The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Climate Assessment Project for the Southwest research group perceive the need to improve climate information quality and availability in the Southwest. The pilot stakeholder assessment supports this perception and pinpoints some of the climate information gaps and the salient climate challenges with which stakeholders grapple. The assessment offers a cross-section of different occupations in geographic communities of different size and different dominant economies to inform CLIMAS operations and research. In addition, the assessment has raised public awareness about CLIMAS and its potential as a climate information clearinghouse for the Southwest. The study demonstrates that there are some significant and well-defined climate information needs. The study also reveals that, although climate variability and change may affect a wide range of entities, climate information may not be incorporated into the decision-making process.

This chapter makes suggestions and recommendations for CLIMAS outreach and research activities, and it suggests new directions for further study. The chapter is organized into two sections: the first makes suggestions for the research group as a whole, and the second section makes recommendations for future social science research.

 

Research Group Recommendations

CLIMAS should respond to the heightened expectations of stakeholders.

One of the primary responsibilities of the CLIMAS core office is to identify and respond to the needs of stakeholders for climate information. We have addressed this by speaking to 71 people in a variety of occupations and geographical areas to find out how they are impacted by, and react to, climate and climate information. Many stakeholders were pleased that they were being included in the formative stages of the project. To paraphrase one rancher, this project is unique because, while many centers created for the community rarely consult the community, this project has made stakeholder feedback an integral part of its design and approach to research. Respondents are enthusiastic about the prospect of beginning a dialogue with climate researchers via the core office that will assist researchers in creating and disseminating the best information and will assist users in obtaining and understanding that information. Yet, CLIMAS must be cautioned that along with heightening interest about the project, expectations have also been raised. By design, the stakeholders have been drawn into the formation of the core office, and, seeing its potential benefits, now have a vested interest in the core office and its progress.

Given the heightened expectations raised by the pilot survey, it will be crucial to maintain contact with these respondents as research activities unfold. Since this study was completed the core office has begun to circulate newsletter updates to stakeholders about the core office’s activities as well as about upcoming events and research findings. To ensure that these individuals have an opportunity to remain involved in research activities and in core office outreach efforts, the core office should continue to include stakeholders in all mailing lists of people designated to receive announcements, newsletters, and other communications sent out by the office. The stakeholder assessment team maintains an Access database of the addresses of interview respondents. It will be essential for the core office to be supplied with an up-to-date copy of this database at all times We also strongly support the ongoing development of the CLIMAS web site, particularly with regard to online provision of executive summaries of research publications and information on upcoming projects.

 

CLIMAS research team should delineate its role in the climate information system and define the stakeholder communities it seeks to serve.

The CLIMAS research team must make the fundamental decision of whom the core office will serve. In the context of climate information systems, the pilot stakeholder assessment team sees the core office as potentially fulfilling three roles: response, capacity building, and outreach (see Figure 4.1). At a minimum, the core office should be responsive to the stakeholders who already use climate information by making its presence known, and by directing individuals to the climate information that is most appropriate to their needs. The core office also has the potential to extend beyond this role as a information clearinghouse to engage in capacity building. Capacity building requires that the core office take an active role in educating those who, due to certain constraints, are limited in their climate information use (see Chapter Three for a discussion of these constraints). Finally, the core office should seek the means to reach vulnerable stakeholder communities that do not currently express an interest in climate information.

 

Figure 4.1 The potential roles of the core office

 

 

The CLIMAS research team has already committed to two of the core office’s potential roles: response and capacity building. These roles have been fulfilled, for example, through the creation of a web site and by gathering information about what kinds of workshops would be most useful to stakeholders. This role could be further expanded by creating a listserv to connect interested individuals to the core office. The listserv would provide a public forum for stakeholders to ask questions and offer suggestions to one another. The benefit to CLIMAS is threefold: (1) the listserv allows CLIMAS researchers an opportunity to monitor stakeholder concerns and, if desired, personally respond to these concerns, (2) it provides an excellent mechanism for disseminating CLIMAS research results and for alerting listserv members about upcoming CLIMAS workshops and events, and (3) it has the potential to serve as a pipeline for information about where listserv members obtain their climate information (e.g., reports and web sites). The pilot’s respondents would be a logical starting point for a listserv. If properly maintained by a monitor, the CLIMAS web page might be a good way to direct site users to the listserv.

