Thomas M. Leschine

Social Media, Public Participation, and the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

ABSTRACT This research examines how information about an oil spill, its impacts, and the use of dispersants to treat the oil, moved through social media and the surrounding Internet during the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Using a collection of tweets captured during the spill, we employ a mixed-method approach including an in-depth qualitative analysis to examine the content of Twitter posts, the connections that Twitter users made with each other, and the links between Twitter content and the surrounding Internet. This article offers a range of findings to help practitioners and others understand how social media is used by a variety of different actors during a slow-moving, long-term, environmental disaster. We enumerate some of the most salient themes in the Twitter data, noting that concerns about health impacts were more likely to be communicated in tweets about dispersant use, than in the larger conversation. We describe the accounts and behaviors of highly retweeted Twitter users, noting how locals helped to shape the network and the conversation. Importantly, our results show the online crowd wanting to participate in and contribute to response efforts, a finding with implications for future oil spill response.

Interactive multiobjective analysis and assimilative capacity-based ocean disposal decisions

Abstract The problem of locating ocean disposal sites requires difficult pollution-cost tradeoffs. The ill-structured nature of such problems suggests that decision aids in tune with the philosophy of decision support would be more effective than convergent, optimization-oriented interactive MOP techniques. In an experimental study the free search interactive programming technique Pareto Race was used in conjunction with an LP model of pollution-cost tradeoffs to analyze a hypothetical decision to relocate sewage sludge disposal operations in the New York Bight. Pareto Race does indeed appear to stimulate subjects to seek and find problem solutions they prefer to their initial selections. But they do not necessarily prefer solutions with higher utility, a finding which we interpret as a partial success for Pareto Race in stimulating subjects to engage in search and learning, in some cases altering their basic decision rules as a result.

Nuclear Waste: Knowledge Waste?

A stalled nuclear waste program, and possible increase in wastes, beg for social science input into acceptable solutions. Nuclear power is re-emerging as a major part of the energy portfolios of a wide variety of nations. With over 50 reactors being built around the world today and over 100 more planned to come online in the next decade, many observers are proclaiming a “nuclear renaissance” (1). The success of a nuclear revival is dependent upon addressing a well-known set of challenges, for example, plant safety (even in the light of improved reactor designs), costs and liabilities, terrorism at plants and in transport, weapons proliferation, and the successful siting of the plants themselves (2, 3).

Cooperation or Conflict in a Changing Arctic

The possibility of conflict among nations has dominated discussions of the future of the Arctic. Are there no opportunities for cooperation? This article explores the avenues and incentives for Arctic cooperation through the common issues outlined in the strategy statements of the five coastal Arctic states. Incentives to cooperate can be found in all the thematic areas examined: sovereignty, scientific research, resource development, shipping, and environmental concerns. Cooperation is already occurring on some salient issues. Additional cooperation may occur as issues become increasingly pressing. From this perspective, Arctic conflict is by no means inevitable. Numerous avenues for cooperation exist.

Beliefs, Values, and Technical Assessment in Environmental Management: Contaminated Sediments in Puget Sound

Principles of risk assessment and risk management are rapidly making their way into environmental policy making. Yet risk assessment has proved problematic in use, since focusing on risks can serve to highlight uncertainties in scientific information or to delineate the differences between risk assessment as a technical procedure and the cultural, social, and institutional dimensions of risk that people also expect to influence risk management decisions. This article examines the use of principles of risk assessment in Washington States development of management standards for contaminated sediments in Puget Sound. It asks whether and how the use of a mixed quantitative-qualitative hazard assessment approach for contaminated-site ranking, coupled with a strategy of separating technical assessment from consideration of social and economic factors in management decisions on a site-by-site basis, helped foster accord on the management approach selected by the Washington Department of Ecology. The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) was utilized in the design and analysis of a survey of policy elites that serves as the principal data collection vehicle for this study. ACF attempts to understand the dynamics of policy formation through examination of the beliefs that opposing advocacy coalitions bring to policy disputes, focusing on whether cross-coalition learning occurs in analytical debate over policy. Results show that distinct pro-environment and pro-development advocacy coalitions exist for Puget Sounds contaminated sediments problem. Relatively little disagreement exists across contending coalitions on the ways principles of risk assessment should be applied in ranking contaminated sites for remedial attention, however, suggesting that risk-based management is an area in which cross-coalition learning has occurred. On the other hand, considerable disagreement exists at the policy level, over both the extent to which consideration of risk should drive decisions and the extent to which legal liability should be used to force remedial action. Nevertheless, these diverse actors have proved willing to accept the Department of Ecologys overall approach, suggesting that framing the problem in the language of risk and separating scientific and technical judgments from sociopolitical considerations has had value in moving potential conflict into a realm where a consensus approach can prevail. Difficult political and economic choices remain for the region as the states sediment management policy continues to evolve. Agreeing to allow major decision points to be framed as problems in risk reduction through parallel but separate processes of risk assessment and risk management has seemingly added resilience to the policy regime developed through the states rule-making process. ACF emerges in this study as a robust framework for examining the impact of scientific and technical assessment on environmental policy development.

