Casey Helgeson, Klaus Keller, Robert E. Nicholas, Vivek Srikrishnan, Courtney Cooper, Erica A. H. Smithwick, Nancy Tuana
{"title":"Integrating Values to Improve the Relevance of Climate-Risk Research","authors":"Casey Helgeson, Klaus Keller, Robert E. Nicholas, Vivek Srikrishnan, Courtney Cooper, Erica A. H. Smithwick, Nancy Tuana","doi":"10.1029/2022EF003025","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div>\n \n \n <section>\n \n <p>Climate risks are growing. Research is increasingly important to inform the design of risk-management strategies. Assessing such strategies necessarily brings values into research. But the values assumed within research (often only implicitly) may not align with those of stakeholders and decision makers. These misalignments are often invisible to researchers and can severely limit research relevance or lead to inappropriate policy advice. Aligning strategy assessments with stakeholders' values requires a holistic approach to research design that is oriented around those values from the start. Integrating values into research in this way requires collaboration with stakeholders, integration across disciplines, and attention to all aspects of research design. Here we describe and demonstrate a qualitative conceptual tool called a <i>values-informed mental model</i> (ViMM) to support such values-centered research design. ViMMs map stakeholders' values onto a conceptual model of a study system to visualize the intersection of those values with coupled natural-human system dynamics. Through this mapping, ViMMs integrate inputs from diverse collaborators to support the design of research that assesses risk-management strategies in light of stakeholders' values. We define a visual language for ViMMs, describe accompanying practices and workflows, and present an illustrative application to the case of flood-risk management in a small community along the Susquehanna river in the Northeast United States.</p>\n </section>\n </div>","PeriodicalId":48748,"journal":{"name":"Earths Future","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2022EF003025","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Earths Future","FirstCategoryId":"89","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022EF003025","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Climate risks are growing. Research is increasingly important to inform the design of risk-management strategies. Assessing such strategies necessarily brings values into research. But the values assumed within research (often only implicitly) may not align with those of stakeholders and decision makers. These misalignments are often invisible to researchers and can severely limit research relevance or lead to inappropriate policy advice. Aligning strategy assessments with stakeholders' values requires a holistic approach to research design that is oriented around those values from the start. Integrating values into research in this way requires collaboration with stakeholders, integration across disciplines, and attention to all aspects of research design. Here we describe and demonstrate a qualitative conceptual tool called a values-informed mental model (ViMM) to support such values-centered research design. ViMMs map stakeholders' values onto a conceptual model of a study system to visualize the intersection of those values with coupled natural-human system dynamics. Through this mapping, ViMMs integrate inputs from diverse collaborators to support the design of research that assesses risk-management strategies in light of stakeholders' values. We define a visual language for ViMMs, describe accompanying practices and workflows, and present an illustrative application to the case of flood-risk management in a small community along the Susquehanna river in the Northeast United States.
期刊介绍:
Earth’s Future: A transdisciplinary open access journal, Earth’s Future focuses on the state of the Earth and the prediction of the planet’s future. By publishing peer-reviewed articles as well as editorials, essays, reviews, and commentaries, this journal will be the preeminent scholarly resource on the Anthropocene. It will also help assess the risks and opportunities associated with environmental changes and challenges.