Final Exam Flashcards
IA Definition:
“A collective, deliberative process by which experts review, analyze, and synthesize scientific knowledge in response to users’ information needs relevant to key questions, uncertainties, or decisions.”
What makes for a good IA question?
“What are the causes, consequences, and potential responses to…”
Two types of IA methods and author:
1) Mississippi River Basin-“Basin Scale” (Scavia)
2) Corn Belt Future: “Landscape Scale” (Nassauer)
Two major types of scenarios (CBM):
1) Projective or predictive: forecasting or backcasing–what is likely to be or have been given confidence interval/high and low extensions of trend
* ** Cannot adequately capture expert knowledge of interactions among model variables
2) Prospective
-What could be–a “reachable future”
Useful for:
-High uncertainty, uncontrollable, inadequately acknowledge
-Imaginative new ideas to address intractable or surprising policy challenges
-Change creating context for future behavior different from the past
Seven key elements of alternative futures method (CBF approach):
1) Representative stakeholders
2) Baseline conditions and trends
3) Scenarios: plausible stories about the future
4) Analytical models for specific futures
- future: specific outcome of one scenario
5) Different assessments of specific futures
6) Integrated assessment comparing futures
7) (What is the purpose of the scenario?)
CBF: What is the purpose of using scenarios?
Anticipate the future or make choices that may affect the future
What are the roles of stakeholders in the CBFapproach?
Identify range of assessment frameworks:
- how they are applied and in what context
Definition of a scenario:
“A senario is a plausible story about the future. Scenarios are intended to help us anticipate the future or to make choices that may affect the future.”
Integrated Assessment Model Venn Diagram
1) Social Sciences
2) Natural Sciences
3) Policy & Management
Overlaps: Social/Natural: Disconnected from decisions Social/Policy: Ignore Environment Natural/Policy: Ignores People All three: IA: Informed Decisions
Step #1 MRB IA
1) Define policy-relevant question Developed with: policy community science community other stakeholders This is not only a science question
Ask a bounded question … can it be answered within reason? … is it conducive to analysis? … is there a factual basis? Ask a useful question … can one act on the answer?
Step #2 of MRB IA
2) Document env, econ, social status, and trends (value-independent)
Step #3 of MRB IA
3) Describe causes and consequences of trends (analytical, fact-based)
Step #4 of MRB IA
4) Predict future outcomes under action options (quantitative/qualitative–>open to interpretation)
Step #5 of MRB IA
5) Provide Guidance for Potential Actions
Step #6 of MRB IA
6) Document uncertainties & science needs (improve future assessments)
Criteria for IA evaluation
1) Credibility: Technical adequacy (perceived validity, accuracy of information)
2) Salience: Value (relevance to policy, time/space scales)
3) Legitimacy: Perceived fairness of the process, all views considered
4) Effectiveness (dropped?): Did it change/stabilize/advance debate? Make a difference?
Credibility: Gulf Hypoxia MRB
1) Characterization of hypoxia
2) Ecological & economic consequences
3) Flux and sources of nutrients in basin
4) Effects of reducing nutrient loads
5) Methods of reducing nutrient loads
6) Evaluation of economic costs and benefits of reducing hypoxia
Technical Reports Reviewed by: Independent editorial board, public comments, formal response to public comments, public meetings
Gulf: Practical Suggested Actions
1) Reduce loss from land (reduce fertilizer, improve manure management, alternative cropping systems)
2) Increase wetlands as buffers
CBF: Why is the “landscape” a good scale for intentional environmental change?
???
CBF: What is “design” in the context of landscape scenarios?
???
CBF: How are “boundary objects” important when conducting IA’s?
???
5 Characteristics of a Wicked Problem
1) Difficult to define
2) Many multi-causal interdependencies
3) Socially complex
4) Involve changing behavior
5) Have no stopping rules
Wicked Problem: characteristics of “difficult to define”
Nature and extent of problem depends on who is asked
Multiple stakeholders , who often do not agree
WP: “many multi-causal interdependencies”
Differential impacts across and within scales
Attempts to address them often lead to unforeseen consequences
WP: “socially complex”
Range of stakeholders
Extend beyond responsibility of any one organization
“Solutions “determined by stakeholders, political forces, resource availability
WP: “involve changing behavior”
Have redistributive implications for entrenched interests
WP: “no stopping rules”
Lack a discrete solution or end point
Creating solutions changes the problem
Coping rather than solving
What are “normative scenarios”?
What do we want and how do we get there
What is an Environmental Sustainability Assessment?
Sustainability Assessment can be thought of as a family of tools, methods, and/or processes that can “help decision-makers and policy-makers decide which actions they should or should not take in an attempt to make society more sustainable.” (Devuyst, 2000)
More specific: (From MA) “A process designed to bring the findings of science to bear on the needs of decision-makers”
Three families of sustainability assessment
Given by Ness et al:
1) Indicators and indices
2) Product-related assessment (e.g. material and energy flows from LCA)
3) Integrated Assessment (broad collection–broader than Scavia & Nassauer)
Three criteria to categorize sustainability assessment
Ness et all: (just one inventory approach)
1) Temporal characteristics (retrospective vs prospective)
-Past development
-Future outcomes
Policy change
Production process
2) Focus or coverage area
- Product level
- Regional level
- Specific policy
3) Integration of nature-society systems
- Integrated vs. non-integrated
Key Features Shaping Assessment Process
1) Issue or problem you are trying to address
- Is it a relatively specific issue such as the carbon footprint or a broader one such as climate change?
2) The assessment process(es) that you choose to deploy
- Are you using life cycle assessment or ecological risk analysis or “integrated assessment” or a combination of multiple ones?
3) Value structure, scale of analysis, stakeholders, target audience
- What is your spatial scale and time horizon? What policy(ies) are you trying to inform? Are you assessing a project that has already been developed or one that will be in the future?
Super Wicked Problem: 4 additional characteristics
1) Running out of time
2) Lack of a strong central authority
3) Those trying to solve are also causing the problem
4) Hyperbolic discounting
What is progressive incrementalism?
Levin et al:
-Small steps that accumulate and can be ratcheted up to produce significant results in a short amount of time
Characterizing sustainability: What are “goals”
Broad, but specific qualitative statements about objectives chosen
(Parris and Kates)
Characterizing sustainability: ***What are indicators?
Quantitative measures selected to assess progress toward a goal
-Example of climate change
(Parris & Kates)
Characterizing sustainability: What are targets?
“Use indicators to make goals specific with endpoints and time tables
(Parris & Kates)
Characterizing sustainability: What are trends?
Changes in the value of indicators over time
Parris & Kates
Characterizing sustainability: What are “driving forces and policy responses?”
Processes that influence trends and our ability to meet targets
(Parris & Kates)
