Why won't water managers use new scientific computer models? The co-production of a perceived science-practice gap

The uptake of scientific computer models in water management is challenging. Scientists often face calls to improve stakeholder engagement procedures. However, the involvement of representatives of water management agencies has been common practice in scientific projects for at least a decade. It is therefore questionable whether more stakeholder involvement would lead to greater use of scientific models in water management. This study suggests that computer modeling has historically developed differently in water science and water management. Scientific research has focused on continuous improvement of model process representation, while water management has emphasised usability. Today, the reliance on modeling software packages in water management, exacerbated by the dynamics in the field, mitigates against the adoption of new scientific modeling tools.Die Einführung wissenschaftlicher Computermodelle in der Wasserwirtschaft ist eine Herausforderung. Wissenschaftler sehen sich dabei oft mit der Forderung konfrontiert, die Verfahren zur Einbindung von Interessengruppen zu verbessern. Die Einbeziehung von Vertretern der Wasserwirtschaftsbehörden ist jedoch seit mindestens einem Jahrzehnt bei wissenschaftlichen Projekten gängige Praxis. Es ist daher fraglich, ob eine stärkere Beteiligung von Akteuren zu einer breiteren Nutzung wissenschaftlicher Modelle in der Wasserwirtschaft führen würde. Diese Studie legt nahe, dass sich die Computermodellierung in der Wasserwissenschaft und der Wasserwirtschaft historisch unterschiedlich entwickelt hat. In der wissenschaftlichen Forschung wurde der Schwerpunkt auf eine kontinuierliche Verbesserung der Modelle zur Prozessdarstellung gelegt, während in der Wasserwirtschaft die Benutzerfreundlichkeit im Vordergrund stand. Heute steht die Abhängigkeit von Modellierungssoftware in der Wasserwirtschaft, verstärkt durch die Dynamik in diesem Bereich, der Einführung neuer wissenschaftlicher Modellierungswerkzeuge entgegen

The (Mis)understanding of Scientific Uncertainty? How Experts View Policy-Makers, the Media and Publics

Frequent claims that publics ‘misunderstand’ science ignore the contested definition of scientific uncertainty itself. Scientific uncertainty means different things in the natural sciences, social sciences and the humanities, while public controversies show that these interpretations of scientific uncertainty have different implications for policy and decision-making. This prompts analysis of the ways that experts view scientific uncertainty and how they characterise the (mis)understandings of this uncertainty by policy-makers, media and publics. Experts from diverse academic fields define scientific uncertainty differently depending on their disciplinary background. For example, mathematics provides experts from the natural sciences with a practice language that facilitates communication with those sharing this cultural competence, but it does not suffice for engaging with wider audiences. Further, experts’ views of diverse publics come across as folk theories, in Arie Rip’s terms, which, compiled from disparate pieces of information, can be used to fill a gap in the knowledge about publics

Green infrastructure and climate change impacts on the flows and water quality of urban catchments: Salmons Brook and Pymmes Brook in north-east London

Poor water quality is a widespread issue in urban rivers and streams in London. Localised pollution can have impacts on local communities, from health issues to environmental degradation and restricted recreational use of water. The Salmons and Pymmes Brooks, located in the London Borough of Enfield, flow into the River Lee, and in this paper, the impacts of misconnected sewers, urban runoff and atmospheric pollution have been evaluated. The first step towards finding a sustainable and effective solution to these issues is to identify sources and paths of pollutants and to understand their cycle through catchments and rivers. The INCA water quality model has been applied to the Salmons and Pymmes urban catchments in north-east London, with the aim of providing local communities and community action groups such as Thames21 with a tool they can use to assess the water quality issue. INCA is a process-based, dynamic flow and quality model, and so it can account for daily changes in temperature, flow, water velocity and residence time that all affect reaction kinetics and hence chemical flux. As INCA is process-based, a set of mitigation strategies have been evaluated including constructed wetland across the catchment to assess pollution control. The constructed wetlands can make a significant difference reducing sediment transport and improving nutrient control for nitrogen and phosphorus. The results of this paper show that a substantial reduction in nitrate, ammonium and phosphorus concentrations can be achieved if a proper catchment-scale wetland implementation strategy is put in place. Furthermore, the paper shows how the nutrient reduction efficiency of the wetlands should not be affected by climate change

A Gendered Economy of Pleasure: Representions of Cars and Humans in Motoring Magazines

