argue that a self-reflective process to identify and intervene on factors that foster or impede cooperative production of knowledge should be an essential component of integrated assessments involving scientists, practitioners and stakeholders.     

Adaptation of Russian agriculture to climatic variability: The role of federal and provincial policies

This paper draws on the example of Tyumen Province, a federal subject of the Russian Federation, to explore the role that policies play in hindering agricultural producers’ adaptation to climate change. Its objective is to contribute to a better understanding of maladaptation at the policy level. The discourse analysis method is used to explain perceptions of climate variability in Tyumen Province and its impact on agriculture. The document analysis method is used to assess agricultural policy in Tyumen Province and its implications for producers’ adaptation to climate change. The results suggest that although agricultural producers and policymakers are acutely aware both of climate variability and the resulting loss of agricultural output, provincial agricultural policy generally fails to encourage better adaptation by agricultural producers or to support their greater economic security. Instead, it primarily focuses on meeting food production targets and thus limits the producers’ own independent moves towards adaptation. The phenomenon of maladaptation at the policy level is discussed in consideration of the general public’s and the authorities’ awareness of climate change and climate variability, and the role of science in shaping this awareness.     

Considering agro-ecosystems as ecological funds for collective design: New perspectives for environmental policy

Enhancing agro-ecosystem sustainability raises difficult challenges for environmental policy: it requires both increasing knowledge on these complex systems to design effective solutions and coordinating stakeholders with diverging interests. However, most existing environmental policies consider ecosystems’ desirable properties as given, leading ecosystem managers to favor “turnkey” solutions. How could public policy better support local collective initiatives aiming at reconciling agriculture and the environment? This paper presents an empirical case study from western France, in which a partnership between an agricultural cooperative and an ecological research center resulted in a collective design initiative. We conceptually model this initiative drawing upon recent design theories and Georgescu-Roegen’s ‘fund-flow’ model, defining ‘ecological funds’ as the starting point of a collective design process. The results highlight the importance of developing policy instruments that can better support local innovation processes through greater democratization. Adopting a design approach to sustainable agricultural landscape management could be particularly fruitful in situations where collective action is necessary but where there is no common good recognized as such, and no existing community identified.     

Pure science or policy involvement? Ambiguous boundary-work for Swedish carbon cycle science

In theory, the interaction between the worlds of environmental science and policy may seem straightforward. From a realm outside politics and power, scientists provide relevant knowledge about nature upon which informed policy decisions could be based. However, in reality this linear model tends to be replaced by a much more complex relationship where the distinction between facts and values, knowledge and interests is less clear cut. In this paper, I explore links between science, policy and power through an interview study conducted with Swedish carbon cycle scientists and government negotiators to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Drawing on a co-production model of science–policy interplay this paper addresses the implications of a mutually constitutive relationship between carbon cycle science and climate policy.     

Evaluating the environmental performance of a university

An increasing number of organisations are moving towards assessing and reporting their environmental performance in a supply-chain context. Not only are such “footprint”-type assessments seen as more rigorous than sustainability reports created in-house, they also offer more abatement options than assessments limited to an organisation’s premises. Hybrid life-cycle assessment methods combining input-output analysis and process analysis are ideally suited to enumerate organisational footprints, because they were developed to enable overall complete results whilst being application-specific. We apply one of these hybrid methods, the Path Exchange Method to the task of planning for a sustainable campus at the University of Sydney in Australia. We show how this method can be used by an environmental or procurement officer for exploring environmental performance and abatement options across supply chains. We also show how parts of an organisation, for example University faculties, can be assessed and compared against each other. Whilst tools like ones used in this work enable quantitative decision support for procurement and operations policies, it takes staff awareness, engagement and training to successfully put such tools into practice.     

