Research Symposium

BIO

My name is Giola Cancilla, and I am a second-year Environmental Science & Policy student from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. As a lifelong Floridian, I have a great appreciation for the diverse natural environment, wildlife, and landscapes this state has to offer. In my future career, I hope to work toward introducing additional sustainable energy sources to Florida and be involved in supporting conservation efforts that protect our native ecosystems. I look forward to meaningfully engaging with policymakers to make the voices of Florida’s people and natural environment heard. My research interests include climate change mitigation, urban planning and ecology, and political science. Outside of academics, I enjoy exploring Tallahassee’s local nature spots; I frequently go to San Luis Mission Park to get a breath of fresh air!

Evaluating Knowledge Products for Sustainability, Resilience, and Climate Change Response Efforts

Abstract

This research evaluates decision-support tools that are built for decision-making towards sustainability and resilience in the context of climate change. We seek to understand how these tools are applied in different contexts by analyzing six decision-support tools built for ecosystem-based management processes. We collected data, reviewed research studies, and analyzed their methods using the KnoPE (Knowledge Product Evaluation) Framework, a four-dimensional analytical system that organizes elements, assesses scales, assesses alignment to a theory of change, and analyzes the use of a decision-support tool. Our results help identify opportunities and challenges to creating tools that are easily accessed and understood to make decision-making in the context of climate change easier to achieve. Developers and investors of the decision-making tools are interested in advancing them to expand accessibility and comprehension for the use of policy and decision-makers who have the influence to initiate change. Decision-makers need support planning for a variety of climate-change impacts and these tools will provide context and information so they can better prepare for the impending future.

Keywords: environment, policy, decision support, climate