# Session 17 Resource Management Decision Support

# 

Moderator: Mike Slimak

Overview: Susan Avery

Rapporteurs: Roger Pulwarty (University of Colorado), Ron Birk (NASA)

Panelists: W. Easterling, B., Morehouse, K. Ebi, W., Marshall, Abby
Young

# Affiliations below

# Moderator: Mike Slimak (EPA)

Intro to Panel members

Overview of Chapter 4: enhancing the CCSP commitment to synthesizing
scientific results and produce DSS responsive to national needs

Opportunity for prepared comments by invited reviewers of the draft plan

Opportunity for verbal questions, comments and discussion from workshop
attendees

Reminder: submit electronically according to instructions on website
(www.climatescience.gov)

# Overview: Susan Avery (University of Colorado/NOAA))

Lead Authors list

The CCSP Commitment

> Creating and supporting ongoing dialogues between scientists and
> decision makers
>
> Analytic techniques
>
> Product development: serves decisionmakers/interactions

What is decision support: timely and useful .....addresses specific
questions being asked

Policy development and evaluation

Operational decision processes

Planning/adaptation/mitigation

Includes evaluation of what is known and degree of confidence

NRM: Responding to diverse interests sharing limited resource

The 2002 "Drought"

Water Year

Climate-sensitive: cross-spatial and temporal scales

e.g. cross-basin drought...impact on inter-basin transfers

South Platte: evolving climate and social contexts: interbasin, and
housing development

Use of information in particular contexts

Interdisciplinary Research and synthesis: Climate, social science,
ecosystems, hydrology, economics, Policy and Law

PROPOSED FRAMEWORK

Sustained interactions with stake holders

Identify regions, sectors, decision processes sensitive to climate

Develop indicators for assessing vulnerability and opportunities

Integrated research

Develop data =, information, analytic resources

Decision options

NRC RECOMMENDATIONS

Multiple stresses

Intimate connection between research, operations, decisionmaking

Interdiscip. Relating natural ahuman systems

Develop sustained. integrated observing networks

Across traditional agency

Timely integration

Education

EXPERIMENTS UNDERWAY

Ongoing DSS

EPA

RISA

RESAC

National "Building Blocks"

NSF LTER

USDA,USGS

Inventories, Remote Sensing

Monitoring and Research

International

GeCAFS, START

LESSONS LEARNED

Critical problems/questions stakeholder interaction

Understanding how information will be provided and used

Work up and down scales: framing, observations, modeling

Include adaptation and enhancement of resilience

Institutional capacity

PROGRESS DEPENDS ON

Increase the Permeability of the Barrier Between Research and
Decision/Management

Science.....?......Decision Management

Issues

Public vs. Private goods

Objectivity of Science vs. Mobilizing stakeholders

Level of comfort in the science community

COMMON INTERESTS AND CONSITUENCY

e.g. Hydro-climatic decision calendar

Planning, Operational, Climate Forecasts

DEFINING THE ROLE OF SCIENCE IN THE NRM

e.g. pollution from /to remote locations

forests growth

ARE DECISION SUPPORT AND ASSESSMENT THE SAME

Synthesis of the state fo integrated scientific knowledge .....

Oriented for specific users

Some assessments are more user-oriented than others

POTENTIAL MEASURES OF SUCCESS

Peer=review

Effective stakeholder interactions

Usability of climate information

Reduce vulnerability and increase capacity

Etc.....

# BILL EASTERLING (PENN STATE)

Intro... Not too hung up on plan details

BUT it is a start to link the research community/funding, the US
Government in climate research and application

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT ASSPECTS OF DSS

STRENGTHS

1\. Measured synthesis welcomed ..... as long its balanced .i.e. all of
the contributing disciplines

Most important fundamental new step in the science plan

2\. Engagement of stakeholders/decision makers in forming-policy and
operations and relevant questions ...i.e. exactly as called for by the
national assessments

3\. Historical analysis: Learning from past mistakes.......important for
shaping our future

Getting hung up on modeling...but also recognize.. that making the
models better comes from looking over the past...

Experience from the timescales e.g. changes going on now

MIXED

1\. Generality: anything goes is a double-edged sword....strength
initially ....

Needs better input from scientific community

2\. IF....THEN...scenario analysis OK but avoid "gold standard"
scenarios only...

The future will not be the same as today.

Need to do a better job of anticipating environmental surprises...

Should not just follow one type (e.g. IPCC) of scenario building ...e.g.
how society, technology and economy will be different

3\. Emphasis on vulnerability indicators OK but beware of ambiguity (do
they measure what they think you're measuring"...e.g. population change
could be good or bad....

