Learning as an Objective within a Structured Risk Management Decision Process

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• 作者：Timothy L. McDaniels and Robin Gregory
• 刊名：Environmental Science & Technology
• 出版年：2004
• 出版时间：April 1, 2004
• 年：2004
• 卷：38
• 期：7
• 页码：1921 - 1926
• 全文大小：51K
• 年卷期：v.38,no.7(April 1, 2004)
• ISSN：1520-5851

文摘

Social learning through adaptive management holds thepromise of providing the basis for better risk managementover time. Yet the experience with fostering sociallearning through adaptive management initiatives hasbeen mixed and would benefit from practical guidance forbetter implementation. This paper outlines a straightforwardheuristic for fostering improved risk management decisions:specifying learning for current and future decisions asone of several explicit objectives for the decision at hand,drawing on notions of applied decision analysis. Inkeeping with recent guidance from two important U.S.advisory commissions, the paper first outlines a view ofrisk management as a policy-analytic decision processinvolving stakeholders. Then it develops the concept of thevalue of learning, which broadens the more familiarnotion of the value of information. After that, the conceptsand steps needed to treat learning as an explicit objectivein a policy decision are reviewed. The next sectionoutlines the advantages of viewing learning as an objective,including potential benefits from the viewpoint ofstakeholders, the institutions involved, and for the decisionprocess itself. A case-study example concerning wateruse for fisheries and hydroelectric power in British Columbia,Canada is presented to illustrate the development oflearning as an objective in an applied risk-managementcontext.