Dissertation Research: Dividing the Waters: Data, Models, and Environmental Policy in the American Southwest and U.S.-Mexico Border Region

论文研究：划分水域：美国西南部和美墨边境地区的数据、模型和环境政策

• 批准号: 0425261
• 负责人: Robert Horwitz
• 金额: $ 0.8万
• 依托单位: University of California-San Diego
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2004
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2004-07-01 至 2006-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0425261&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Dissertation; Research; Dividing; Waters; Data

This Science and Technology Studies Dissertation Improvement Grant explores the changing place of large-scale computer simulations within regimes of environmental governance in the American Southwest and U.S.-Mexico border region. Since the early 1990s, changes in model design (a shift towards software-based and object-oriented strategies) and scale (a secular increase in funding and expansion to new geographic locales) have pushed computer simulations closer to the heart of environmental management, policy and controversy. This has produced contradictory effects: on one hand, models enjoy a new and growing prominence in the practice and politics of regional water management; on the other, their very success has provoked widespread debate among planners, policymakers and various environmental publics over their fundamental nature and epistemic status: What sort of knowledge do models produce, and how are we to credit this knowledge? How are relations of uncertainty, credibility and trust expressed, managed and adjudicated at the level of model design and use? What work can and should models do in mediating public environmental controversies? This study traces a particular art of environmental fact-making through its wider institutional and social context, exploring the infrastructural work of model builders, users and publics operating under the frequently intense spotlight of regional water politics. The study methodology is comparative and ethnographic, drawing on original fieldwork into three primary cases: the CALSIM II process undertaken by the California Department of Water Resources and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, originally designed to model the interaction of the State Water and Central Valley Projects, but increasingly being deployed as a general predictive model for the state-wide system as a whole; RiverWare, a modeling environment developed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the Tennessee Valley Authority for decision support on the Colorado, Tennessee and other heavily-managed basins; and Border+20, a group-based modeling exercise sponsored by the Congressionally-funded Southwest Center for Environmental Research and Policy that attempts to establish credible 20-year futures as a basis for binational environmental policy and cooperation along the U.S.-Mexico border. Funds will be used primarily to support travel to conduct interviews, ethnographic observation and archival research with model developers and users in California, Colorado, and Northern Mexico. Within the field of STS, the study will contribute to emerging research on the role of distributed and computer-based data systems in the mutual construction of the earth sciences and public policy. Beyond its relevance for STS scholars, the study will speak to pressing concerns faced by earth scientists, policy makers and environmental publics as new data and information technologies and new modes of practice are deployed throughout the environmental field. Most concretely, the study will suggest empirically-grounded lessons concerning the appropriate design and use of large-scale computer simulations in their ecological, institutional, and political contexts.

这项科学技术研究论文改进补助金探讨了大规模计算机模拟在美国西南部和美墨边境地区环境治理制度中的变化。 自 20 世纪 90 年代初以来，模型设计（向基于软件和面向对象的策略的转变）和规模（资金的长期增加和扩展到新的地理区域）的变化使计算机模拟更接近环境管理、政策和争议的核心。 这产生了矛盾的效果：一方面，模型在区域水管理的实践和政治中日益受到重视；另一方面，它们的成功引发了规划者、政策制定者和各种环境公众对其基本性质和认知地位的广泛争论：模型产生了什么样的知识，我们如何相信这些知识？ 在模型设计和使用层面如何表达、管理和裁决不确定性、可信度和信任关系？ 模型在调解公共环境争议方面可以而且应该做哪些工作？ 本研究通过更广泛的制度和社会背景追踪了环境事实制定的特殊艺术，探索了模型构建者、用户和公众在区域水政治的强烈关注下运作的基础设施工作。 该研究方法是比较性和民族志性的，将原始实地调查分为三个主要案例：加州水资源部和美国垦务局进行的 CALSIM II 流程，最初旨在模拟州水务和中央谷项目的相互作用，但越来越多地被部署为整个州范围系统的通用预测模型； RiverWare，由美国垦务局和田纳西河谷管理局开发的建模环境，用于为科罗拉多州、田纳西州和其他管理严格的流域提供决策支持； Border+20 是一项由国会资助的西南环境研究和政策中心发起的基于团体的建模活动，旨在建立可信的 20 年未来，作为美墨边境两国环境政策和合作的基础。 资金将主要用于支持与加利福尼亚州、科罗拉多州和墨西哥北部的模型开发人员和用户进行访谈、民族志观察和档案研究。 在STS领域，这项研究将有助于分布式和基于计算机的数据系统在地球科学和公共政策的共同建设中的作用的新兴研究。 除了与 STS 学者相关之外，该研究还将讨论随着新数据和信息技术以及新实践模式在整个环境领域的部署，地球科学家、政策制定者和环境公众面临的紧迫问题。 最具体地说，该研究将提出基于经验的教训，涉及在生态、制度和政治背景下适当设计和使用大规模计算机模拟。