Integrating Science and Policy: A Case Study of the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation Science Links Program

Multi-directional communication between decision makers and environmental health researchers: a qualitative inquiry

It has been three decades since key leaders gathered to pave a path toward healthier and more just environments and recommendations were made to improve communication between scientists and community stakeholders who can influence decision making. Since that time, community engaged research has flourished while building the capacity of researchers to engage in the work of making change to those environments has lagged. The purpose of this study was the development of guidelines to inform interactions between researchers and decision makers and influencers who participate in the policy change process. This community engaged, pragmatic and iterative inquiry includes insight from a review of existing resources and key informant interviews. Resulting guidelines were piloted, and formative evaluation by community stakeholders informed and resulted in refinement to the guidelines. Strategies for communicating and disseminating scientific evidence are presented as well as tactics that sensitise researchers to the nuances of policy makers' realities so they may serve as a resource for dealing with complex information and decisions. We provide tactics and archived resources in an on-line toolkit that we have cultivated over time to foster effective communication between scientists and those who have a stake in ensuring that decisions are evidence informed.

An actionable hydroeconomic Decision Support System for the assessment of water reallocations in irrigated agriculture. A study of minimum environmental flows in the Douro River Basin, Spain

Despite major recent advances in socio-hydrology and hydroeconomics research, interdisciplinary methods and models for water policy assessment remain largely concealed to the academic arena. Most river basin authorities still base decision-making on inputs from hydrologic Decision Support Systems (DSS), and have limited information on the economic costs that water policies may impose on the economy. This paper presents a time-variant hierarchical framework that connects a hydrologic module and an economic module by means of two-way feedback protocols. The hydrologic module is designed to fit the AQUATOOL DSS, the hydrologic model used by Spanish river basin authorities to inform decision-making at a basin scale; while the economic module is populated with a Positive Multi-Attribute Mathematical Programming (PMAMP) model that represents the behavior and adaptive responses of irrigators. The proposed hierarchical framework is used to assess the economic repercussions of strengthening irrigation quotas so to achieve minimum environmental flows in the Douro River Basin (Spain) under climate change. Results show that reductions in agricultural water allocations to meet environmental flow requirements create nonlinear incremental profit and employment losses in irrigated agriculture that are on average low to moderate (between -4% and -12.9 % for profit, and between -4.6 % and -12 % for employment, depending on the scenario). During extreme droughts, the abrupt reductions in water availability and agricultural allocations can test farming systems past the breaking point and lead to catastrophic profit and employment losses (>80 %).

Iterative near-term ecological forecasting: Needs, opportunities, and challenges

Two foundational questions about sustainability are "How are ecosystems and the services they provide going to change in the future?" and "How do human decisions affect these trajectories?" Answering these questions requires an ability to forecast ecological processes. Unfortunately, most ecological forecasts focus on centennial-scale climate responses, therefore neither meeting the needs of near-term (daily to decadal) environmental decision-making nor allowing comparison of specific, quantitative predictions to new observational data, one of the strongest tests of scientific theory. Near-term forecasts provide the opportunity to iteratively cycle between performing analyses and updating predictions in light of new evidence. This iterative process of gaining feedback, building experience, and correcting models and methods is critical for improving forecasts. Iterative, near-term forecasting will accelerate ecological research, make it more relevant to society, and inform sustainable decision-making under high uncertainty and adaptive management. Here, we identify the immediate scientific and societal needs, opportunities, and challenges for iterative near-term ecological forecasting. Over the past decade, data volume, variety, and accessibility have greatly increased, but challenges remain in interoperability, latency, and uncertainty quantification. Similarly, ecologists have made considerable advances in applying computational, informatic, and statistical methods, but opportunities exist for improving forecast-specific theory, methods, and cyberinfrastructure. Effective forecasting will also require changes in scientific training, culture, and institutions. The need to start forecasting is now; the time for making ecology more predictive is here, and learning by doing is the fastest route to drive the science forward.

