An introductory review of the integration of local and scientific knowledges in climate services

Abstract

Climate services have a well-recognised potential for empowering decision makers in taking climate smart decisions; across sectors, public agencies, policy makers, and including citizens. This potential is, however, often not fully realised as the uptake of climate services may be hampered by a range of barriers, including the lack of understanding of the needs of users, and the poor recognition of the knowledge users themselves have. Research shows, however, that the users climate services intend to serve often have a well-developed knowledge of the climate systems around them based on their observation and experience. In a recently initiated H2020 research project, Innovating Climate Services through Integration of local and Scientific Knowledge (I-CISK, https://icisk.eu) we recognise that integrating multiple knowledges through co-creation of climate services with users, can contribute to closing the usability gap, despite the challenges to these knowledges as a result of demographic, climatic and environmental change. Here we present an introductory review of the current state of the art in the integration of local knowledge in climate services. This review does not aim to comprehensively address the very broad and multiple dimensions of local knowledge, but rather gives a perspective of current approaches in science and practice to the integration of local and scientific knowledge. We first explore what we consider as local knowledge within the scope of this review, which will also be used as a reference to inform our further research on local knowledge within the context of its integration in climate services in the I-CISK project. We then review how local knowledge is used in climate services, and introduce a basic typology of how local knowledge and scientific knowledge are considered and/or integrated within climate services. Finally, we provide a reflection on the challenges and directions of local and scientific knowledge integration in climate services, and give a brief outlook on how these challenges will be addressed in the I-CISK project.