Reporting marine climate change impacts: Lessons from the science-policy interface

Climate change science can trace its origins back to the early 19th Century although interest really took off in the 1980s, when public interest and research activity proliferated as the potential negative effects of global warming became clear. The impacts of climate change on the marine environment was receiving little attention at this time, but in recent years has started to “catch up” both in terms of research activity and public and policy interest. In the UK, the Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership (MCCIP) has played a key role in transferring the emerging evidence base on marine climate change impacts to decision makers through the development of climate change report cards. Since publishing its first card back in 2006, the MCCIP cards have become established as the principal source of marine climate change impacts evidence for policy makers in the UK, and similar approaches have been adopted elsewhere. Here we broadly describe how the climate change evidence base has evolved over time, with a focus on the marine evidence base, and the approach adopted in the UK by MCCIP to rapidly transfer this evidence to end users. The SIIRMS model developed by MCCIP to ensure integrity and independence in the scientific translation process is explored, along with wider lessons learnt along the way (e.g. about communicating uncertainty) and the impact MCCIP has had on informing decision making.     

论中国农业持续发展研究中的若干问题

“持续农业的研究对象”、“农牧结合问题”、“粮食问题”“农业生产布局”以及“中国农业生产效率”一直是我国学术界与政策决策阶层争论与关注的热点。五大“热点”不仅影响我国农业生产的正确决策,也影响着我国农业研究的方向。作者根据近年研究实践,结合国内外的大量研究成果,从理论与实践２个方面对上述问题进行了实事求是的分析、论述。①“持续农业”是学术术语,并不是农业替代模式,持续农业的研究对象则是促进农业持续发展的技术体系与管理战略,以此促进农业向环境健康与安全的方向发展,并不是“创造”一种新的农业生产模式完全替代常规农业；②我国农牧结合研究依然停留在古时期“种植业提供饲料,畜牧业提供畜粪还田培肥地力”这一传统观念阶段。农牧结合研究应该在我国农、牧生产专业化进一步深化的基础上,从饲料能量蛋白质供给与消费平衡这一深层次上优化和把握农牧结合强度及其协调性,同时要高度重视我国畜牧业生产专业化可能引发的农、牧“分离”及其潜在的环境问题；③有计划地节制食物消费的增长速度、引导膳食结构的转变与合理引导并积极寻找粮食替代资源,是解决我国粮食生产在经济高速增长前提下粮食供需缺口不断扩张的主要途径；④我国种植业生产发展空间格局的重心应摆     

Knowledge users’ perspectives and advice on how to improve knowledge exchange and mobilization in the case of a co-managed fishery

Environmental scientists have long been frustrated by the difficulties involved in transferring their research findings into policy-making, management, and public spheres. Despite increases in scientific knowledge about social-ecological systems, research has consistently shown that regulators and stakeholders draw on tacit, informal, and experiential knowledge far more than scientific knowledge in their decision-making. Social science research in the fields of knowledge exchange (KE) and knowledge mobilization (KMb) suggest that one of the major barriers to moving knowledge into practice is that scientists fail to align their communication strategies with the information-seeking behaviours and preferences of potential knowledge users. This article presents findings from in-depth qualitative research with government employees and stakeholders involved in co-managing Pacific salmon fisheries in Canada’s Fraser River. We investigate how members of these groups access, view, and use scientific information, finding both similarities and differences. Members of both groups express a strong interest in academic science, and self-report using scientific information regularly in their work and advocacy. However, the two groups engage in different information-seeking behaviours, and provide notably different advice to academic scientists about how to make research and communication more relevant to potential users. For example, government employees focus on the immediate applications of research to known problems, while stakeholders express greater concern for the political context and implications of scientific findings. We argue that scientists need to “go where the users are” in the behavioural and intellectual sense, and tailor their communications and engagement activities to match the habits, preferences, and expectations of multiple potential user groups. We conclude with recommendations on how this may be done.     

Integrating scientific knowledge into large-scale restoration programs: the CALFED Bay-Delta Program experience

Integrating science into resource management activities is a goal of the CALFED Bay-Delta Program, a multi-agency effort to address water supply reliability, ecological condition, drinking water quality, and levees in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta of northern California. Under CALFED, many different strategies were used to integrate science, including interaction between the research and management communities, public dialogues about scientific work, and peer review. This paper explores ways science was (and was not) integrated into CALFED's management actions and decision systems through three narratives describing different patterns of scientific integration and application in CALFED. Though a collaborative process and certain organizational conditions may be necessary for developing new understandings of the system of interest, we find that those factors are not sufficient for translating that knowledge into management actions and decision systems. We suggest that the application of knowledge may be facilitated or hindered by (1) differences in the objectives, approaches, and cultures of scientists operating in the research community and those operating in the management community and (2) other factors external to the collaborative process and organization.     