The core office also has the possibility to perform outreach to stakeholders that do not recognize their own vulnerability to climate. If the core office decides to assume this educational role, then it must also address theoretical and ethical issues concerning vulnerability, giving preference to some individuals and groups over other, and potentially shifting attention from other concerns, which may indeed be more pressing, to climate. The CLIMAS team has begun a discourse on the topic and must continue it throughout the project.

 

Further Social Science Investigation Recommendations

Like any study, the pilot stakeholder assessment has uncovered many new avenues for exploration. The pilot assessment began to address the variation in stakeholders’ climate information needs, desires, and their ability to access appropriate climate information systems. As a pilot study, however, this report is limited in scope. A comprehensive assessment of the stakeholder communities of the Southwest remains a vital step in the success of the core office. This assessment would address the many questions which remain unexplained or require different approaches.

Some elements of the pilot should be carried over into future stakeholder assessment research. The usefulness of face-to-face interviews was immediately evident and remains a cornerstone of the social science research agenda. Our first interview, pulled from the list of people who filled out the Southwest Regional Climate Change Symposium survey, was with an emergency management person from Pima County. In reviewing his responses to the 1997 SW Climate Symposium survey in preparation for our personal interview with him, it appeared, based on his short and often vague responses, that he might not be in need of climate information. For example, in response to "Do you routinely use climate information in your decision-making? If so, how, and from where do you obtain this information?", he merely answered "Yes-short term- NWS/NOAA". After our interview with him, however, we had a very different picture—he regularly used an immense amount of information and had definite opinions on where and how the information falls short, and shared other perceptions which were not represented by the Symposium. We found that people were more apt to give us their time and thoughts about how climate information is useful to them if we approached them in a personal interview.

The matrix categories identified by the NOAA research group were useful in narrowing down the universe of stakeholders in the Southwest. With the matrix sample, interviewers were able to interview a diverse set of stakeholders over several months. The necessity of narrowing our study, however, limited the depth of investigation. The geographic focus lacked the depth to accurately represent the effects of sector specific variables for some occupational categories. Moreover, the pilot study largely omitted persons located between geographic centers and organizations that are not tied to one town or community.

For the purposes of the pilot stakeholder assessment, the geographic approach afforded us a broad picture of climate impacts and information use in the Southwest. Having delineated the basic structure of the stakeholder communities in the Southwest, the stakeholder assessment should seek to understand why variation exists between users in the same occupation as well as the nature and range of climate vulnerability within these groups. To accomplish this, we see the need for two distinct approaches, an organizational analysis and stakeholder community approach. Both of these must be informed by a vulnerability assessment.

 

Need for Future Vulnerability Research

The primary concern of our study has been to distinguish between those who use climate information and those do not. However, as we have pointed out, the CLIMAS team must be cautious of categorically omitting those who do not currently profess a need for climate information. This elision might neglect those who currently do not use climate information but are extremely vulnerable to climate and climate events. As mentioned before, the pilot stakeholder assessment was not created to deal with issues of vulnerability, issues which merit further study. The CLIMAS group must continue to work on identifying vulnerable stakeholders and improving their ability to access climate information.

 

Organizational Analysis

Throughout our study, it became apparent that organizations are some of the major users of climate information. Yet not all organizations with climate-sensitive operations are able to access this information. The reasons for this are not entirely clear, but it appears that some of the constraints to climate information are due to factors of limited resources and organizational culture. Numerous government officials are unable to invest the time required to locate information, and some of the staff of state institutions we spoke to do not have Internet access. A larger obstacle, perhaps, is the "cultural" issue of the organizations which internally prevent the use of climate information.

These issues are of importance to understanding the tenor of the stakeholder community in the Southwest. Because the pilot was not constructed to obtain this level of information, we suggest that the group be broadened to bring in those individuals and disciplines which specialize in institutional and organizational analysis in order to find out why and how climate information is or is not important to different climate sensitive organizations. Branches of the federal government meriting analysis might include the National Park Service, in particular its fire preventive and wildlife watch groups, the United States Forest Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Bureau of Land Management. Branches of the state government meriting attention might include the Arizona Department of Water Resources and Arizona Game and Fish.

