Final Memo: Communicating and Using Uncertain Scientific Information in the Production of ‘Actionable Science’
Dates
Date Reported
2016-08
Summary
Conservation practitioners must navigate many challenges to advance effective naturalresource management in the presence of multiple uncertainties. Numerous climatic and ecological changes remain on the horizon, and their eventual consequences are not completely understood. Even so, their influences are expected to impact important resources and the people that depend on them across local, regional, and sometimes global scales. Although forecasts of future conditions are almost always imperfect, decision makers are increasingly expected to communicate and use uncertain information when making policy choices that affect multiple user groups. The degree to which management objectives are met can depend on 1) how critical uncertainties [...]
Summary
Conservation practitioners must navigate many challenges to advance effective naturalresource management in the presence of multiple uncertainties. Numerous climatic and ecological changes remain on the horizon, and their eventual consequences are not completely understood. Even so, their influences are expected to impact important resources and the people that depend on them across local, regional, and sometimes global scales. Although forecasts of future conditions are almost always imperfect, decision makers are increasingly expected to communicate and use uncertain information when making policy choices that affect multiple user groups. The degree to which management objectives are met can depend on 1) how critical uncertainties are identified and accounted for, and 2) effective communication among user groups, scientists, and resource managers. The objective of this project was to help facilitate strategic decision support and synthesize the state of the science related to communicating and using uncertain information in conservation decision making. By providing a forum on the communication of scientific uncertainty, we traversed traditional disciplinary boundaries, with a focus on climate change in the southeastern United States. We hosted a workshop, which included scholars and practitioners from a variety of fields, produced numerous presentations and a fact sheet to assist resource managers in making decisions in the presence of uncertainty.