Ecological knowledge and North Sea environmental policies

In an analysis of North Sea eutrophication science and policies, focusing on the period 1980–2005, it was investigated how scientific information was used in policy-making. The analysis focused on the central assumptions of the rational policy-making model, i.e. that scientific information can be used to formulate decisions, based upon objective scientific information (rational decision-making), and secondly, can support implementing these decisions (rational management). In general terms, the following was concluded:

• •More knowledge has increased rather than reduced uncertainty;
• •In order to handle the problem of dealing with complexity and uncertainty at the political level, a simplification of facts has occurred, in this case focusing on nutrients as the main cause of the problem, at the same time excluding other possible causes;
• •Both the limited scientific view (i.e. the nutrient view) and the exaggeration of the seriousness of the problem (impacts, scope) have been used as an authoritative basis for the justification of political decisions. Both were not supported by the majority of the scientific community;
• •New scientific knowledge, not in support of existing policies, has been excluded from the policy process;
• •The science–policy interface, mainly consisting of “civil-servant scientists”, that emerged and increased its influence over the period of investigation, has been the central element in the simplification and exclusion process.

The main lesson learned is that work at the interface of science and policy must be subject to democratic principles, i.e. be transparent and involving all parties with a stake in the issue under consideration.     

The influence of science on Canada's foreign policy on persistent organic pollutants (1985–2001)

The role of science in environmental foreign policymaking has received little attention in the international environmental politics literature, and systematic, in-depth case studies of the influence of science on environmental foreign policy with respect to persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are entirely missing. We present a case study of the influence of science on Canada's foreign policy on POPs from the discovery of the transboundary nature of the POPs problem around 1985 to the signing of the United Nations Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in 2001. Influence was analyzed in terms of a knowledge–action methodology that focused on the types of scientific knowledge and the actions taken by scientists that were influential. Data were collected through interviews and extensive document analysis. We conclude that, while individual knowledge types and actions were influential during various periods (single-factor explanations), it was an increasingly layered and integrated “package” of knowledge types and actions, with human health impacts as its touchstone and partnering between scientists and non-scientists as its watchword, that propelled and sustained Canada's foreign policy on the POPs issue.     

Complementarity,biodiversity viability analysis,and policy-based algorithms for conservation

Biodiversity conservation “area-selection” strategies include not only trade-offs among society’s needs in land-use allocation, but also allocation of economic instruments such as incentives, levies, and biodiversity credits. For these applications, the key property of an area is its “complementarity”—the context-dependent, marginal gain in biodiversity provided by the area. Given that there has been little implementation of whole-sets of areas generated by the popular computer-based selection methods, we suggest that analogous “policy-based algorithms” would be a more effective real-world application of complementarity. Areas would be “selected” for conservation over time as a consequence of policies in which dynamic complementarity values influence application of economic instruments. These integrated biodiversity/economic strategies can use an extended form of complementarity reflecting marginal changes in regional probability of persistence of biodiversity. While probabilistic measures of biodiversity viability have been explored in area-selection for some time, it remains difficult to make viability statements about “all of biodiversity.” New approaches that use biodiversity surrogate information for “biodiversity viability analysis” (BVA) can take advantage of a general quantitative biodiversity framework in which pattern-based relationships among areas allow predictions at the species level. A standard assumption of “unimodal” species responses to environmental gradients yields an expected distribution of species in an ordination pattern, and allows sampling of inferred species. Based on environmental correlates, inferred species can be mapped in geographic space, forming distribution fragments. This information, when linked to species persistence models, may allow ongoing calculation of areas’ complementarity values. An example illustrates application of these ordination models to museum collection data for lizards from New South Wales (NSW), Australia.