Thoughts on Wicked Problems and Conceptual Models:

1. Thoughts on Wicked Problems and Conceptual Models: DOI Southeast Climate Science Center and the SE Conservation Adaptation Strategy Jerry McMahon Peninsular Florida LCC August 21, 2012 U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey

2. Connecting science and management • What is the problem or decision? • What is the objective to be addressed related to the problem? • How can we measure whether we have met the objective?

3. SECSC Science Plan • Published March 2012 • http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2012/1034/ • 6 themes • Climate projections • Land cover and land use change projections • Impacts of CC on water resources • Ecological research and modeling • Coastal and near-shore marine environments • Impacts of CC on cultural heritage resources

4. FY12 Funded Projects • Synthesize state of the science • Regional downscaling of climate predictions Synthesis of Climate Model Downscaling Products for the Southeastern United States Ryan P. Boyles, NCSU, September 2013 • Ecohydrology Hydrological Modeling for Flow-Ecology Science in the Southeastern United States Jonathan Kennen, USGS NJ Water Science Center, July 2013 Assessment of Terrestrial and Aquatic Monitoring Programs in the Southeastern US Damian Shea and Cari Furiness, NCSU, September 2014 • SLR A Handbook for Resource Managers to Understand and Utilize Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Wetland Models for Ecosystem Management Thomas W. Doyle, USGS National Wetlands Research Center, June 2013

5. FY12 Funded Projects • Synthesize state of the science (con’t) • Urban modeling Developing Long-Term Urbanization Scenarios for the Caribbean LCC Jaime Collazo, USGS North Carolina Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, January 2014 • Climate sensitive ecosystems Assessing Climate-Sensitive Ecosystems in the Southeastern United States Jaime Collazo, USGS NC Cooperative Fish and Wildlife and William J. Wolfe, USGS Tennessee Water Science Center, September 2013 • Communicating and using uncertain scientific information Communicating and Using Uncertain Scientific Information in the Production of ‘Actionable Science’ Brian Irwin, USGS Georgia Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, June 2013

6. FY12 Funded Projects • Terrestrial connectivity in the SE region Connectivity for Climate Change in the Southeastern United States Nick Haddad, NCSU, Completion: September 2014 • Impact of mangrove migration on coastal ecosystems Ecological Implications of Mangrove Forest Migration in the Southeastern US Michael Osland, USGS National Wetlands Research Center, September 2014 • Conceptual models for a sustainable landscape

7. Doing science in the face of “Wicked Problems” • Scientific complexity and uncertainty • Challenging to understand vulnerability and adaptive capacity of complex interacting systems operating at many scales • Is better science the issue? Decision-making context is such that better technical information alone does not necessarily lead to better decisions • Many stakeholders (emotional?); many interests; differing perceptions and tolerances of risk …the problem isn’t solely getting better technical information • Improving science and technical knowledge no guarantee that the science will be used; SECSC wants to avoid developing great answers to questions that aren’t being asked • Urgency – management actions won’t be postponed until scientific uncertainties and values trade-offs are resolved

8. SECAS as an example of Wicked Problems …to develop and pursue a common vision of habitat conservation that can sustain fish, wildlife, and other natural and cultural resources across ecosystems in a way that meets expectations of the public, the Administration, and the Congress. (Ed Carter) • Is better science all we are lacking to implement SECAS? • What resources are most important? For whom? • Who are the key stakeholders? What are their priority interests/decisions? What are good indicators/endpoints to measure if an objective is achieved? • Do we know how to predict these endpoints? • WHERE TO START?

9. Responses to the SECAS challenges • From perspective of a “scientific study” culture • Most of us trained in a ‘study culture’: a technically-oriented problem is identified and a study is launched. • How the study information will contribute to better choices among mgt. options not always specified. • From the perspective of a “decision” culture • Reality of environmental management: Once a problem emerges, decisions will be made, even though the science is uncertain, stakeholders are emotional and values are entrenched. • This perspective reframes wicked problems in terms of needing to makechoices, not doing scientific studies.

10. SDM as a context for framing and making environmental management choices • SDM: organized, inclusive, and transparent approach to understand complex problems in a decision context and generate and evaluate creative alternatives. • Assumption: good decisions account for values (what’s important) and consequences (what’s likely to happen, relative to what’s important, if an alternative is implemented?) “A formal application of common sense for situations too complex for the informal use of common sense.” (R. Keeney)

11. SDM example: Understory Management Prescribed burn in ponderosa pine. Coconino NF, AZ. (Allen Farnsworth, USDA FS) Example and SDM slides courtesy of Mike Runge/Sarah Converse, USGS

12. SDM example: Objectives and Endpoints/Performance measures • Overall or Fundamental Objectives • The thing(s) we care about • For example, maintain healthy populations of native vertebrates and invertebrates in understory of Ponderosa Pine forest • Endpoints/performance measures • Specific metric for consistently estimating and reporting consequences of mgt. actions for an objective • Indicates how an objective is to be interpreted and understood for this decision.

13. SDM example: Management actions • Developed with the objective(s) in mind • Generation of alternatives may be iterative and result in hybrids that combine ideas • Alternative actions in this example • Prescribed understory fire • Mechanical thinning of understory • Timing • How frequently? • Under what conditions?

