Climate risk maps as boundary objects for future forests

Abstract

Climate change poses significant threats to ecosystems and biodiversity. Conventional management strategies often fall short, leading to uncertainties in addressing these challenges. Natural and environmental scientists play a crucial role by providing evidence-based guidance. Social science research, at the same time, highlights the complexity of transferring and applying knowledge across different social and professional groups and shows that further research is needed. Using a German case study, my research addresses this issue by examining the dynamics between predictive climate risk maps, intended as decision-support tool for forest management, the developing scientists, the receiving environmental managers and further political actors. Semi-structured qualitative interviews with representatives from these groups were conducted and analyzed, revealing that climate risk maps can function as predictive boundary objects, balancing flexibility and robustness. With their high level of visual and epistemic power, these maps generate knowledge tensions, facilitate interactions, and foster the implicit co-production of broader environmental management discourse. At the same time the maps are continuously contested, discussed, and updated through feedback, becoming themselves part of an ongoing informal co-productive process. This dual role creates ambiguity: they provide concrete answers to specific management related questions while highlighting simultaneously limitations that prompt more fundamental inquiries, driving an overall societal learning process. Hence, future efforts should enhance formal support for co-productive processes to ensure evidence-based advisory tools are scientifically robust, contextually adapted, and democratize knowledge dynamics through continuous dialogue, mutual learning, and integration of scientific as well as local knowledge.