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IFCAE Project: Decision Support Systems and Multi-Stakeholder Environmental Problem Solving: Effects on Public Participation, Equity and Power |
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| Timeframe: | Phase 1: 2007-2010 |
| Investigators: | Eric T. Jones, Greg Hill, Rebecca McLain, Steve Kolmes, Michael Monticino |
| Administration: | Institute for Culture and Ecology |
| Funding: | National Science Foundation (U.S.) |
| Project Overview | |
| Environmental problems give rise to some of the most complex problem-solving processes our society faces. In these processes multiple stakeholders represent contested objectives while critical variables can only be estimated, making projections uncertain at best. A complex network of influences, competing objectives and uncertainties can overwhelm the cognitive capacity of even the most sophisticated decision maker. Increasingly, statistically-based computer-implemented decision support systems (DSS) are being introduced to assist stakeholders and decision-makers in coping with these complexities. From local watershed councils to the Environmental Protection Agency, to the Nature Conservancy, organizations are using DSS in a wide range of environmental problem-solving scenarios. The increasing use of DSS tools in environmental decision making raises a number of questions that merit critical study: How are these technical tools influencing the decision-making process and what is the effect on breadth of public participation? When a computer-based decision support system arrives at the table, which stakeholders have their voice in the debate amplified and which have their voice diminished? In which contexts and scenarios do these tools promote equity among the various stakeholders? In which do they reinforce existing power differentials? What is the effect on the distribution of costs and benefits? Do DSS tools promote efficiency and effectiveness in complex multi-stakeholder processes? Although a great deal of technical research has gone into the creation of DSS tools these critical questions remain unanswered and are largely unstudied. This project will use qualitative and quantitative to address these questions by conducting a study of the salmon recovery process taking place in the Columbia River Basin. The answers to the above questions are important. It is widely acknowledged that public participation is crucial to effective and long-lasting solutions to environmental problems and so it is important to understand how the use of tools such as DSS affects collaborative problem-solving. This project not only seeks to understand the effects of DSS tools, but to improve their design and use, leading to more effective and more resilient solutions to today's environmental problems. | |
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| Summary of Key Findings | |
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This
exploratory study examined the effect of the use of computer-based
decision support systems (DSS) on public participation in subbasin
planning for the Columbia River Basin’s salmon recovery efforts. The
study found that previous expertise and facility in the use of DSS
tools plays an important role in determining which potential
participants take part in (or drop out of) the planning process and
which participants make significant contributions to planning
outcomes. Stakeholders with technical expertise are disproportionately
active at points in the process where the decision frame is
established or significantly narrowed, such as building the DSS tools,
selecting which data to enter, and interpreting model outputs. These
inequities are exacerbated when DSS tools are used as rigid frames,
rather than as exploratory tools, and when planning environments allow
insufficient time for training stakeholders with limited technical
expertise. The use of decision support tools as rigid frames rather
than tools for exploration, together with the limited opportunities
for stakeholders to interact directly with DSS tools: 1) constrained
the degree to which stakeholders could develop shared mental models of
ecosystem dynamics, and 2) reduced the quality of data entered into
the models and interpretations of outputs. Limited stakeholder
involvement contributed to the inability of many of the planning teams
to reach consensus on management objectives once the alternatives
derived from the use of the tools were subjected to wider community
review. Our work identified two key educational needs: for individuals
participating as stakeholders, the acquisition of systems thinking
capacity; and for planning groups as a whole, the presence of a
supportive collaborative learning environment. |
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| Map of Ethnographic Work in Columbia River Basin | |
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| Publications | |
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Downloadable Poster: Jones, Eric T.; Hill,
Gregory; Mclain, Rebecca; Kolmes, Steven. 2010.Decision Support Systems and Multi-Stakeholder Environmental Problem Solving: Effects on Public Participation, Equity and Power. Presented at Principal Investgator Meeting, National Science Foundation |
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