Katharine L. Jacobs

Linking knowledge with action in the pursuit of sustainable water-resources management

Managing water for sustainable use and economic development is both a technical and a governance challenge in which knowledge production and sharing play a central role. This article evaluates and compares the role of participatory governance and scientific information in decision-making in four basins in Brazil, Mexico, Thailand, and the United States. Water management institutions in each of the basins have evolved during the last 10–20 years from a relatively centralized water-management structure at the state or national level to a decision structure that involves engaging water users within the basins and the development of participatory processes. This change is consistent with global trends in which states increasingly are expected to gain public acceptance for larger water projects and policy changes. In each case, expanded citizen engagement in identifying options and in decision-making processes has resulted in more complexity but also has expanded the culture of integrated learning. International funding for water infrastructure has been linked to requirements for participatory management processes, but, ironically, this study finds that participatory processes appear to work better in the context of decisions that are short-term and easily adjusted, such as water-allocation decisions, and do not work so well for longer-term, high-stakes decisions regarding infrastructure. A second important observation is that the costs of capacity building to allow meaningful stakeholder engagement in water-management decision processes are not widely recognized. Failure to appreciate the associated costs and complexities may contribute to the lack of successful engagement of citizens in decisions regarding infrastructure.

Making short-term climate forecasts useful: Linking science and action

This paper discusses the evolution of scientific and social understanding that has led to the development of knowledge systems supporting the application of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) forecasts, including the development of successful efforts to connect climate predictions with sectoral applications and actions “on the ground”. The evolution of “boundary-spanning” activities to connect science and decisionmaking is then discussed, setting the stage for a report of outcomes from an international workshop comprised of producers, translators, and users of climate predictions. The workshop, which focused on identifying critical boundary-spanning features of successful boundary organizations, included participants from Australia, Hawaii, and the Pacific Islands, the US Pacific Northwest, and the state of Ceará in northwestern Brazil. Workshop participants agreed that boundary organizations have multiple roles including those of information broker, convenor of forums for engagement, translator of scientific information, arbiter of access to knowledge, and exemplar of adaptive behavior. Through these roles, boundary organizations will ensure the stability of the knowledge system in a changing political, economic, and climatic context. The international examples reviewed in this workshop demonstrated an interesting case of convergent evolution, where organizations that were very different in origin evolved toward similar structures and individuals engaged in them had similar experiences to share. These examples provide evidence that boundary organizations and boundary-spanners fill some social/institutional roles that are independent of culture.

Arizona water policy : management innovations in an urbanizing, arid region

Arizona has burgeoning urban areas, large agricultural regions, water-dependent habitats for endangered fish and wildlife, and a growing demand for water-based recreation. As one of the seven states in the Colorado River Basin, Arizona must cooperate, and sometimes compete, with other state, tribal, and federal governments in securing its water needs—a process that is complicated by a multi-year drought and climate-related variability in water supply. Arizona Water Policy addresses these issues from academic and policy perspectives that include economics, climatology, law, and hydrology. The book explores Arizona’s water management and extracts lessons that are important worldwide.

CALFED--An experiment in science and decisionmaking

Abstract The CALFED Bay-Delta Program is one of the largest environmental restoration projects in the United States. The complexity of the ecosystem in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers and the involvement of various agricultural, municipal, and environmental interests demand a sophisticated science-based management approach. What progress has been made so far? How can the role of science be adapted so that it is relevant and credible in a policy forum?

Post-Decision Assessment

Federal, state, and local governments spend billions of dollars annually in attempts to implement public policies, and private businesses and citizens spend billions more complying with the programs and regulations spawned by those policies. Almost as staggering as the amount of money that is spent is how little effort is made to find out what and how much is being achieved. This chapter will focus on a series of tools that should be useful to environmental decision makers in determining the character and level of impact that their policies, programs, and activities are having on the environment.

Drought, Climate Variability and Implications for Water Supply and Management

Arizona has burgeoning urban areas, large agricultural regions, water-dependent habitats for endangered fish and wildlife, and a growing demand for water-based recreation. As one of the seven states in the Colorado River Basin, Arizona must cooperate, and sometimes compete, with other state, tribal, and federal governments in securing its water needs—a process that is complicated by a multi-year drought and climate-related variability in water supply. Arizona Water Policy addresses these issues from academic and policy perspectives that include economics, climatology, law, and hydrology. The book explores Arizona’s water management and extracts lessons that are important worldwide.

Toward a national, sustained U.S. ecosystem assessment

Pieces are in place, but need coordination and policy focus The massive investment of resources devoted to monitoring and assessment of economic and societal indicators in the United States is neither matched by nor linked to efforts to monitor and assess the ecosystem services and biodiversity that support economic and social well-being. Although national-scale assessments of biodiversity (1) and ecosystem indicators (2) have been undertaken, nearly a decade has elapsed since the last systematic assessment (2). A 2011 White House report called for a national biodiversity and ecosystem services assessment (3), but the initiative has stalled. Our aim here is to stimulate the process and outline a credible framework and pathway for an ongoing assessment of ecosystem functioning (see the photo). A national assessment should engage diverse stakeholders from multiple sectors of society and should focus on metrics and analyses of direct relevance to policy decisions, from local to national levels. Although many technical or science-focused components are in place, they need to be articulated, distilled, and organized to address policy issues.

The science-policy interface: experience of a workshop for climate change researchers and water managers

This report summarizes a workshop for Arizona water managers and climate change researchers. The key technical conclusions of the workshop emphasize the need for improved monitoring, prediction, and engineering to deal with hydrologic non-stationarities generated by a combination of increasing temperatures, changing snow hydrology, and enhanced precipitation variability. Participants suggested a need to improve methodologies for valuing ecosystem services and understanding the nexus between energy production in the water resources arena. Paleohydrologic reconstructions, well-defined climate change scenarios, better data visualization and collaborative learning opportunities between water managers and scientists all can support more effective water management decisions. We note the importance of maximizing discussion and social interaction in workshops in order to remove barriers between scientists and practitioners. In particular: (1) holding the workshop in a location that maximizes community-building, (2) limiting the time devoted to plenary talks, and (3) introducing informal cafe-style discussions early in the workshop, are all important. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

Government: Plan for ecosystem services

Natural and managed ecosystems provide food, water, and other valuable services to human societies. Unnoticed by many in the scientific community, the values associated with ecosystem services have been integrated into U.S. government policy. A recent administration memo ([ 1 ][1]) put U.S. federal

Building community, credibility and knowledge: the third US National Climate Assessment

Assessments that are designed to be credible and useful in the eyes of potential users must rigorously evaluate the state of knowledge but also address the practical considerations—politics, economics, institutions, and procedures—that affect real-world decision processes. The Third US National Climate Assessment (NCA3) authors integrated a vast array of sources of scientific information to understand what natural, physical and social systems are most at risk from climate change. They were challenged to explore some of the potentially substantial sources of risk that occur at the intersections of social, economic, biological, and physical systems. In addition, they worked to build bridges to other ways of knowing and other sources of knowledge, including intuitive, traditional, cultural, and spiritual knowledge. For the NCA3, inclusion of a broad array of people with on-the-ground experience in various communities, sectors and regions helped in identifying issues of practical importance. The NCA3 was more than a climate assessment; it was also an experiment in testing theories of coproduction of knowledge. A deliberate focus on the assessment process as well as the products yielded important outcomes. For example, encouraging partnerships and engagement with existing networks increased learning and made the idea of a sustained assessment more realistic. The commitment to building an assessment focused on mutual learning, transparency, and engagement contributed to the credibility and legitimacy of the product, and the saliency of its contents.