Postdoctoral Fellowship -- Knowledge Systems Analysis for Environmental Decision Making: Energy Development in the Four Corners Region of the American Southwest, 1960-2010

在过去三十年中，不同社会科学领域的决策者和研究人员对在环境政策和决策中使用科学知识的传统方法有了透彻的理解和批判。然而，这项工作的集体见解，充其量，只有边际影响的生产，审查和科学知识在美国环境政策的应用。此外，现有的工具没有提供系统的方法来确定环境政策决定的后果。该研究项目通过制定一个概念框架和一套称为知识系统分析的政策工具来解决这一差距，研究人员和政策制定者可以使用这些工具来指导对环境决策及其结果的系统审查。KSA的发展将通过理论研究，并通过对美国西南部四角地区的煤矿和燃煤电厂网络的实证分析来进行。实证部分需要对环境和水文影响声明中的预测进行定量的事后审计，并对规范性做法进行定性的社会和制度分析，通过这些规范性做法，环境知识被生产、验证并用于政策决策。 除了产生一个创新的政策工具和理论框架，该奖项将资助在亚利桑那州州立大学的专业公共政策学位课程的学生KSA教学工具的发展。 该项目还将为环境影响评估和确定性建模的实践提供重要见解，提出关于复杂社会生态系统的管理和恢复力的案例研究，并为美国西南部部落土地上能源开发的环境历史做出贡献。 最后，研究支持博士后研究人员的培训。

Over the past three decades, policymakers and researchers in varied social scientific fields have developed both a thorough understanding and a critique of conventional approaches to the use of scientific knowledge in environmental policy and decisionmaking. However, the collective insights of this work have had, at best, only marginal impacts on the production, review, and application of scientific knowledge in environmental policy in the United States. Moreover, existing tools do not provide systematic ways of identifying the consequences of environmental policy decisions. This research project addresses that gap by developing a conceptual framework and set of policy tools, called Knowledge Systems Analysis, that can be used by researchers and policymakers to guide the systematic review of environmental decisions and their outcomes. The development of KSA will take place through theoretical research, and through empirical analyse of a network of coal mines and coal-fired power plants in the Four Corners region of the American Southwest. The empirical component entails a quantitative postaudit of the predictions in environmental and hydrologic impact statements, and a qualitative social and institutional analysis of the normative practices through which environmental knowledge is produced, validated, and used in policy decisionmaking. In addition to producing an innovative policy tool and theoretical framework, this award will fund the development of a KSA pedagogical tool for students in professional public policy degree programs at Arizona State University. The project will also contribute important insights to the practice of environmental impact assessment and deterministic modeling, present a case study on the management and resilience of complex socio-ecological systems, and contribute to the environmental history of energy development on the tribal lands in the American Southwest. Finally, the research supports the training of a postdoctoral researcher.