Knowledge-Action Systems for Seasonal to Interannual Climate Forecasting Summary of a Workshop (2005) / Chapter Skim
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4 Components of Effective Systems
4 Components of Effective Systems
Pages 9-22
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From page 9... ...
To ensure that the objectives are more user driven, a knowledge-action system would need to be evaluated relative to the achievement of decision makers' ultimate goals (e.g., more effective risk management) , rather than the goals of the S&T community (e.g., more or better understanding and use of climate forecasts)
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The definition of this allocable volume requires forecasts of supply goal for the next season or year. To predict the available supply for the next season or year, the Users Commission, which mirrors in composition the Hydrographic Basin Committees in that the state, users, and organized civil society are represented, uses forecasting products from FUNCEME that are developed in collaboration with the Companhia de Gestão dos Recursos Hídricos (COGERH)
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From page 11... ...
In the cases discussed at the workshop, this means connecting a primary scientific innovation combining observations, climate dynamics, and seasonal/interannual forecasts to ultimate decisions about planting times, reservoir charges and discharges, and disease surveillance targeting. Often entire systems have failed because of a missing link between the climate forecast and these ultimate user actions.
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From page 12... ...
Understanding how climate variability links to important impacts and non-climate-related issues is the key to effective utilization of the information provided. · Beyond partnerships with users, knowledge producers who are successful in linking knowledge to action tend to maintain a larger outreach effort aimed at the wider community through programs designed for the media, schools, universities, community organizations, and the private sector.
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In addition, they facilitated the communication between Climate Prediction Center's modelers and the managers on the islands. Forecasters at the University of Guam had to learn how to do the locally relevant climate forecasts.
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A few participants emphasized that the boundary organizations that seem to be such essential components of successful knowledge-action systems tend to require particularly effective leadership. Within such organizations there is a need for individuals simultaneously capable of translating scientific results for practical use and framing the research questions from the perspective of the user of the information.
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From page 15... ...
The center develops new, custom-tailored climate forecast products for specific stakeholders as well as providing feedback to federal forecast providers on the design and production of climate forecast products. Acting as a stable boundary organization within an ever-changing political context, the Climate Impacts Group provides the links necessary to maintain contact and connections with multiple political organizations, agencies, and actors at multiple levels.
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This requires careful observation of changing conditions; identification of social, political, and economic trends; and other context-related aspects of decision making. It also requires learning from past mistakes, appropriate responses to ensure effectiveness, and understanding potential alternative future conditions.
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By the early 1990s as climate forecasting skills improved, the reform effort envisioned the possible addition of climate forecasts as a useful tool to incorporate in the integrated drought-planning approach. During this process, FUNCEME identified the need to build its own internal technical capacity, both through tapping into Brazilian expertise and through building partnerships with international organizations like the World Bank, the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research, Scripps, European research institutes, and NOAA.
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More than climate forecasts, there is the need to understand how climate conditions affect malaria transmission indices, taking into account the dynamics of transmission, including mosquito ecology, parasite life cycle, human hosts, environmental and climate conditions, availability of breeding sites, human migratory patterns, programs of public health intervention, etc. Mobilization of resources and establishment of control and mitigation programs for malaria need to take into account climate forecasts that are translated into possible malaria outcomes at the very local level.
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From page 19... ...
For example, the Queensland system for incorporating climate information in the management of farming risks that was discussed at the workshop has a strong private-good component -- individual farmers who use the system effectively capture individual benefits of more profitable production. In contrast, the malaria management system being designed in Colombia is almost entirely a public good provider.
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The Managing Climate Variability program |
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to train students in understanding user perspectives, encouraging user-definition of problems, and collaborating on setting research agendas. More fundamental changes would be required for disciplines that have historically not been as applied.
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From page 22... ...
At a higher level of technical capacity building, fellowships for new local weather service employees in the Freely Associated States and increases in National Weather Service staff in the territories have also contributed. Graduate assistantships at the University of Hawai'i also provided knowledge and experience with climate forecasting for the University of Hawai'i Meteorology Department graduate students, but much of that knowledge and experience will likely be lost to other regions of the world because of the limited number of positions in the field.
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