This paper analyses cultural signification in the co-production of gender and technology. Focusing on the popular genre of motoring magazines, it discerns a pattern organising men and women in opposite relations to cars. Men’s relationships with cars are premised on passion and pleasure while women are figured as rational and unable to attach emotionally to cars. This “gendered economy of pleasure” is traced in a close reading of motoring magazine representations of cars and humans. Further, a DVD representation of the Volvo YCC, a concept car developed by women for an imagined female user, is discussed in relation to this semiotic pattern. The paper is conceptual, texts are interpreted in order to bring forward aspects of meaning-making that are not immediately obvious. The objective is to critically illuminate one aspect of the cultural production of the car as a masculine technology

Interview-Reihe: The Notebook. Taking Notes - "it's a learned skill"

Haupt S, Landström C. Interview-Reihe: The Notebook. Taking Notes - "it's a learned skill". c:o/re-blog. 12.08.2022

Hur kan allmänhetenengageras digitalt? : Syntesrapport

Syftet med undersökningen var att sammanställa en översikt av kunskapen om digitalaverktyg för dialog mellan allmänhet och myndigheter och organisationer. Studien fokuseradepå verktyg inom vatten- och miljöförvaltning samt ”smarta” städer. Geografisktavgränsades studien till Europa och Storbritannien eftersom lagar och samhällsorganisationär jämförbara med svenska förhållanden. De inledande sökningarna i publikationsdatabaser av olika typ genererade ettmaterial som visade på hög aktivitet inom forskning om och utveckling av digitala verktygför att engagera allmänheten. I forskningslitteraturen gick det att urskilja sju olikakategorier verktyg. Dock användes de verktyg som presenterats i forskningslitteratureni mycket liten utsträckning efter det rapporterade projektet. Information från projektdatabaser visade att digitala plattformar med flera olikafunktioner och verktyg spelar en stor roll för användningen av digitala verktyg för dialogmed allmänheten. Närstudiet av materialet visade att myndigheters och organisationersanvändning av digitala verktyg görs via it-konsulter som kan arbeta ideellt men oftasthar formen av privata, vinstdrivande företag. Dessa konsulter tillhandhåller it-plattformarmed en mängd olika verktyg som prenumerationstjänster till myndigheter och organisationer.Samtal med personer vars arbete omfattar engagemang av allmänheten visadeatt verktygens effektivitet avgörs av den sociala och organisatoriska omgivningen.Inom medborgarforskningen är de viktigaste uppgifterna att rekrytera deltagare Inom medborgarforskningen är de viktigaste uppgifterna att rekrytera deltagare ochkommunicera med beslutsfattare, digitala verktyg som underlättar detta tillhandahållsav it-konsulter som specialiserar sig på system som gör det möjligt att ladda upp, hanteraoch visualisera insamlade data. Plattformar specialiserade på kollektiv planering genomsimulering kräver omfattande samarbete mellan it-experter och användare för att möjliggörarealistiska simuleringar av existerande geografiska områden. Denna typ av verktygär ovanliga och oftast universitetsbaserade. Den mest utbredda användning av digitalaverktyg för dialog med allmänheten fann vi i svenska kommuner vars översiktsplaneringsammanföll med Covid-19 pandemin. I många fall användes enbart ett minimum av deverktyg som kommunernas it-leverantörer kunde erbjuda men några kommuner gicklängre. I detta sammanhang framgick det tydligt att de digitala verktygens tekniskaprestanda är underordnad förändringar i arbetssätt när det gäller att nå ett bra resultat. Vår rekommendation till myndigheter eller organisationer som vill introduceradigitala verktyg för dialog med allmänheten är att börja med att klargöra hur de förnärvarande engagerar allmänheten och reflektera över vad som behöver förändras,inklusive etablerade arbetssätt, för att därefter anlita lämplig teknisk expertis. Dettaskulle kunna gynnas av tillgång till samhällsvetenskaplig forskning om vilka organisationsförändringarsom behövs och hur de kan genomföras

Virtual Engineering: Computer Simulation Modelling for Flood Risk Management in England

This paper discusses computer simulation modelling in the context of environmental risk management. Approaching computer simulation as practice, performed in networks of heterogeneous elements, we examine the modelling undertaken by engineering consultants commissioned to provide knowledge about local flood risk to the Environment Agency of England and Wales (EA), the public body responsible for flood risk management. We propose that this simulation modelling is best understood as a form of engineering, work geared to solving the problems of clients. It is also a ‘virtual’ activity, articulating risks and possibilities in the digital space of the computer. We find that this ‘virtual engineering’ is shaped by the demands and protocols of the EA, first, by the establishment of long-term contractual agreements for delivering knowledge and second, by an EA requirement to use particular software packages. Fashioned between long-term contracts and black-boxed software virtual engineering becomes stabilised as ‘the’ way in which knowledge about flood risk in actual localities is generated and, consequently, becomes ‘hard-wired’ into flood risk management in England

