Decision support experiments and evaluations using seasonal to ...

The U.S. Climate Change Science Program
Climate information
is only valuable
when both the
potential response
and benefits of using
the information are
clearly defined.
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Cooperative Extension leadership in providing
useful water resources information to decision
makers confronting policy changes in response
to depletion of groundwater in the High Plains
aquifer. Cash notes the Cooperative Extension’s
history of facilitating dialogue between scientists
and farmers, encouraging the development
of university and agency research agendas that
reflect farmers’ needs, translating scientific
findings into site-specific guidance, and managing
demonstration projects that integrate
farmers into researchers’ field experiments.
In the High Plains aquifer example, the Cooperative
Extension’s boundary-spanning
work was motivated from a bottom-up need
of stakeholders for credible information on
whether water management policy changes
would affect their operations. By acting as
a liaison between the agriculture and water
management decision making communities,
and building bridges between many levels of
decision makers, Kansas Cooperative Extension
was able to effectively coordinate information
flows between university and USGS modelers,
and decision makers. The result of their effort
was collaborative development of a model with
characteristics needed by agriculturalists (at a
sufficient spatial resolution) and that provided
credible scientific information to all parties.
Kansas Cooperative Extension effectiveness
in addressing groundwater depletion and its
impact on farmers sharply contrasted with the
Cooperative Extension efforts in other states
where no effort was made to establish multilevel
linkages between water management and
agricultural stakeholders.
The Southeast Climate Consortium RISA
(SECC), a confederation of researchers at six
universities in Alabama, Georgia, and Florida,
has used more of a top-down approach to developing
stakeholder capacity to use climate
information in the Southeast’s $33 billion agricultural
sector (Jagtap et al., 2002). Early in
its existence, SECC researchers recognized the
potential to use knowledge of the impact of the
El Niño-Southern Oscillation on local climate to
provide guidance to farmers, ranchers, and forestry
sector stakeholders on yields and changes
to risk (e.g., frost occurrence). Through a series
of needs and vulnerability assessments (Hildebrand
et al., 1999, Jagtap et al., 2002), SECC
researchers determined that the potential for
producers to benefit from seasonal forecasts depends
on factors that include the flexibility and
willingness to adapt farming operations to the
forecast, and the effectiveness of the communication
process—and not merely documenting
the effects of climate variability and providing
better forecasts (Jones et al., 2000). Moreover,
Fraisse et al. (2006) explain that climate information
is only valuable when both the potential
response and benefits of using the information
are clearly defined. SECC’s success in championing
integration of new information is built
upon a foundation of sustained interactions with
agricultural producers in collaboration with extension
agents. Extension specialists and faculty
are integrated as members of the SECC research
team. SECC engages agricultural stakeholders
through planned communication and outreach,
such as monthly video conferences, one-on-one
meetings with extension agents and producers,
training workshops designed for extension
agents and resource managers to gain confidence
in climate decision tool use and to identify
opportunities for their application, and by
attending traditional extension activities (e.g.,
commodity meetings, field days) (Fraisse et al.,
2005). SECC is able to leverage the trust engendered
by Cooperative Extension’s long service
to the agricultural community and Extension’s
access to local knowledge and experience, in
order to build support for its AgClimate online
decision-support tool (Fraisse et al., 2006). This direct engagement
with stakeholders provides feedback to
improve the design of the tool and to enhance
climate forecast communication (Breuer et al.,
2007).
Yet another Cooperative Extension approach to
integrating scientific information into decision
making is the Extension’s Master Watershed
Steward (MWS) programs. MWS was first
developed at Oregon State University . In
exchange for 40 hours of training on aspects of
watersheds that range from ecology to water
management, interested citizen volunteers provide
service to their local community through
projects, such as drought and water quality
monitoring, developing property management
plans, and conducting riparian habitat restoration.
Arizona’s MWS program includes training
Chapter 4