4.1 Sharing Knowledge for Natural Resource Management
For effective natural resource management, common types of data, information, and knowledge that frequently need to be coordinated include descriptive data, knowledge of environmental processes, monitoring data, information on prior and ongoing management activities, and knowledge related to the human-dimensions of the natural resource.
Descriptive data about the system includes the system’s characteristics, such as natural and political boundaries, geophysical and climatic properties, and current ecological state. Descriptive data helps decision-makers understand the severity of any problems with the system and determine the actions that may be needed to address those problems. Descriptive data can be particularly useful when paired with knowledge about environmental processes, which are the drivers of change within a system. These processes encompass the interactions between or amongst biotic and abiotic factors, as well as the impact of these factors on the system’s functions. Together, descriptive data and knowledge of environmental processes can be used to make statistical models, which can improve the scientific understanding of the system and can help decision-makers predict the effects of their policies or actions on the system.
When combined with descriptive data, monitoring data helps provide information about the average conditions in the system as well as trends in the system over time. This type of data helps decision-makers better understand the state of the system by providing historical context, which may help to fill in gaps in understanding regarding the current state or help create more refined models for predicting future states. Monitoring data also provides support for maintaining, refining, or changing management policies, which allows management goals to be achieved more efficiently. Lastly, monitoring the system enhances an agency’s ability to track changes to the system and identify any emerging concerns.54
Knowledge regarding prior management actions and policies is important for understanding the ways in which human decisions have impacted the system in the past, present, or future. Agencies need to be able to account for these actions in order to accurately describe the current state of the system or to predict its future state. Knowledge regarding prior policies and management actions also allows decision-makers to learn from their past actions by analyzing what was successful, what failed, and what has the potential to be changed to help the system reach the desired state.
Knowledge regarding policies and management actions is incomplete, however, without understanding the human dimensions of the natural resource system. Human dimensions information encompasses the political, economic, and social factors that affect the system. This includes knowledge of political and administrative conditions, institutional contexts, and paradigms that characterize policy making and implementation.55,56 Human dimensions information is also important because resource management often requires working with multiple stakeholders, some of whom may have beliefs or values which conflict with those of the agency or another stakeholder on certain issues. Knowledge about these value systems can help agencies navigate the decision-making process and negotiate conflict resolutions.56