1. Introduction
Integrated Assessment
Conceptual Models

2. Core Conceptual Model
Humans
Nature

3. Conceptual approach to assessment
Integrated assessment of regional climate impacts:
The study of how climate, natural resources, and human socio-economic systems affect each other
Take each component individually and iterate to make a whole
Climate; Natural resources = hydrology + human management; S/e systems = law/economy + demand + institutional context
Diagram = oversimplified/problematic. What’s the distinction between the separate systems? Where does one stop and the other begin?
Climate vs. hydrologic cycle; Managed river basin vs. natural streamflow (natural streamflow may not exist anywhere; relation to land use change, etc.)
But bear with me, because I think it’s useful.
We begin the assessment by characterizing each component:
CLIMATE: characterize regional climate variability and change
climate variability: from historical records, link to larger-scale climate processes to get at actual and potential predictability
climate change: from regional downscaling of gcms
HYDROLOGY: natural hydrologic cycle – pertinent drivers in Columbia River basin = snow fed
DEM, vegetation, soil type, stream networks, typical volumes
SOCIO-ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES: how is river managed? By whom and for what purposes? Characterize dams, reservoirs, water resources management objectives, patterns of demand – by whom and for what purposes?
Then look at their interactions:
Climate + hydrology = NATURAL SYSTEM
Hydrology + human activities = MANAGED SYSTEM

4. What is IA?
... an interdisciplinary process of combining, interpreting, and communicating knowledge from diverse scientific disciplines in such a way that the whole cause-effect chain of a problem can be evaluated from a synoptic perspective with two characteristics:
(1) it should have added value compared to a single disciplinary oriented assessment;
(2) it should provide useful information to decision makers.
(Rotmans and Dowlatabadi 1998)

5. Characteristics of CIG’s IA
spatial
interdisciplinary
vertical
temporal
intermural
horizontal
Requires research and synthesis.
Papers on approaches to integrated assessment: Snover et al. 2003; Gamble et al. 2003; Rhythms of Change – Chs. 2 & 10.

6. Vertical Integration Climate dynamics Impacts on natural systems
Impacts on human systems
Human response capabilities

7. Methods: Integrated Research
1. Understand the natural system
predictability, uncertainty
2. Understand the managed system
the nature and consequences of human choices and activities
3. Understand the institutional context of these systems
processes, laws, constraints, decision calendars
1-3. Work with regional stakeholders
First vertical, then horizontal assessment

8. Examples (for one sector) El Niño, or drought
Reduced snowpack, low streamflow, few fish, severe erosion, many forest fires
Water “crisis,” crop failures, lousy fishing, property damage, loss of timber
Lawsuits, water markets, government bailouts, infrastruture projects, new legislation
Climate dynamics
Impacts on natural systems
Impacts on human systems
Human response capabilities

9. Tools for Characterizing the Natural/Managed System
Models
process-based, quantitative
empirical
conceptual
Regional hydrologic cycle + links to climate variability = natural system
As part of this work, dl’s group developed/applied vic hydro model to Columbia River basin
VIC
Sub-grid parameterization of elevation, soil type, vegetation
Balances fluxes of energy & water
FROM atmospheric conditions  streamflow

10. The Institutional Context
Institutions: formalized actions underlying human social activity, including standards of behavior, formal decision rules and decision-making procedures, and grants of authority to prescribe policy.
The institutional context creates the “rules” that shape social practices relevant to the system under examination.
Institutions both spring from and strongly influence social practices (IDGEC Science Plan 1999).
Institutions are not to be confused with concrete organizations that, along with individuals, are actors within institutional arenas. “Law” or legal systems, for instance, are institutions. “Courts” and “legislatures” are organizational actors thereof.
-- INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS = IMPERATIVE FOR EVALUATING SOCIETY’S CAPACITY TO ADAPT TO CLIMATE VARIABILITY AND CHANGE

11. Tools for characterizing the institutional context
Mapping institutional frameworks
Identify players
Characterize laws, treaties, rules and constraints
Determine interactions
Analyze individual institutions
Methods: interviews, institutional analysis
Identify players-- what entities are involved in management of the resource? How?
Laws, treaties, rules and constraints: Legal frameworks that constrain/define resource ownership and use rights, authority relationships, right to manage
Interaction among managing institutions
Decision making processes: players, information, timing, responsibilities, communication flow & capacity
Authority structure
Potential for coordinated response
Capabilities of individual institutions: organizational decision structure, access to/flow of information, flexibility for adapting to new conditions/adopting new information.
EXAMPLE:
Columbia basin = multitude of players, diverse & fragmented overall, but
Coordinated in terms of floods (ACOE)
Coordinated with respect to hydropower production always (& in drought) (NPPC?)
Many competing interests on low-flow side, but lack the power/political voice to attain protection against climate variability
Only basis for international cooperation and transfer of water between US and Canada = flood, hydro
Low flow side = when people get hurt without recourse
MAPPING: determining the lay of the land – information is derived from interviews, institutional analysis (charters/missions)
Evaluating the capacity of natural resource management systems to cope with climate variability requires an understanding of the legal frameworks that constrain or define resource ownership and use rights, authority relationships, and the right to manage. When several different organizations manage a single natural resource, it is also important to understand how the managing institutions interact. What is the hierarchy among them? Who has the authority to make decisions, and on what basis are those decisions made? How does information flow, and what are the communication capacities within and between organizations? What is the potential for coordinated responses within the group? In many cases, the capacity for coordination depends on the degree to which authority is either centralized or fragmented within the group of organizations. Mapping the social organization of resource management systems, their relative capabilities, and their patterns of interactions with each other allows us to describe and evaluate the policy framework that provides the basis for management decisions.
Pulwarty & Redmond 1997

