Research Symposium

BIO

My name is Sophie Pineau, I am an Environmental Engineering student from St. Augustine, Florida. I am interested in numerous fields of research, including environmental protection, sustainability, engineering, renewable energy, and clean water. Upon completing my undergraduate degree, I plan to either continue my education by obtaining a Masters in engineering, or practice engineering in the field.

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 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. We surveyed each decision-support tool from the perspective of decision-makers unrelated to the development of the tool to gather information on how they are and might be used in secondary circumstances. 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.
We hope that our insights help bring science to decision-makers while also elevating the community voice. Policymakers need guidance to plan for the impacts of climate change in a time when unprecedented natural disasters and environmental hazards are rising. Combined best practices for the adoption and diffusion of such tools include the creation or transformation of web-based databases to include knowledge products that have been evaluated by the KnoPE Framework and increased involvement of stakeholders alongside public participation. Further evaluation of decision-support tools will provide vital, organized information that will support their translation into decision-making processes to make these processes more action-oriented, science-informed, and considerate of a changing climate.

Keywords: Resilience, Management, Environment, Sustainability