Innovative tools to involve stakeholders in collaborative efforts to share and discuss uncertainties in DDR and CCA

1. Innovative tools to involve stakeholders in collaborative
efforts to share and discuss uncertainties in DDR and CCA
Experiences and lessons learnt
Lydia Pedoth, Marco Pregnolato & Stefan Schneiderbauer
European Academy Bolzano- EURAC, Italy
In collaboration with SEI Oxford, SEI York
Environment Agency Austria and CIPRA International
Chambery, 27th May 2015

3. • Co-production of knowledge between scientists and
stakeholders
• Necessity to deal with and act under uncertainty
• Communication of research results to the public

4. • Deal with complexity and interlinkages within multiple systems
• Knowledge is spread among science and practice
• Different disciplines, backgrounds and actors
• Aim to influence policies and support the decision making process
• Need to foster behavioral change and action on the ground
Challenges

5. • Inter-and transdisciplinary approaches
• From unidirectional to bidirectional knowledge flows
• Innovative participatory approaches to involve and engage with stakeholders
• Common process for co-production of knowledge
• Shared and trusted knowledge
• Tools and methods for communicating science to the public
• Approaches and tools for “translating” and communicating uncertainty
What do we need?

6. 3 European cooperation projects
• FP7 Project Know4DRR- knowledge for disaster risk reduction
• FP7 Project emBRACE- community resilience to natural hazards
• Alpine Space Project C3 Alps- Capitalizing Climate Change
Knowledge for Adaptation in the Alpine Space
Experiences and lessons learnt

7. Knowledge mapping
Interviews mapping interactions and communication flows
between risk management actors after a landslide event

8. Experiences and lessons learnt
• Visualisation and structuring of knowledge
• Shared interactive process between interviewer and interviewee
• Immediate and tangible output
• Look at the created map triggers critical reflection and discussion
about how the network deals with uncertainty
• Different views of the same network
• Method applicable for stakeholders working at different scales
and with different background and responsibilities

9. Gaming approach
Workshop with scientist and stakeholders
Flood scenario game: How to deal with uncertainty in decision making?

10. Experiences and lessons learnt
• The gaming approach enabled participants to put themselves in
someone else's situation
• Game created a context free of rules and settings linked to
participants institutional affiliations and roles
• Despite the created game context the approach revealed mechanisms
and situations linked to decision making similar to real situations
• Game helped to grasp the concept of uncertainty
• Discussion about experiences of participants during the gaming
exercise as important part for knowledge creation

11. Innovative communication tools
Calendar: Climate change adaptation day by day

12. Experiences and lessons learnt
• Link research results and climate change adaptation to every day life
• Work with key messages and commonly used terminology
• Simple does not mean banal
• Use of graphics for transmitting knowledge
• Importance of collaboration between researcher and graphic designers and
communication experts
• Local language for communication with the public

13. Conclusions
• Huge range of participatory approaches
• No one size fits it all solution- choice according to context and
type of stakeholders
• Willingness and openness for sharing knowledge
• Acknowledgement and appreciation of different kind of expertise
• Challenges due to different objectives, mindsets and terminology
but also source for innovative and tangible knowledge that can
lead to concrete actions

14. Thank you for your attention!
Lydia.pedoth@eurac.edu
©Jochen Bürgel; illustration by Simon Kneebone