Communication Practices for Oil Spills: Stakeholder Engagement During Preparedness and Response

ABSTRACT The Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill was a pivotal moment in the expression of and reporting on stakeholder risk perceptions about oil spills, response options, and safety. Public engagement through both traditional and social media was arguably much higher than in prior spills. The DWH response organization undertook a wide variety of activities to manage risks and communicate with both the general public and those directly affected, such as commercial fishers. However, these did not fully address widespread concerns about ecological and human health risks associated with dispersant use. Consequentially the DWH spill heightened awareness of persistent risk communication problems around oil spill response, and especially dispersant use. Oil spill risk research and experience suggests that institutional and operational factors inhibit engaging communities and stakeholders during oil spill preparedness and response, and that such engagement is essential for effective risk management. In this article we review and assess current oil spill preparedness and response practices for community and stakeholder engagement, including related institutional and operational constraints. This assessment suggests five example risk management practices to improve and advance risk communications during oil spill preparedness and response activities.

The importance of human dimensions research in managing harmful algal blooms

Harmful algal blooms (HABs) are natural freshwater and marine hazards that impose substantial adverse impacts on the human use of coastal and marine resources. The socioeconomic and health impacts of HABs can be considerable, thereby making a case for “human dimensions” research to support HAB response. Human dimensions research is multidisciplinary, integrating social science, humanities, and other fields with natural science to enhance resource management by addressing human causes, consequences, and responses to coastal environmental problems. Case studies reported here illustrate the importance of human dimensions research. Incorporating such research into the scientific agenda – as well as into management decisions of public agencies concerned with natural resource management, environmental protection, and public health and welfare – requires the development of both strategic guidance and institutional capacity. The recent development of a multi-agency research strategy for HAB response and a strateg...

Oil Spill Response Risk Judgments, Decisions, and Mental Models: Findings from Surveying U.S. Stakeholders and Coastal Residents

ABSTRACT This study applies a mental models survey approach to assess public thinking about oil spills and oil spill response. Based on prior interdisciplinary oil spill response research, the study first applies qualitative interview results and a response risk decision model to the design of a survey instrument. The decision model considers controlled burning, public health, and seafood safety. Surveying U.S. coastal residents (36,978 pairs of responses) through Google Insights identifies beliefs and gaps in understanding as well as related values and preferences about oil spills, and oil spill responses. A majority of respondents are concerned about economic impacts of major oil spills, and tend to see ocean ecosystems as fragile. They tend to see information about chemical dispersants as more important than ecological baseline information, and dispersants as toxic, persistent, and less effective than other response options. Although respondents regard laboratory studies as predictive of the effects of oil and of controlled burning, they are less confident that scientists agree on the toxicity and effectiveness of dispersants. The results illustrate opportunities to reframe discussions of oil spill response in terms of tradeoffs between response options, and new possibilities for assessing public opinions and beliefs during events.

What-If Scenario Modeling to Support Oil Spill Preparedness and Response Decision-Making

ABSTRACT Scenario analysis (SA) is the process of developing plausible futures around the forces affecting an organization in the face of uncertainties over which it has little control. SA is widely used in the private sector and increasingly a tool of environmental planners grappling with problems of great complexity and uncertainty. SA ideally marries expert judgment with the broader perspectives engaged stakeholders bring. While the 1990 Oil Pollution Act (OPA) brought substantive improvement to oil spill contingency planning, many issues remain. Reguatorily prescribed definitions of ‘worst case’ lead to SA practice that seldom achieves the full promise of the SA approach. Contingency planning overly focused on tactical and operational considerations can leave response managers little prepared to deal with public concerns that emerge in the event of a major spill, concerns increasingly magnified through social media. Politics continues to contribute to poorly conceived contingency planning in which adopted scenarios bear little resemblance to events that subsequently transpire. Risk attenuation and risk amplification both inhibit scenario-based planning around oil spills, evinced by the Deepwater Horizon spill. Improvements in pre-planning in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill nevertheless provide a foundation for more effective use of SA.

Methods for Communicating the Complexity and Uncertainty of Oil Spill Response Actions and Tradeoffs

ABSTRACT Complexity and uncertainty influence opinions, beliefs, and decisions about health, safety, and other kinds of risk, as demonstrated in research on health, climate change, storm forecasts, pandemic disease, and in other domains. Drawing from this research, this article summarizes insights into how people understand and process uncertain or complex information and explores key oil spill and oil spill response-relevant issues regarding the communication of complexity and uncertainty—from the presentation of uncertainties around forecast parameters to the deployment of online oil spill response simulation tools. Recommended practices from this article include (a) to continue to develop and evaluate interactive Web-based oil spill response simulations to help users explore tradeoffs in response decisions, (b) to take how people simplify information into account in designing communications processes and products (and evaluate), (c) to provide numbers along with verbal probability descriptions, and (d) if using graphics, to communicate probability or uncertainty, using simple graphics and testing them, as effects may not be predictable and some kinds of graphics are easier to understand than others, depending on context, numeracy, and graphicacy.