Abstract
For a decision support framework (DSF) to enable effective decision-making in climate change adaptation, it is important that stakeholders are involved in its development, in order to ensure that it is usable and useful. More specifically, stakeholder involvement may help to ensure that the DSF better meets user needs and expectations, as well as providing legitimate, relevant and trusted information. Involving users also helps to support social learning and build a community of adaptors. This paper describes a case study in Australia of the development of a DSF, called CoastAdapt, for coastal decision makers to adapt to the impacts of climate change, in particular sea-level rise. We use the IAP2 Spectrum to outline how stakeholders were involved. We also describe the specific activities undertaken in developing the DSF, according to how they contribute to conditions of legitimacy, credibility and saliency suggested in ‘boundary’ work. We conclude with some practical suggestions for considering these attributes in development of a DSF, noting that each attribute is important and requires consideration both separately and together.
Highlights
Growing understanding of sea-level rise, and its significance for coastal communities, has prompted burgeoning interest from coastal decision makers in the data, information andThis article is part of a Special Issue on 'Decision Support Tools for Climate Change Adaptation' edited by Jean Palutikof, Roger Street and Edward Gardiner
This paper reports on a web-based decision support and information delivery framework, CoastAdapt, developed during 2014–2017 to support coastal decision makers in Australia to adapt to climate change
We provide a theoretical contribution through the analysis of an application of Cash et al.’s (2002) framework and an engagement tool in the context of the development of a decision support framework (DSF)
Summary
Growing understanding of sea-level rise, and its significance for coastal communities, has prompted burgeoning interest from coastal decision makers in the data, information and. Since 2007, NCCARF has been generating, collating, synthesising and communicating knowledge to support decision makers throughout Australia as they prepare for and manage the risks of climate change (NCCARF 2014) For this project, NCCARF was given broad guidance from DoE through the funding agreement that the coastal risk management tool should be useful to coastal decision makers; the form and function were to be decided through an extensive consultation and co-production process with potential users. Users of CoastAdapt are broadly defined to include managers in all of these groups, in particular local government and small businesses, which tend to have limited human and financial resources to undertake climate change adaptation These are the key groups we sought to involve in co-production of knowledge for the Framework. Participant observation by the eight NCCARF members of the CoastAdapt development team: a multidisciplinary team including specialists in climate adaptation, coastal science, IT and graphic design
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