14. SDM example: Using models to assess consequences • These models might be mental, conceptual, or quantitative • Should explicitly link management actions to endpoints associated with objectives • In this example, use of models to predict • How basal area, vegetation composition , native animal communities (possible endpoints) change as a function of time, treatment, and habitat conditions

15. SDM example: Optimal Solution • Found by integrating • Objectives • Actions • Models • Identify the action and its timing that best achieve the objectives • An optimal solution might call for, say, thinning whenever the basal area exceeds 85 ft2/ac

16. Key Elements in Structured Approach • Combine values-focus and analytical judgment • The objectives (values) are discussed first, and drive the rest of the effort, including conceptual models and analysis • Break the problem into components, separating objectives and policy option definition and scientific assessment • Use this management context to focus scientific assessment • Recompose the parts to make a decision • This is in contrast to intuitive decision-making • which tends to frame a problem in terms of familiar and relatively accessible constructs and methods (e.g., GIS-based suitability analysis using maps/coverages that already exist)

17. Decision culture: PrOACT approach • Defining the Problem • Objectives • Actions • Consequences (conceptual and quantitative models) • Trade-offs and optimization

18. Defining the SECAS Problem …to develop and pursue a common vision of habitat conservationthat can sustain fish, wildlife, and other natural and cultural resources across ecosystems in a way that meets expectations of the public, the Administration, and the Congress. (Ed Carter) • Identify the decision’s essential elements • Who are the decision makers? • Other interested parties, timing • What are the legal and regulatory requirements? • What are the different scales of decisions (SEAFWA wide, individual states, “local” management entities (town, county, refuge)? • BCG example: protect urban WQ

19. SECAS objectives • Objectives concisely define ‘what matters’ about a decision. • An explicit statement of one or more objectives allows focused discussion, identification, and evaluation of management options • Objectives must be carefully defined and accepted by key stakeholders as the basis for making the decision(s) • The objectives driveeverything else • Focus on understanding objectives first, before discussing management alternatives and assessing consequences • BCG example: Meet WQ standards.

20. SECAS Performance measures/endpoints • Specific metrics for assessing and reporting how well a management alternative performs with respect to an alternative. • To be useful as a performance measure or endpoint we need to ask • Does this endpoint measure something that indicates if the objective has been achieved? • Is this endpoint something that be assessed using objective approaches (e.g., models)? • BCG example: BCG tier membership probability

21. Objectives and performance measures associated with reservoir operating decisions

22. SECAS potential management actions • Identification of mgt alternatives driven by the question “how can the objectives be achieved?” • Use the objectives to generate alternative management action strategies • Generation of alternative strategies can take several “rounds” as elements of initial ideas are combined and recombined to create hybrid alternative actions • Don’t get fixated on the initial set of options • Develop creative & unique alternatives before assessing feasibility and efficacy

23. SECAS: Assessing consequences • Consequences tables can be used to identify the science and conceptual models needed to assess now mgt actions affect the desired future. • “…decision making is a forward-looking process….And if decision making is the attempt to achieve a desired future, then any such attempt must include, implicitly or explicitly, a vision of what that future will look like.” • Sarewitz et al. (2000). Prediction: Science, Decision Making, and the Future of Nature. Island Press.

24. Consequence Tables… …drive the make-up of conceptual models

25. Conceptual models • Graphically show relations between stressors and responses, used to explore: • Relations between possible actions and endpoints of interest to managers • Competing hypotheses about causal mechanisms • Sources of uncertainty • Possible model specifications

26. The temptation in identifying some key elements of the SECAS conceptual model (CM)… • Ecological response • Habitat connectivity • Streamflow changes • Loss of sensitive species • Changing wildfire regime • Human settlement • Drivers of landscape condition • Climate change • Land cover change • Energy development • Transportation • Sea level rise • Existing policies …is to define a “standard” science study where the problem is narrowly focused in technical terms

27. Further elaboration of aSECAS CM • Drivers of landscape condition • Climate change • Land cover change • Energy development • Transportation • Sea level rise • Existing policies • Ecological response • Habitat connectivity • Streamflow changes • Loss of sensitive species • Changing wildfire regime • Human settlement • SECAS objectives/endpoints • Environment: Sustainable fish and wildlife populations • Economy: Flourishing communities • Equity: Fairness among generations

28. 3 tasks before conceptual model development • Define the problem or challenge. • Define the priority SECAS objectives: • Various conservation/natural resource sectors; Production/consumption sectors (agr; urban; energy; transportation; other regulators); the public at large • Key: what scale: (eco)regional, state, local? • Coming up with endpoints that can be used and to measure “success” at addressing these priorities • Using these objectives to define an initial set of possible management actions/scenarios

29. Responding to the SECAS problem/challenge? …to develop and pursue a common vision of habitat conservation that can sustain fish, wildlife, and other natural and cultural resources across ecosystems in a way that meets expectations of the public, the Administration, and the Congress. (Ed Carter, TN WRA) • Conceptual models should • focus and define the science needed to assess the consequences of possible management activities. • We want to know: will these management activities let us accomplish the key objectives associated with this challenge

30. Thank you! Jerry McMahon gmcmahon@usgs.gov

31. Simpson’s diversity index >8 Native fish diversity <35% Zooplank-ton commun. Rotifera frequency >2/pair Common tern productivity Wildlife habitat Stocked salmonids > 200 Trophies caught/yr Maximize Native predators Sustain. walleye harvest ≥ thresh-old Chinook density Introduce chinook Mini-mize Control $ Cost Bait industry $ lost Bait control burden Minimize Water quality ac algae bloom/yr <10,000 ac/yr Mini-mize # beach closures Fish kills Invasive Alewives in Lake Champlain Objectives Hierarchy Ecosystem Health Angling Opportunity Operations Human Dimensions Key attributes related to general objectives Performance measures or Endpoints Performance Criteria