12. Tools for characterizing the institutional context
Eliciting decision calendars
When/how are decisions made?
Where is climate information relevant to decisions?
Method = interviews, analysis of decision processes
DECISION-CALENDARS:
Which decisions could include climate information?
EXAMPLE:
Fixed period – operate conservatively to prevent floods, ensure inflow
clear candidate time period for new information
Crucial variable = winter snowpack ( spring inflow)
Crucial time of information = Aug – Dec
-- points out an important point that works needs to be done as a whole, as an iterative process. DC work = more productive when we know something about what kind of information is available, when, about what, with what lead time. Forecasting/other climate analysis work can become more fruitful with knowledge about what type/timing of climate information would be most useful.
What is predictable?
What information is needed?
What areas of operations are amenable to improvement?
Winter climate = most predictable, based on PDO (persistence) and ENSO (forecasts available previous June/July)
Pursue value of incorporating climate forecast information into snowpack forecasts and spring streamflow forecasts during Aug – Dec, change rule curves? Know priorities, so ensure their protection.
Example: Columbia basin operating periods
1. Fixed period (Aug-Dec)
Assume the worst about spring inflow
2. Variable period (Jan-Jul)
Use snowpack measurements to estimate spring inflow

13. Tools for characterizing the institutional context
Involving stakeholders
A salient assessment requires active two-way communication
Human dimensions research relies on stakeholders’ knowledge
Provides a means of disseminating results
Putting in Practice:
water workshops
interviews
general outreach
policy-maker
workshops
Salience:
communication with resource managers, planners & decision makers to ensure that research is directed towards relevant topics and problems, and is undertaken at the appropriate time and space scales
Close communication with resource managers, planners, and decision-makers is essential for for ensuring that the research products are both useful and used to inform management and planning decisions.
HD: research relies on information that can only be provided by the managers and planners themselves
To evaluate the actual use of climate forecasts, for example, we would need to ask resource managers, “how is climate information incorporated into your management and planning processes? How does the institutional structure facilitate or hinder your adaptation of typical practices to make use of new information?”
Disseminating results, receiving feedback and guidance for future assessment projects
Finally, in order to work towards increasing the use of climate information in regional decision-making and planning processes, the assessment team requires a means of disseminating its research results.
EXAMPLES:
water workshops – different time & space scales
Interviews – evaluated actual use of climate forecasts and perceived vulnerability to drought
Policy maker workshops – learned to talk about drought impacts and preparing for drought. Not to talk about climate change.

14. e.g., Miles et al. 2000

15. Vertical Assessment
Integrated assessment of climate impacts on the Columbia River basin Miles et al. 2000
Value of climate forecasts for Columbia basin hydropower production Hamlet et al. 2001, Huppert et al. 2001
Implications of climate change for PNW urban water resources Palmer and Hahn 2002
Analyses of the institutional context of regional water resources management and potential use of climate forecasts in management Callahan et al. 1999, Gray 1999
Transboundary Issues in the Columbia River Basin Hamlet 2003
Fisheries Management Applications Mantua and Francis 2003
Climate Change, Carbon, and Forestry Innes et al. 2004
Climate Impacts on PNW Resources Rhythms of Change, Chs. 6-9
Outreach: Sectoral Workshops

16. Horizontal Assessment
ENSO PDO
Streamflow
Snow
Coho
Mote et al. 2003
Compare results across sectors 
Synthesize results across region 
Potential Impacts of Climate Change

17. Horizontal Assessment
More Difficult: weave the vertical assessments together into a fully integrated horizontal assessment
forests and hydrology -> forest hydrology
forests, hydrology, salmon, coastal erosion -> integrated coastal watershed management
return to the core questions of sensitivity, adaptability & vulnerability

18. Goals and methods
• Overarching Goal: to understand and evaluate the role of climate in our lives
• Answer the questions of sensitivity/vulnerability/adaptability using this model as our guide
• Need to go beyond traditional reductionist approaches

19. An alternative conceptual model: McEvoy’s sustainable fishery
Economy
Legal system (law & policy)
Nature

20. Using the Kaje method for conceptual mapping