Explaining Rapid Transitions in the Practice of Flood Risk Management

International audienceThis article draws on empirical material to reflect on what drives rapid change in flood risk management practice, reflecting wider interest in the way that scientific practices make risk landscapes and a specific focus on extreme events as drivers of rapid change. Such events are commonly referred to as a form of creative destruction, ones that reveal both the composition of socioenvironmental assemblages and provide a creative opportunity to remake those assemblages in alternate ways, therefore rapidly changing policy and practice. Drawing on wider thinking in complexity theory, we argue that what happens between events might be as, if not more, important than the events themselves. We use two empirical examples concerned with flood risk management practice: a rapid shift in the dominant technologies used to map flood risk in the United Kingdom and an experimental approach to public participation tested in two different locations, with dramatically different consequences. Both show that the state of the socioenvironmental assemblage in which the events take place matters as much as the magnitude of the events themselves. The periods between rapid changes are not simply periods of discursive consolidation but involve the ongoing mutation of such assemblages, which could either sensitize or desensitize them to rapid change. Understanding these intervening periods matters as much as the events themselves. If events matter, it is because of the ways in which they might bring into sharp focus the coding or framing of a socioenvironmental assemblage in policy or scientific practice irrespective of whether or not those events evolve the assemblage in subtle or more radical ways.Este artículo se basa en material empírico para reflexionar sobre lo que impulsa cambios rápidos en la práctica de manejo del riesgo de inundaciones, reflejando un interés más amplio en el modo como las prácticas científicas construyen paisajes de riesgo y se enfocan de manera específica en eventos extremos como los que impulsan cambios rápidos. A tales eventos comúnmente se les refiere como una forma de destrucción creativa, aquello que revela la composición de ensambles socio-ambientales y provee una oportunidad creativa para rehacer tales ensambles de maneras alternadas, cambiando así rápidamente la política y la práctica. Basándonos en un pensamiento más amplio de la teoría de la complejidad, argüimos que lo que ocurra entre eventos puede ser tan importante, si no más, que los eventos mismos. Utilizamos dos ejemplos empíricos preocupados con la práctica del manejo de riesgo de inundación: un cambio rápido en las tecnologías dominantes usadas para cartografiar el riesgo de inundación en el Reino Unido, y un enfoque experimental para participación del público puestas a prueba en dos diferentes localizaciones, con consecuencias dramáticamente diferentes. Ambas muestran que el estado del ensamble socio-ambiental en el que los eventos tienen lugar importa tanto como la magnitud de los propios eventos. Los períodos entre los cambios rápidos no son simplemente períodos de consolidación discursiva sino que involucran la mutación en curso de tales ensambles, que podrían sensibilizarlos o desensibilizarlos hacia el cambio rápido. Entender estos períodos intermedios importa tanto como los propios eventos. Si los eventos importan, eso se debe a las maneras como ellos podrían poner en claro foco la codificación o la enmarcación del ensamble socio-ambiental en políticas o en práctica científica, así sea que tales eventos hagan evolucionar o no el ensamblaje de manera sutil o más radical.本文运用经验材料, 反映什麽驱动了洪水风险管理实践中的快速变动, 并更广泛地反映科学实践聚焦风险地景与特定极端事件做为快速改变的驱动力之方式。这些事件普遍被认为是一种创造性破坏的形式, 它们揭露了社会环境聚合的构成, 并提供了以另类方式重构这些聚合的创造性机会, 因而急速地改变了政策与实践。我们运用复杂理论中更为广泛的思考, 主张发生在事件之间的事情或许和事件本身同等重要——即便不是更重要的话。我们运用两项有关洪水风险管理实践的经验案例: 英国用以绘製洪水风险的主流科技的急速转向, 以及在两地运用公共参与并造成截然不同后果的实验性方法。两者皆显示, 事件发生地的社会环境聚合情形, 和事件本身的重大性同等重要。剧烈变革之间的时期, 并非仅是巩固论述的时期, 而是涉及该聚合持续不断的变化, 此一变化有可能使之对剧烈改变更加敏感, 抑或失去敏感性。理解上述的中介时期, 与理解事件本身同等重要。如果事件本身重要的话, 那是因为这些事件将政策或科学实践中社会环境聚合的识别或框架带入关注核心的方式, 而非与这些事件是否以较为隐匿或更激进的方式改变聚合有关