Decision Making for the Environment Social and Behavioral Science Research Priorities (2005) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix B Improving Environmental Decision Processes--Robin Gregory and Timothy McDaniels
Appendix B Improving Environmental Decision Processes--Robin Gregory and Timothy McDaniels
Pages 175-199
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Appendix B Improving Environmental Decision Processes Robin Gregory and Timothy McDaniels INTRODUCTION Environmental decision processes refer to the ways by which individuals, groups, and organizations -- and ultimately societies -- go about making choices that have implications for the natural environment. Individual decisions about consumption patterns, energy use, the relative importance of different water and air quality objectives, and trade-offs such as those among recreation options all have important environmental consequences.
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A second is that the needed scientific knowledge encompasses both the natural sciences and the social sciences. It is well known that the quality of communication between these two groups of professionals is often poor.
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APPENDIX B 177 environment, such as forests, oceans, wildlife, inland waterways, or fisheries, or influence health and lifestyle issues by, for instance, managing toxic wastes or air or water pollution. Yet the scope of environmental decisions is far broader because of the relationships among environmental management choices and economic, social, health, and cultural values.
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178 DECISION MAKING FOR THE ENVIRONMENT tiple objectives (Keeney and Raiffa, 1993)
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APPENDIX B 179 the context of a specific choice. This will be accomplished by building from an underlying set of more basic values, guided in part by the cues provided by the elicitor or the judgmental setting.
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180 DECISION MAKING FOR THE ENVIRONMENT requires an understanding of both analytical components, in terms of distinguishing technical (factual) and value-based issues and explicitly addressing sources of uncertainty (relating either to facts or values)
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APPENDIX B 181 A widely discussed application of social learning in the context of environmental decision making is adaptive management (Holling, 1978; Lee, 1993)
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182 DECISION MAKING FOR THE ENVIRONMENT complex and unfamiliar environmental goods. Hence, understanding preferences should stress the important role of helping people construct their preferences rather than simply revealing them through actions or questions (Slovic, 1995)
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APPENDIX B 183 table based on the judgments of the decision maker to clarify the relative importance of differences in how well the different alternatives achieve the objectives for a decision. The approach then uses that insight as a basis for eliminating dominated alternatives and for expressing different objectives in common units, which in turn greatly facilitates judgments of which alternative is preferred.
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184 DECISION MAKING FOR THE ENVIRONMENT or situations in which regulatory issues are linked across multiple scales and levels of decision making (McDaniels and Gregory, 2004)
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APPENDIX B 185 These scales serve two major purposes. First, they provide a means for distinguishing among different levels of impact with respect to the attribute.
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186 DECISION MAKING FOR THE ENVIRONMENT Evaluating Trade-Offs There are three main reasons why trade-offs are addressed poorly as part of many environmental management plans (Gregory, 2002)
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APPENDIX B 187 manner, which can result in suboptimal decisions and fewer opportunities for learning (because feedback in terms of management responses is more difficult to incorporate)
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188 DECISION MAKING FOR THE ENVIRONMENT review the content and outcomes of a large set of applied cases, providing conclusions on the benefits and drawbacks of such processes. Criteria for the Conduct of Deliberative Processes Deliberative processes, involving either small groups of experts (science and lay representatives)
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APPENDIX B 189 used. Other criteria would need to take account of the role that emotion and affective considerations, as well as deliberation, play in the conduct and quality of discourse pursued by a group.
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190 DECISION MAKING FOR THE ENVIRONMENT holders are long-time community residents; some are aboriginal populations with special interests and cultural uses of environmental resources; some are resource users with specialized knowledge such as fishers or trappers. This alternative knowledge base may be based on different techniques, and reflect differently constructed forms of knowledge, than those of Western scientific methodologies, yet we believe it often represents a useful -- in many cases essential -- complement to science-based knowledge.
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APPENDIX B 191 not seek the normatively best practice, but the best practice under constraints of real people's cognitive capabilities, legal requirements, limited time and resources, social conflict, and so forth. Researchers in the empirical tradition can be uncomfortable defining decision quality because they see a conflict between normative and positive science or because they question whether any single standard can hold up in a diverse society.
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192 DECISION MAKING FOR THE ENVIRONMENT tors, thereby making it difficult to track information about different effects (environmental, economic, social) and alienating individuals whose concerns (such as health and safety, biodiversity, or community image)
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APPENDIX B 193 over time, provide important research opportunities. McDaniels and Gregory (2004)
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194 DECISION MAKING FOR THE ENVIRONMENT change in other variables (for example, those with slower rates of change)
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APPENDIX B 195 evaluation of time affect many environmental initiatives, the research conducted to date rarely has emphasized either prescriptive or normative implications; one result is that its influence on the practice or thinking of resource managers has been limited. CONCLUSION These three broad areas within environmental decision making all contain high-priority topics for research.
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196 DECISION MAKING FOR THE ENVIRONMENT ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors appreciate the guidance and encouragement of Paul Stern and two anonymous referees in completing this paper. REFERENCES Argote, L
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2002 Panarchy. Washington, DC: Island Press.
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Commission on Behav ioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
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APPENDIX B 199 Payne, J., J Bettman, and E
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