4\. Target areas (air quality, water availability and quality, forest
and wildlife management, drought, health) good but why exclude
agric.(full story not known, good test bed for new technologies

e.g. Japanese work on Rice seed yield vs. weighted day/night

Yields may increase up to a point with T but then decrease

Yields decrease 10% for each 1 degree C above 26C

WEAKNESS

1.  Lack of "grand challenge" questions..... is the joint
    scientist-stakeholder collaboration the best way to determine the
    questions (Stakeholder driven may be a cop-out

2.  Lack of an international dimension\....Impacts do not stop at
    borders

3.  Decision support for Regional resource management as non sequitur to
    stated goal of identifying national level decision issues...How do
    national level cascade down to regional;

4.  Conception of uncertainty weak.

Research may increase not decrease uncertainty...e.g. role of clouds

Also e.g. I=PA, I=PAT

Silent on decision science tools e.g. decision analysis, game theory,
conjoint utility analysis

Many forms: competing explanations, incomplete knowledge, scale
uncertainty, model uncertainty

e.g. crop simulation models

EPIC vs. CERES..two completely different photosynthetic optima different
by 1C (25.5Cvs 26.5C)

# KRIS EBI (EPRI)

LINK TO SCENARIOS DISCUSSION FROM THIS MORNING

Definition of Terms

Public Health Framework for Vulnerability and Adaptation

Current Vulnerability \>\>\>\>.Adaptive
Capacity\>\>\>\>\>\>\>\>\>.Future Potential Impacts

Sensitivity Coping capacity Avoidable

Exposure Adaptation\>\>\>\>\>

Adaptation Unavoidable

Baseline

Vulnerability is ongoing ....a continuum

Degrees of vulnerability...not just binary (vulnerability or not)

Thresholds are social decisions

Resilience is not always good ...rebuild like before...

When do we want to facilitate resilience vs. change

OBJECTIVES

Not great on motivation for why things need to done

NEW GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

The ultimate goal is to

Protect and enhance human well-being and the environment in the face of
of threats and opportunities

Facilitate adaptive capacity

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

1\. Need non-market impacts...site specific and outcome specific

Long-term prospective and retrospective

Model development

2\. Extension of integrated assessment models to include social systems

3\. Proactive use of scenarios and integrated assessment models to set
research agendas to provide timely information for future decision

5.  Identification and inclusion of contextual factors

6.  Not well integrated with other chapters

7\. Focus on climate science surveillance and response limits the
development of info. Critical to decision making for adaptation policies
and measures

Determining of the least amount of information required to make a
decision

Outcome and site specific

Decision can and are being made already

7.  Need to understand within particular sectors how to incorporate
    decisions related to climate variability and change within sectors

> Lessons learned from response to other stresses

8.  Key decision maker questions

9.  What to do more or less? What needs to be done differently

DS RESEARCH

Assess current level of vulnerability and what adaptation strategies,
policies and measures are in place

How widely adopted? Obstacle to adoption

Project future vuln

Prioritize

Mid-course corrections

PREREQUSITES FOR PREVENTION

JOHN LAST 1998

An awareness that a problem exists

An understanding of the causes

A sense that the problem matters

The capability to control

The political will to deal with the problem

# BARBARA MOREHOUSE (University of Arizona)

Needs to be more ambitious document

Needs stronger stakeholder voices

Already heavy on modeling, monitoring etc.

THOUGHT ON DS

1.The LOCAL scale is crucial

Region is amorphous, needs defined across scale

Northern Hemispheric (western) perspectives

2.RELEVANCE is not a simple concept

Requires depth in stakeholder participation

3\. Much experience has been accrued within

REGIONAL INTEGRATED ASSESSMENTS

Take advantage of existing (NASA, NOAA, EPA) and past (National
Assessment)

4\. USABILITY cannot be shortchanged. Discussion in document is too
limited

Effective Use of feedback

Requires sustained iteration

TWO CHALLENGES: Science

1.Grappling with the long timeframe for regional model development

Need to sustain stakeholder involvement in the interim

2\. Developing a regional science foundation allowing multi-scale
insights

Monsoon Dynamics (NAME)

Ecological persistence and change (NEON)...wildfire management

Designing from the beginning with full participation from the beginning

TWO CHALLENGES: The PUBLIC

1.  Sustaining integrated public participation

> .......RISAs and similar programs provide bridges

2.  Impacts of variability AND change across time/space

Developing and using good scenarios and narratives

Provide a means to incorporate stakeholder experience and perceptions of
exposure to risk

Address heuristics , cognitive illusions etc.

# WILLIAM O KEEFE (Marshall Institute)

Commend administration for the innovative forum

Getting better science and use

Regularly looks back and learns from past experience and efforts

Chapter 4.....

