The provision and utility of science and uncertainty to decision-makers: earth science case studies

The need to reconfigure consistency and variability to best manage changing flood risks in Aotearoa-New Zealand

Flooding is Aotearoa-New Zealand's most frequent natural hazard, and there is high confidence that climate change is making extreme rainfall events more frequent and intense. Additionally, there are significant development pressures which could both increase the number of people and assets at risk and the flood hazard. To date, there is no publicly available consistent approach to accurately determine flood risk on a national scale, nor for how this may be changing; although there is a growing legislative requirement to provide quality information over multiple spatial scales. This paper draws on empirical data to gain insights on how to best manage changing flood risks in Aotearoa-New Zealand from the perspective of centrally organised entities. Findings confirm the need for a nationally consistent approach to flood risk management, better understanding of Aotearoa's communities and their vulnerability to floods, equitable access to quality information and decision-support tools, and better understanding of the economic impacts on differing communities, regions and places. The paper concludes that to achieve a flood-resilient Aotearoa, flood governance needs to be reconfigured to achieve national consistency in flood risk management whilst enabling targeted variability at the local scale.

Science advocacy in political rhetoric and actions

‘Science’ is a proportionately small but recurring constituent in the rhetorical lexicon of political leaders. To evaluate the use of science-related content relative to other themes in political communications, we undertake a statistical analysis of keywords in U.S. Presidential State of the Union (SOTU) addresses and Presidential Budget Messages (PBM) from Truman (1947) to Trump (2020). Hierarchical clustering and correlation analyses reveal proximate affinities between ‘science’ and ‘research’, ‘space’, ‘technology’, ‘education’, and ‘climate’. The keywords that are least correlated with ‘science’ relate to fiscal (‘inflation’, ‘tax’) and conflict-related themes (‘security’, ‘war’, ‘terror’). The most ubiquitous and frequently used keywords are ‘economy’ and ‘tax’. Science-related keywords are used in a positive (promotional) rhetorical context and thus their proportionality in SOTU and PBM corpora is used to define fields of science advocacy (public perception advocacy, funding advocacy, advocacy) for each president. Monte Carlo simulations and randomized sampling of three elements: language (relative frequency of usage of science-related keywords), funding (proposed funding and allocated discretionary funding of science agencies), and actions (e.g. expediency of science advisor appointments, (dis-) establishment of science agencies) are used to generate a science advocacy score (SAS) for each president. The SAS is compared with independent survey-based measures of political popularity. A myriad of political, contextual, and other factors may contribute to lexical choices, policy, and funding actions. Within this complex environment ‘science’ may have political currency under certain circumstances, particularly where public and political perceptions of the value of science to contribute to matters of priority align.

Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management

Increasing demand for metals used in clean energy technologies, including electric vehicles, has led to an increased demand in certain metals such as Ni, Co, and Mn. This demand has in turn led to an expanding interest in deep-seabed mining (DSM) of polymetallic nodule deposits that contain these exact metals. The main concerns about DSM relate to the incomplete information available about the environmental risks associated with seabed mineral extraction. Key uncertainties need to be systematically addressed to refine environmental impact predictions and establish effective mitigation measures. Adaptive management is an iterative process for reducing the uncertainty that can be applied by both mining companies and regulatory bodies. This Special Series paper reviews the key opportunities and challenges to operationalizing adaptive management in DSM projects and highlights the need for a framework to move from theory to practice. The discussion proposes a systems approach to adaptive management, which could help to guide the environmental management of deep-sea mineral extraction. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2022;18:674-681. © 2021 SETAC.