Stakeholder engagement does not guarantee impact: A co-productionist perspective on model-based drought research.

Stakeholder engagement has become a watchword for environmental scientists to assert the societal relevance of their projects to funding agencies. In water research based on computer simulation modelling, stakeholder engagement has attracted interest as a means to overcome low uptake of new tools for water management. An increasingly accepted view is that more and better stakeholder involvement in research projects will lead to increased adoption of the modelling tools created by scientists in water management. However, we cast doubt on this view by drawing attention to how the freedom of stakeholder organizations to adopt new scientific modelling tools in their regular practices is circumscribed by the societal context. We use a modified concept of co-production in an analysis of a case of scientific research on drought in the UK to show how relationships between actors in the drought governance space influence the uptake of scientific modelling tools. The analysis suggests an explanation of why stakeholder engagement with one scientific project led to one output (data) getting adopted by stakeholders while another output (modelling tools) attracted no discernible interest. Our main objective is to improve the understanding of the limitations to stakeholder engagement as a means of increasing societal uptake of scientific research outputs.

Virtually expert: modes of environmental computer simulation modeling.

This paper challenges three assumptions common in the literature on expertise: that expertise is linearly derived from scientific knowledge; that experts always align with the established institutional order; and that expertise is a property acquired by individuals. We criticize these ideas by juxtaposing three distinct expert practices involved with flood risk management in England. Virtual engineering is associated with commercial consultancy and relies on standardized software packages to assess local flood inundation. Mathematical experimentation refers to academic scientists creating new digital renderings of the physical dynamics of flooding. Participatory modeling denotes research projects that aim to transform the relationships between experts and local communities. Focusing on different modes of modeling we contribute an analysis of how particular models articulate with specific politics of knowledge as experts form relationships with flood risk management actors. Our empirical study also shows how models can contribute to re-distribution of expertise in local flood risk management.

Imagining flood futures: risk assessment and management in practice.

The mantra that policy and management should be 'evidence-based' is well established. Less so are the implications that follow from 'evidence' being predictions of the future (forecasts, scenarios, horizons) even though such futures define the actions taken today to make the future sustainable. Here, we consider the tension between 'evidence', reliable because it is observed, and predictions of the future, unobservable in conventional terms. For flood risk management in England and Wales, we show that futures are actively constituted, and so imagined, through 'suites of practices' entwining policy, management and scientific analysis. Management has to constrain analysis because of the many ways in which flood futures can be constructed, but also because of commitment to an accounting calculus, which requires risk to be expressed in monetary terms. It is grounded in numerical simulation, undertaken by scientific consultants who follow policy/management guidelines that define the futures to be considered. Historical evidence is needed to deal with process and parameter uncertainties and the futures imagined are tied to pasts experienced. Reliance on past events is a challenge for prediction, given changing probability (e.g. climate change) and consequence (e.g. development on floodplains). So, risk management allows some elements of risk analysis to become unstable (notably in relation to climate change) but forces others to remain stable (e.g. invoking regulation to prevent inappropriate floodplain development). We conclude that the assumed separation of risk assessment and management is false because the risk calculation has to be defined by management. Making this process accountable requires openness about the procedures that make flood risk analysis more (or less) reliable to those we entrust to produce and act upon them such that, unlike the 'pseudosciences', they can be put to the test of public interrogation by those who have to live with their consequences.