Suchergebnisse

Abstract
Resource managers and decision-makers are increasingly tasked with integrating climate change science into their decisions about resource management and policy development. This often requires climate scientists, resource managers, and decision-makers to work collaboratively throughout the research processes, an approach to knowledge development that is often called "coproduction of knowledge." The goal of this paper is to synthesize the social science theory of coproduction of knowledge, the metrics currently used to evaluate usable or actionable science in several federal agencies, and insights from experienced climate researchers and program managers to develop a set of 45 indicators supporting an evaluation framework for coproduced usable climate science. Here the proposed indicators and results from two case studies that were used to test the indicators are presented, as well as lessons about the process of evaluating the coproduction of knowledge and collaboratively producing climate knowledge.

Abstract
Spot weather forecasts (SWFs) are issued by Weather Service offices throughout the United States and are primarily for use by wildfire and prescribed fire practitioners for monitoring local-scale weather conditions. This paper focuses on use of SWFs by prescribed fire practitioners. Based on qualitative, in-depth interviews with fire practitioners and National Weather Service forecasters, this paper examines factors that influence perceptions of accuracy and utilization of SWFs. Results indicate that, while several well-understood climatological, topographical, and data-driven factors influence forecast accuracy, social factors likely have the greater impact on perceptions of accuracy, quantitative accuracy, and utilization. These include challenges with building and maintaining relationships between forecasters and fire managers, communication issues around updating SWFs, and communicating forecast confidence and uncertainty. Operationally, improved quantitative skill in a forecast is always desirable, but key opportunities for improving accuracy and utilization of these forecasts lie in 1) enhancing the processes and mechanisms for communication between a Weather Forecast Office and fire practitioners—before, during, and after an SWFs is issued—and 2) working with the wildland fire community to experiment with forecast uncertainty and confidence information in SWFs and evaluate impacts of these approaches.