Informing Decisions in a Changing Climate (2009) / Chapter Skim
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4 Information Needs for Decision Support
4 Information Needs for Decision Support
Pages 91-124
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From page 91... ...
Providing decision support to those who are in charge of the responses is essential for carrying out the purposes of the act, and to provide a scientific basis for this support, the nation needs to develop the science of climate change response, as a complement to the science of climate change processes. Understanding the physical dimensions of climate is a necessary but not sufficient condition for supporting climate change responses.
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From page 92... ...
The types of information required for climate responses are many and varied, ranging from climate data to data on affected populations and ecosystems. Agencies and organizations that are responsible for responding to extreme climate events need to know what types of events to prepare for and the likely occurrence of such events as well as the potential effects on human populations, economic activity, and built and natural systems.
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From page 93... ...
Mitigation strategies designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles, for example, may need information on the most effective incentives for automobile manufacturers and purchasers, on appropriate urban design approaches, and on how to combine incentives, regulations, and infor
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From page 94... ...
Decisions regarding changes in agricultural practices depend on detailed information on how climate change affects growing seasons and crops -- the kind of information sought by Pileus Project investigators -- along with knowledge concerning both more robust and alternative crops. Decisions on infrastructure improvements for flood protection require information from sources as diverse as civil and structural engineering, infrastructure life-cycle analysis, environmental impact assessment, demography, public finance, and law.
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From page 95... ...
For example, most California decision makers who try to reduce earthquake hazards have little interest in earth science and geophysics per se, but considerable interest in how the physical processes associated with earthquakes interact with vulnerable environments and how they affect valued assets and human populations. California has experienced many large earthquakes that were not disasters because they did not hit population centers or disrupt important economic activities.
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From page 96... ...
Other Examples As the above discussions show, useful information for responding to climate change requires climate information and many other kinds of information as well. The examples below illustrate the many types of data and information required to assess both climate impacts and the effectiveness of efforts to respond to a changing climate landscape.
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From page 97... ...
Western Water Management Climate change confronts water managers in several western states with the prospect of serious droughts and decreased winter snowfall, leading to reductions in snowpack, which accounts for about 35 percent of California's usable annual surface water (California Department of Water Resources, 2006)
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From page 98... ...
. Organizations that manage conserved land require information on how terrestrial ecosystems will change as climate changes and what their conservation value will be after some species and habitats disappear and others replace them.
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From page 99... ...
Because the transportation sector produces the fastest growing rate of carbon dioxide emissions, it is important to consider not only the effects of climate change on transportation infrastructure, but also the effects of the infrastructure on climate change. In the long term, better community and transportation infrastructure planning can reduce vehicle-miles traveled, thus slowing climate change and facilitating adaptation to a carbonconstrained world.
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From page 100... ...
, mosquito abundance, mosquito infection, avian host populations and infection rates, and equine and human cases. Reducing Household Greenhouse Gas Emissions Homes and private motor vehicles account for nearly 40 percent of national carbon dioxide emissions in the United States and are therefore a major target for mitigation.
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From page 101... ...
Fundamental to RISA programs is the notion that better science does not necessarily lead to better decisions. Rather, as discussed in Chapter 2, they seek to improve decisions both through the incorporation of scientific information and by developing and sustaining knowledge-action networks.
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From page 102... ...
BOX 4-2 Climate Change Vulnerabilities and Water Management in California Only a few of the water agencies in California have begun to include climate change projections in their planning activities. One exception is the Inland Empire Utilities Agency (IEUA)
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From page 103... ...
has pointed out the ways in which increased attention to the human dimensions of climate and other global environmental changes can provide both new research discoveries and practical strategies for climate-related mitigation and adaptation activities. The relevant science base has been reviewed in multiple studies since the 1980s, which also offer recommendations for future development in the area (e.g., National Research Council, 1984, 1985, 1989, 1992, 1994, 1997, 1999a, 1999b, 2002a, 2002b, 2004d, 2005a, 2008c)
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From page 104... ...
What is now needed is an integrated effort that includes fundamental and applied climate research as well as fundamental and applied research on the social, economic, ecological, and cultural conditions that determine the human consequences of climate change and of responses to it. On the basis of our review of past research assessments and of the information needs of climate-sensitive decision makers, we conclude that
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From page 105... ...
. Climate Change Vulnerabilities Many climate-sensitive decisions require an improved ability to estimate, analyze, and project human vulnerabilities to climate change in particular regions, sectors, or communities.
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From page 106... ...
Highly aggregated models of some of the drivers of climate change, such as energy and land use, have often been far off the mark in predicting future trends. Integrating into such models data on population dynamics, economic activity, energy and resource demand, and other social indicators has the potential to yield improved forecasts based on better understanding of the underlying processes (National Research Council, 1984, 1992, 1997, 1998b, 2005c)
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From page 107... ...
The benefits of a more balanced and integrated approach include a more realistic and comprehensive understanding of climate response options, their interrelationships, and their joint effects on the human consequences of climate change. Many ongoing activities provide test beds for research, sources of research questions, and potential audiences for and users of research results.
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From page 108... ...