Ambitious set of goals...too ambitious

Realistic expectations in processes, understanding, use of research
information by decision makers

Iterative planning and decision making process....muddling
through...given the level of uncertainty

Observational data about key/critical uncertainties and highest
standards of quality

Models have had an undue influence on policy

Too much influence for simulation as a substitute for reality...no
validated empirical basis for Them (clouds, irradiance)..

They are useful tools but should not be decisionmaking drivers

Analytically satisfying but may be more misleading.....

Rational sequencing of activities and transparent priority setting

Too much of a focus on mitigation and not enough on adaptation

Adaptations and activities that promote resilience need to be promoted

Energy and Climate Policy cannot be separated (opposite sides of the
coin)

Risk management a

No sound basis for the belief for substitute for energy resources

DSS best with a good and effective management

Responsibility is too diffuse

Would be done differently if done by a business....

Need better management controls and accountability

True program management would not be as loose

Organizations strive for coordination and efficiency...requirements for
consensus

Can lock out dissent

Skepticism has been made a vice not a virtue (too pejoratively
dismissed)

How to bring minority views to the front?

# ABBY YOUNG (ICLEI)

Cities for Climate Protection

Local governments are an important stakeholder

Engage local governments to reduce their GHG emission

Local Government Perspectives

1988 TORONTO Adopted 20% below baseline levels

140 Cities and Town in the US

Why are so many local govt. doing this

Motivating factors

1.  LG get it. That we have to exercise the pre-cautionary principle

> Recognize uncertainty...but also recognize what we already know
>
> LG are faced head-on with the impacts of extreme events
>
> (e.g. Sea-level rise intrusion into water supplies, public health care
> systems-heat wave). Relocation and possible loss of oceanfront
> property,
>
> Major weather events: Andrew, RedRiver- Local governments have to deal
> with the
>
> Problems and recovery for decades afterwards
>
> Also Local Govt. cannot avoid the people who are affected they live in
> the same communities
>
> The Chapter does not address costs of impacts and adaptations
>
> What are limitations on adaptation strategies.

2.  It is a no-brainer. Local govt. see it as bringing benefits
    early-on.

Reducing single auto travel, VMT increases air quality

Know that these strategies are good over the long-term

Need life cycle costs of mitigation strategies vs. BAU strategies

-non-financial as well...efficient technologies etc.

Potential local ob creation from new technology development

Need to local at trade-offs between adaptation costs and investment in
mitigation

(also if we wait to have mitigation strategies...then what would be the
costs of Adaptation or Mitigation in the future ..

Four Conclusions

1.  Impacts assessments need to expand and build upon what has already
    been done

e.g. National Assessments did get the attentions of local govt.s

Urban area impacts

2.  Costs of adaptation needs to be weighted on an even basis with
    Mitigation options

3.  Benefits of mitigation

4.  Local govt. should be treated as MAJOR stakeholders: Local govt.
    will be most impacted and will make most of the decisions that
    affect people

# OPEN DISCUSSION, COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS

# Bob Livezey: NWS

Climate variability and change are inextricably connected: Cannot do one
without the other

CV is not a solved problem

We can say little about regional impacts of climate change but because
we do not know enough about CV

Year to Year and seasonal variability and impacts we know very little

Can use CV to test ideas and do

**Cynthia Rosenzweig: GISS**

1.  National Assessments provided a National scope that was also
    regionally focused

> Need this experience to shape our future plans

2.  Need more Agriculture sector: Has important lessons for adaptations
    and mitigation (e.g sequestration)

3.  Urban areas as a focus: Centers of mitigations and adaptations

> Sectoral approach does not work for Cities:

4.  Need to have integrated

# Jurgen Garbrecht, USDA

Scientist plus Stakeholder does not equal a DSS

This meeting is mostly science of discovery: Not the same research that
is needed

Ken Colburn NASCOM (represents NE Governors)

Need to add STATE as well as LOCAL

Have made links across border and across state

Regional Climate Modeling and

DSS to figure out to do what to do and when?

Need quick movement on this front

Uncertainty: Not enough and too much info.

**Keith Dixon GFDL**

Questions about statement about models being pushed too far: but it is a
major problem at the local, state etc. scale)

High resolution models:

These require more resources

Need to prioritize the list and produce a better link

So that models can be focused on

**Janine Bloomfield Environmental Defense**

Quantifying uncertainty

e.g needed for drought management etc., mitigation activities that can
be implemented\
\
Take some firm steps on what levels of certainty are needed for
mitigation vs. adaptations

# Craig Shafer NPS

Products of National Assessments (books) were appreciated and used by
the Parks

Need to produced/tailored for particular sectors (in this case resource
and parks etc. management)

e.g. websites to increase usability

Timely information, least amount of information for decisionmaking

Need information right now

Books are hard to update (websites can be easily updated)

Mike Slimak:

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What was useful or not from National Assessment?