 

Stakeholder Community Approach

The process of comprehensively defining stakeholder communities in the Southwest will build upon our experience from this pilot assessment, which used a geographical approach focused on designated communities. A full assessment of the stakeholder communities should seek to uncover intra-occupational variation in sensitivity to climate variability, to take an intensive look at different occupations and address the question of how and why individuals with the same livelihood are differentially affected by climate variability. To do so, the team should focus on those sectors which appear to be climate sensitive, such as farmers, water providers, and some land managers, and then carefully select respondents of these sectors that differ by size, region, and operation. By comparing these individuals, we would expect to gain insight on variations, responses to climate information, and why some individuals in climate sensitive occupations do not view climate as an important factor in their decision-making. As mentioned before, the pilot assessment was not intended to address the issue of stakeholder vulnerability to climate, but the stakeholder community approach should certainly begin to address this issue.

 

Suggested Methods

Venue

There are multiple ways to approach and collect information from stakeholders. As we have noted, face-to-face interviews generate rich data. Because such interviews are time and resource intensive, however, other approaches are also needed.

Focus groups are one productive method for bringing stakeholders together and collecting information. Focus groups typically consist of 7 to 10 selected participants chosen because of certain common characteristics. The selected group takes part in a planned discussion in an non-threatening environment. Interviewers solicit stakeholder perceptions within a pre-defined area of interest. The CLIMAS focus groups might be selected along occupational or organizational lines with the aim of obtaining feedback about the products and research produced by CLIMAS or other organizations. This method is beneficial in that it facilitates the acquisition of multiple perspectives in one sitting, thereby enhancing the interface between the research group and the stakeholder community.

Other methods could include small group interviews or a web page survey. In contrast to focus groups, small group interviews are less structured and aim to engage a number of people in the interview process at one time. Whereas focus groups are typically composed of people who do not know each other, small groups may include individuals who know and work with one another. The core office has already posted one web page survey as another way to contact many people. A web page survey, available as an option during a browsing session, can enable the CLIMAS core office to gather data about (among other things) those visiting the website, the frequency and duration of their use, and the purpose of their visit.

 

Methods

Throughout our interviews, we elicited suggestions about what climate information stakeholders would like to receive and how it could best be presented. In order to do this more effectively, it would be useful to bring climate information products to the interview. These products would help move responses from hypothetical climate information needs and wants to ways that existing information might be used or changed. This critical process will ensure that CLIMAS products meet stakeholder needs.

The CLIMAS team envisions two different ways of presenting these products for use. The first option is to assemble climate products into "toolboxes" that interviewers can present to stakeholders. This toolbox would include examples of different types of climate information (such as precipitation forecasts or historical climate trends). Stakeholders can be asked if they understand the information product, how and when they might use such information, and what changes or improvements they would suggest for its content or presentation. The second option is to hold focus group sessions in which a carefully-selected group of individuals view different climate products and, as a group, discuss the effectiveness of those products. This process can make use of hardcopies of CLIMAS products, or can be held in a computer lab. In the latter example, each individual is given a computer terminal loaded with certain climate products. As the stakeholder peruses these electronic products, their choices are monitored. The group is later brought together to discuss how they might interpret and use such information products, what they like and dislike about the information presented, and how the information products might be improved.

 

Conclusions

The pilot stakeholder assessment successfully defined a methodology which can be replicated in subsequent surveys. The study helped to identify and describe climate information needs for a wide cross-section of the Southwest’s stakeholder communities. It also helped to spread the news about CLIMAS, its core office functions, and its research initiatives. Finally, our experience in the pilot survey led to a series of methodological suggestions for improving CLIMAS’s ability to gather more specific information about particular stakeholder communities.

It is our recommendation that CLIMAS continue and expand contact with the stakeholder communities of the Southwest. This communication is essential to CLIMAS’s effort to integrate stakeholder information needs into it’s research agenda. The pilot stakeholder assessment has generated vital information that helps us better understand the communities and sectors that CLIMAS was established to serve, but it has only touched upon the many issues surrounding the potential impacts of climate variability and change.

 

< Chapter III

Appendix 1>