While recognizing those challenges, it is also important to highlight the many opportunities that are emerging as a consequence of changing climate. Thus, paralleling the need to understand the risks and decision support requirements associated with future climate projections is an equally compelling need for information to support climate-related decisions that can be beneficial and profitable.
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From page 109... ...
. For example, the Decision Center for a Desert City at Arizona State University focuses on research related to urban growth and water resource management in the Phoenix area, and the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia University conducts research on such topics as media effects on climate change risk assessment and the role of affect and direct experience in processing uncertain climate information.
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From page 110... ...
Research on how people understand uncertain information about risks and on better ways to provide it, given knowledge about human understanding, can improve decision support processes and products. For example, although most risk analysts think of these issues in terms of presenting consequences and probabilities in terms of given values, most nonspecialists also consider qualitative aspects of risks, emotional reactions to risk information and risk-related decisions (Slovic et al., 2004; Rottenstreich and Hsee, 2001; Loewenstein et al., 2001)
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From page 111... ...
Another important topic is research on methods for organizing decision support processes, including the roles of boundary organizations, and on process-based approaches for improving understanding, such as those that combine deliberation with analysis (see Chapter 3; see also National Research Council, 1996b, 2008c)
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From page 112... ...
As noted elsewhere in this report, the scale at which data are provided can present serious challenges for usefulness. Although climate change projections have typically focused on global or continental scales, the vast majority of decision contexts require information on the consequences of climate change and of responses to it at national, regional, and local, and other appropriate scales (e.g., ecosystems, watersheds)
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From page 113... ...
For those planning long-term infrastructure investments, decadal and longer term climate projections, combined with other long-term trend information, such as data on population growth, may be sufficient. In contrast, ranchers, farmers, fisheries managers, and emergency managers may require information on a seasonal scale.
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From page 114... ...
These recommendations, written with an eye to research needs, are appropriate today for the practical purposes of building a scientific base for informed decisions about climate response. A more recent report, Decision Making for the Environment, reiterated the point and called for an intensive effort on the part of natural and social scientists to develop sets of indicators capable of characterizing "not only states of the biophysical environment but also human influences on nature and the impact of the physical world on humans" (National Research Council, 2005a:87–88)
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From page 115... ...
The state funded a nonprofit organization, the California Climate Action Registry, to collect emissions data from state organizations. It established linkages with a RISA program, the California Applications Program at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, which conducted studies of climate change impacts in such areas as water resources, wildfires, and public health (Franco et al., 2008)
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From page 116... ...
Coastal Services Center is engaged in a multiyear effort to provide coastal communities with a suite of hazard, vulnerability, and resilience assessment tools to support community decision making to reduce the impacts of coastal hazards. Developing existing and new social indicators relevant to climate change will make it possible to conduct assessments that are consistent across communities and countries and over time -- assessments that are crucial for a deeper understanding of the relationships among climate change, society, and ecological systems.
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From page 117... ...
NEED FOR A MULTIDISCIPLINARY WORKFORCE To develop the science of and for decision support, to produce useful decision support information, and to get it used, it is critical to build multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary teams whose members interact and work together to better integrate data for use by decision makers. Strong teams consist of members who have high levels of expertise in their own fields, but who are also willing and able to engage with counterparts from other fields and to cross the divide between science and its uses.
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From page 118... ...
, including NSF, should expand current programs and initiate new programs aimed at supporting the development of a well-balanced, multidisciplinary climate response science/human dimensions workforce. This expansion is needed in order to address the climate-related decision support needs of the future.
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From page 119... ...
Research to inform climate change responses requires a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach and a commitment to the collection of data that both support decisions and enable learning through deliberation with analysis. Agencies that are part of the GCRP and other agencies concerned with energy and the environment can contribute to the needed changes by increasingly taking a multidisciplinary and decision-oriented approach to collecting data and information in their areas of responsibility.
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From page 120... ...
should organize a program of research for informing climate change response, as a component of equal importance to the current national program of research on climate change processes. This program should include research for and on decision support, aimed at providing decision relevant knowledge and information for climate responses.
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From page 121... ...
developing and disseminating decision support products; and 5. assessing decision support "experiments." Research to understand decision support processes should include assessments of the transferability of knowledge gained from experience outside the United States, where in some cases decision support efforts have a longer and better documented history than in the United States.
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From page 122... ...
This expansion should include, but not be limited to, the following elements: • geocoding existing social and environmental databases and indicators relevant to climate impacts and responses at all governmental levels and in the private sector, with a special emphasis on longitudinal datasets; • developing methods for aggregating, disaggregating, and integrating such datasets with each other and with biophysical data and reconciling inconsistencies, for example, through the use of spatial social science and GIS methods; • creating new datasets to fill critical gaps in existing data; • greater support for research (e.g., modeling and process studies) to improve methods for producing use-relevant information; and • engaging decision makers at various levels and in governmental and nongovernmental sectors in the identification of critical data needs for climate-affected regions, sectors, and populations.
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From page 123... ...
Encouraging multi- and interdisciplinary research on climate change impacts, decision making, and decision support is a daunting challenge, given the generally narrow focus of many scientists. A different approach is needed to meet the challenge of providing useful and timely decision support to the wide range of people and organizations that must take action to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
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