National environmental indicators: measuring what matters?
Elisabeth A. GraffyASU -- March 30, 2007
Guideposts
Summarize a national initiative to design a national indicator system Purpose, Participants, Process
Focus in on challenges, tensions, paradoxes
Discuss current and potential role(s) for academia
Why design a system for national environmental indicators?
Respond to claims of unmet needs for national indicators in policy, management, and public discourse.
Despite many indicator efforts and assessments, knowledge remains Fragmented and incomplete Inaccessible Incomplete and/or not sufficiently relevant Of mixed quality and trustworthiness
Some leading U.S. indicator efforts
Heinz Center: State of the Nation’s Ecosystems
NAS Key National Indicator Initiative (aka State of the USA)
EPA’s Report on the Environment Sustainable Resource Roundtables (4) GAO and OSTP report dozens of federal
assessments, indicator systems (Global, state, local, corporate efforts)
Rationale for a national system
“The Nation does not now produce complete, consistent, and credible
statistics and indicators about environmental conditions and trends that are needed to guide government and business decisions and to inform
public discourse.”
Major participants in dialogue Federal agencies
CEQ, EPA, DOI, NOAA, USDA-NRCS, FS Indirect: GAO
Non-federal entities Heinz Center, State of the USA, NCSE State and local government University and Business
National Academy of Public Administration
Participants emerged over time
CEQInteragency Indicator
CoordinationFederal Agencies:
DOI, EPA, USDA, FS, NOAA
Collaborative Process
Roundtables:Forests, Rangelands
Minerals, Water
Heinz State of theNation’s Ecosystems
NAS KNIIStakeholders
& ExpertsStakeholders
& Experts
CorporateInputs
Agency Reports
AcademicInputs
Congressional Inputs
Collaboration on Indicators on the Nation’s Environment and Natural Resources (CINE) Planning Group
Common aspirational goal
Complete, credible, and consistently reliable National (scalable) Routinely used by policy-makers,
businesses, and citizens Increasingly trusted over time Match IT and use/access trends
Proposed operational goal
Primary Goal Achieve consensus among diverse
partners about selection of Core National Indicators and process for periodic review and updating
Ensure consistent production and reporting of these indicators
Ensure the reliability of related statistical and data activities
Core National
Indicators
Policy, Planning andManagement
Indicators
Inventory and Monitoring Data and Indicators
PublicDiscourse
Corollary Responsibilities Align priorities, protocols Support consistency of tiers Promote broad public access
Process of dialogue and design Several years of intermittent activity Now, coordinated series of meetings
Define federal interests and role(s) Define non-federal interests and role(s) Develop agreement on feasible options Develop implementation strategy that
successfully accommodates politics, Politics, organizational change….
Focus on institutions, not indicators
Implied design tensions
Conceptual Institutional Informational Political
Conceptual Tensions: What are indicators? (1)
Statistics Indices Aggregated data/bu Question-driven/td Science-based Values-based Policy-defined Valid, reliable Fact-based Comprehensive Selective
Progress markers Descriptive - status Diagnostic - problems Rational decision
tools “Truth to power” Dispute resolvers Myth-dispellers Collaborative origin Policy-relevant Apolitical
Conceptual Tensions: What are indicators? (2)
Dispute enhancers Translated scientific knowledge Co-produced/joint knowledge Boundary objects Serviceable truths Usable knowledge Metaphoric, symbolic
A problem
Indicator practitioners may be only loosely aware of the broader (and potentially very broad) intellectual context.
Disciplinary theorists may be only loosely aware of potentially broad intellectual context and opportunities to contribute.
Conceptual Tensions: What are indicators for?
Policy, Planning and Management
Indicators
Inventory and Monitoring Data and Indicators
Public Understanding Social Learning, Action
Parameters of legitimized common knowledge
Accountability to specified
goals
Salient Topics
CoreNational
Indicators
Public UnderstandingSocial Learning, Action
Synthesis, narrativeFusion of technical, cultural,
economic, spiritual, …
Data collectionExpand frontiers
of knowledge
Relation of Indicator Type to Potential Social Functions
Conceptual Tensions: Who are indicators for?
Inventory And Monitoring Data and Indicators
Public and People withTopic or Issue Interests
ManagersAnd
Policy Wonks
Core National Indicators
Generally Informed Public
Scientists
Policy, PlanningAnd Management
Indicators
Salient Topics
Relation of Indicator Types to Potentially Interested People
Conceptual Tensions: Independence, relevance, & politicization
Do environmental condition indicators relate to program planning, performance?
Should indicators address “hot” issues? Should indicators be about ecological only
or economic and social aspects, too? Should indicators encompass condition
only or causes and implications, too? “Build it & they will come” or “build to
suit”? What are the real risks and for whom?
Institutional Tensions: Hydra
Existing programs are dispersed, autonomous 58 Heinz national indicators used data from 20
Federal programs in 15 agencies in 6 departments Decentralized by historical design (eg., fires)
Many co-existing missions with constituencies How much change is needed and acceptable?
Federal and non-federal interests exist What roles, rights, authorities can/do each assume?
Science and policy domains are inevitable What model(s) guide(s) this interface or boundary?
Institutional Tensions: Language Institutional arrangements: defined roles
and responsibilities, not an “agency” Vision: the aspiration Goal: the concrete results to be achieved Critical Functions: tasks/abilities/activities
that are minimally necessary for goals Design: the process of defining roles and
responsibilities Criteria: enables goal-based comparison
and evaluation of design options
Informational Tensions: DRIP A lot of information --uncoordinated,
fragmented, unaligned, incomplete Heinz Center Report:½ of 103 indicators
w/data More data are collected than analyzed
Redundancy and inquiry vs. targeted needs and scarce resources?
What is “national” about an indicator? Geographic scale, iconic value, ecological
uniqueness, “sentinel”, constituency Everglades, bald eagle, children, mercury, bees,
Lake Tahoe, Sky Islands
Political Tensions: First Steps Poor understanding of conditions for
Acceptance by involved entities Legitimacy in all relevant sectors Authority sufficient for functional capacity Ability to weather administrations,
Congresses, and controversies Lessons from other cases, literature,
and consultations is inconclusive Default stance: incremental, low-risk
Loss of relevance or long-term viability?
Role(s) for academia Take a broad view of whose research matters:
natural sciences, organizational change & strategy, sociology, public affairs, law, political theory, science policy, resource management, communication, history, media
Help develop common concepts, terminology, methods
Promote innovation and experimentation that links theory and practice
Role(s) for academia Why bother?
Growth areas for research Differentiates and prepares students May have real-world impact