The importance of stakeholder dialogues in climate change adaptation - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

POLDOC-WORKSHOP, Gdansk, 26 October 2006

The importance of stakeholder dialogues in climate change adaptation

Prof. Dr. Martin Welp

University of Applied Sciences Eberswalde

Photo: Hannah Förster

Prof. Dr. Martin Welp

Socioeconomics & Communication

New International Masters Programme:

Global Change Management

URL: www.fh-eberswalde.de/gcm

• Coastal management and climate change
• Management, policy and scientific stakeholder dialogues
• Analytical and communication tools
• Conclusions

Source: http://www.ikzm-.de

• High diversity of coastal areas (from urban centres to coastal wetlands with protected areas for birds)
• Many of Europe's coastal zones face problems of deterioration of their environmental, socioeconomic and cultural resources

• Quality of coastal waters
• Nature conservation
• Construction activities on the coast
• Coastal erosion
• Tourism development
• Climate change

• Rising sea levels
• Storm surges
• Winterstorms
• Coastal flooding
• Air humudity

Photos: National Trust, UK, Sten Suuroja

Integrated approach

Social engineering

Management as mutual learning

Excludingapproach

Participatory approach

Sector-based participatorymanagement

Routine management

Sectoral approach

Welp 2000

• Planning for adaptation as a process of mutual learning
• Stakeholders include planners, decision-makers, politicians, scientists, and the interested public
• Finding ways to adapt to climate change
• Raising awareness of climate change and coastal issues

• Coastal zone management on local and regional level
• Carried out by municipalities, sectoral agencies, etc.
• Stakeholders include land owners, businesses, local interest groups etc.

EU Demonstration Programme on

• From 1996-1999, Information about factors that encourage or discourage ICZM
• Stimulating a broad debate and exchange of information among the various actors involved in the planning, management or use of European coastal zones
• Stakeholder consultations (seminars, written responses)

• Evaluation of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) in Europe
• The results of this evaluation shall assist the European Commission
• http://www.rupprecht-consult.eu/iczm/

• A science-based stakeholder dialogue is a structured communicative process of linking scientists with selected actors who are relevant for the research problem at hand.
• These actors may be representatives of companies, NGOs, local and regional planners, government agencies, etc.

Objectives of science-based dialogues

• Bringing together different knowledge bases
• Identifying socially relevant research questions
• Identifying key data and parameters
• ‘Reality check’
• - confronting mental models with reality
• - confronting computer models with reality
• Preferences, expectations and decision-making rules

• Creating settings in which stakeholders with different backgrounds can team up and learn
• Examples: Focus Groups (ULYSSES), Games and role plays (ECF family of Climate Games), Visualisation

• Structuring the problem
• Identifying areas of agreement and disagreement among stakeholders
• Examples: Group model building, Bayesian belief networks, Multi-criteria Analysis

• Limited resources (stakeholder dialogues need to be effective)
• Stereotyping
• Trust building takes time
• Language barriers
• Different working cultures
• Difficulties in systems thinking

Conclusions

• We need to create safe places where the exchange of arguments is possible
• A combination of communication and analytical tools is needed
• We need to link scientific, policy and management dialogues
• Mainstreaming

Stoll-Kleemann, S. & Welp, M. (eds.) Stakeholder Dialogues in Natural Resources Management. Springer Environmental Sciences(November 15, 2006)

Email: martin.welp@fh-eberswalde.deURL: www. fh-eberswalde.de/welp