Perspectives on Disconnects Between Scientific Information and Management Decisions on Post-fire Recovery in Western US

Environmental regulations frequently mandate the use of "best available" science, but ensuring that it is used in decisions around the use and protection of natural resources is often challenging. In the Western US, this relationship between science and management is at the forefront of post-fire land management decisions. Recent fires, post-fire threats (e.g. flooding, erosion), and the role of fire in ecosystem health combine to make post-fire management highly visible and often controversial. This paper uses post-fire management to present a framework for understanding why disconnects between science and management decisions may occur. We argue that attributes of agencies, such as their political or financial incentives, can limit how effectively science is incorporated into decision-making. At the other end of the spectrum, the lack of synthesis or limited data in science can result in disconnects between science-based analysis of post-fire effects and agency policy and decisions. Disconnects also occur because of the interaction between the attributes of agencies and the attributes of science, such as their different spatial and temporal scales of interest. After offering examples of these disconnects in post-fire treatment, the paper concludes with recommendations to reduce disconnects by improving monitoring, increasing synthesis of scientific findings, and directing social-science research toward identifying and deepening understanding of these disconnects

Spectral Density Functional Approach to Electronic Correlations and Magnetism in Crystals

A novel approach to electronic correlations and magnetism of crystals based on realistic electronic structure calculations is reviewed. In its simplest form it is a combination of the ``local density approximation'' (LDA) and the dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) approaches. Using numerically exact QMC solution to the effective DMFT multi-orbital quantum-impurity problem, a successful description of electronic structure and finite temperature magnetism of transition metals has been achieved. We discuss a simplified perturbation LDA+DMFT scheme which combines the T-matrix and fluctuation-exchange approximation (TM-FLEX). We end with a discussion of cluster generalization of the non-local DMFT scheme and its applications to the magnetism and superconductivity of high-Tc superconductors.Comment: 37 pages, to be published in: "Electron Correlations and Materials Properties 2" ed. by A. Gonis (Kluwer, NY