A roadmap for knowledge exchange and mobilization research in conservation and natural resource management

Scholars across all disciplines have long been interested in how knowledge moves within and beyond their community of peers. Rapid environmental changes and calls for sustainable management practices mean the best knowledge possible is needed to inform decisions, policies, and practices to protect biodiversity and sustainably manage vulnerable natural resources. Although the conservation literature on knowledge exchange (KE) and knowledge mobilization (KM) has grown in recent years, much of it is based on context-specific case studies. This presents a challenge for learning cumulative lessons from KE and KM research and thus effectively using knowledge in conservation and natural resources management. Although continued research on the gap between knowledge and action is valuable, overarching conceptual frameworks are now needed to enable summaries and comparisons across diverse KE-KM research. We propose a knowledge-action framework that provides a conceptual roadmap for future research and practice in KE/KM with the aim of synthesizing lessons learned from contextual case studies and guiding the development and testing of hypotheses in this domain. Our knowledge-action framework has 3 elements that occur at multiple levels and scales: knowledge production (e.g., academia and government), knowledge mediation (e.g., knowledge networks, actors, relational dimension, and contextual dimension), and knowledge-based action (e.g., instrumental, symbolic, and conceptual). The framework integrates concepts from the sociology of science in particular, and serves as a guide to further comprehensive understanding of knowledge exchange and mobilization in conservation and sustainable natural resource management.

Responses of 20 lake-watersheds in the Adirondack region of New York to historical and potential future acidic deposition

Critical loads (CLs) and dynamic critical loads (DCLs) are important tools to guide the protection of ecosystems from air pollution. In order to quantify decreases in acidic deposition necessary to protect sensitive aquatic species, we calculated CLs and DCLs of sulfate (SO4(2-))+nitrate (NO3-) for 20 lake-watersheds from the Adirondack region of New York using the dynamic model, PnET-BGC. We evaluated lake water chemistry and fish and total zooplankton species richness in response to historical acidic deposition and under future deposition scenarios. The model performed well in simulating measured chemistry of Adirondack lakes. Current deposition of SO4(2-)+NO3-, calcium (Ca2+) weathering rate and lake acid neutralizing capacity (ANC) in 1850 were related to the extent of historical acidification (1850-2008). Changes in lake Al3+ concentrations since the onset of acidic deposition were also related to Ca2+ weathering rate and ANC in 1850. Lake ANC and fish and total zooplankton species richness were projected to increase under hypothetical decreases in future deposition. However, model projections suggest that lake ecosystems will not achieve complete chemical and biological recovery in the future.

Conceptual frameworks and methods for advancing invasion ecology

Invasion ecology has much advanced since its early beginnings. Nevertheless, explanation, prediction, and management of biological invasions remain difficult. We argue that progress in invasion research can be accelerated by, first, pointing out difficulties this field is currently facing and, second, looking for measures to overcome them. We see basic and applied research in invasion ecology confronted with difficulties arising from (A) societal issues, e.g., disparate perceptions of invasive species; (B) the peculiarity of the invasion process, e.g., its complexity and context dependency; and (C) the scientific methodology, e.g., imprecise hypotheses. To overcome these difficulties, we propose three key measures: (1) a checklist for definitions to encourage explicit definitions; (2) implementation of a hierarchy of hypotheses (HoH), where general hypotheses branch into specific and precisely testable hypotheses; and (3) platforms for improved communication. These measures may significantly increase conceptual clarity and enhance communication, thus advancing invasion ecology.

Social Norms and Global Environmental Challenges: The Complex Interaction of Behaviors, Values, and Policy

Government policies are needed when people's behaviors fail to deliver the public good. Those policies will be most effective if they can stimulate long-term changes in beliefs and norms, creating and reinforcing the behaviors needed to solidify and extend the public good.It is often the short-term acceptability of potential policies, rather than their longer-term efficacy, that determines their scope and deployment. The policy process should consider both time scales. The academy, however, has provided insufficient insight on the coevolution of social norms and different policy instruments, thus compromising the capacity of decision makers to craft effective solutions to the society's most intractable environmental problems. Life scientists could make fundamental contributions to this agenda through targeted research on the emergence of social norms.

Integrating mercury science and policy in the marine context: challenges and opportunities

Mercury is a global pollutant and presents policy challenges at local, regional, and global scales. Mercury poses risks to the health of people, fish, and wildlife exposed to elevated levels of mercury, most commonly from the consumption of methylmercury in marine and estuarine fish. The patchwork of current mercury abatement efforts limits the effectiveness of national and multi-national policies. This paper provides an overview of the major policy challenges and opportunities related to mercury in coastal and marine environments, and highlights science and policy linkages of the past several decades. The U.S. policy examples explored here point to the need for a full life cycle approach to mercury policy with a focus on source reduction and increased attention to: (1) the transboundary movement of mercury in air, water, and biota; (2) the coordination of policy efforts across multiple environmental media; (3) the cross-cutting issues related to pollutant interactions, mitigation of legacy sources, and adaptation to elevated mercury via improved communication efforts; and (4) the integration of recent research on human and ecological health effects into benefits analyses for regulatory purposes. Stronger science and policy integration will benefit national and international efforts to prevent, control, and minimize exposure to methylmercury.