CIVIC-PG Track A: Piloting the application of the data-to-decisions rapid response team to support climate adaptation planning within the Florida State Park system

社区土地管理机构——比如佛罗里达州立公园管理局——面临着许多与气候变化有关的挑战。例如，野火季节每年都提前到来，消耗了越来越多的工作人员的时间和资源，总的来说，管理受到入侵物种向北移动的挑战。佛罗里达州立公园的决策者有兴趣通过使用基于研究的决策支持方法来寻找解决这些挑战的新方法。然而，员额不足和部署新管理和规划的能力有限限制了它们的能力。这个CIVIC项目将使佛罗里达州立公园能够发展员工的知识和能力，使用数据驱动的决策支持方法来解决与公共保护土地上的气候适应有关的问题。我们计划试行一种“从数据到决策的快速反应小组”方法，将当地的专业知识与大学的研究科学家结合起来，以确定和试验解决当地保护土地管理挑战的办法。这些团队将利用环境决策支持方面的前沿研究来解决环境问题，同时收集有关这种方法有效性的信息。它将作为使用这种以小组为基础的方法的潜在实施模式，以解决负责作出与公共土地管理有关的决策的实体遇到的类似问题。以决策理论为基础的构建问题和确定解决方案的方法，在促进实现预期环境结果的高效和有效的管理途径方面显示出巨大的希望。然而，迄今为止，这些方法对社区土地管理组织来说是遥不可及的。尽管人们对基于理论的决策支持过程很感兴趣，但陡峭的学习曲线和不确定的收益尤其阻碍了许多组织对其的吸收。我们一直在开发方法，以支持个别组织提高他们测试基于理论的决策支持方法的好处的能力。这种支持包括研究人员和组织成员一起工作，使用结构化决策和投资回报理论等方法来追求需要解决的问题。然而，要在地方组织中大幅增加基于理论的决策支持的使用，我们需要迅速扩大所使用的方法和地方组织参与的能力。“从数据到决策”的快速反应小组试点项目旨在通过向社区土地管理机构提供资金、人员和技术支持，为3-5个试点项目提供解决方案，同时衡量该方法的有效性，以便日后对其进行改进和扩展，以支持其他保护组织。该项目是对“公民创新挑战”项目（track a）的回应：在不断变化的气候中生活：围绕适应、恢复和缓解的灾前行动——是国家科学基金会、国土安全部和能源部之间的合作项目。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Community land management agencies – such as the Florida State Parks agency - are faced with numerous climate change-related challenges. For instance, wildfire season is arriving earlier each year and consuming increasing staff time and resources, and management, in general, is challenged by the northward movement of invasive species. Florida State Parks decision makers are interested in finding new ways to address these challenges by using research-based decision support approaches. However inadequate staffing and limited capacity to deploy new management and planning have limited their capabilities. This CIVIC project will enable Florida State Parks to develop the staff knowledge and capacity to use data-driven decision support approaches to solve problems related to climate adaptation on public conservation lands. We plan to pilot a “data-to-decisions rapid response team” approach that pairs local expertise with university research scientists to identify and trial solutions to local conservation land management challenges. These teams will use cutting-edge research on environmental decision support to solve environmental problems while also gathering information on the effectiveness of this approach. It will serve as a potential implementation model for the use of this team-based approach to address similar issues encountered by entities tasked with making decisions related to the management of public lands.Decision-theory-based approaches for structuring problems and identifying solutions show tremendous promise for promoting efficient and effective management pathways to desired environmental outcomes. However, to date, these approaches have been out of reach for community-based land management organizations. Despite clear interest in embracing theory-based decision support processes, the steep learning curve and uncertain benefits have particularly hindered uptake among many organizations. We have been developing approaches to support individual organizations in improving their capacity to test the benefit of theory-based decision support approaches. This support involves researchers and organization members working together to use approaches such as structured decision-making and return-on-investment theory to pursue a problem that needs solving. However, to substantially increase the use of theory-based decision support within local organizations, we need to rapidly scale the approaches used and the capacity of local organizations to engage. The “data to decisions” rapid response team pilot project aims to do that by providing financial, staffing, and technical support to the community land management agency as we co-produce solutions to 3-5 pilot projects, while also measuring the effectiveness of the approach so that it can be refined and scaled to support other conservation organizations later. This project is in response to the Civic Innovation Challenge program—Track A. Living in a changing climate: pre-disaster action around adaptation, resilience, and mitigation—and is a collaboration between NSF, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Energy.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.