SPICOSA

Science and Policy Integration

for COastal System Assesment

Denis Bailly
UMR-AMURE, Center for Law and Economics of the Sea
University of Brest (UBO)
France

Littoral 2010, London Science and Policy Integration for

September 21 - 23 COastal Systems Assessment
 SPICOSA
Science and Policy Integration for COastal System Assessment
An Integrated Project (IP) under the “global change and
ecosystems” priority of the 6th Research Framework
Programme, research area “sustainable use of land”, dedicated
to Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM).

21 countries, 54 research institutes,

universities, SMEs and NGOs,
18 study-sites, 300 persons,
budget of 14 M€, EU grant 10 M€
2007-2011

Science and Policy Integration for

COastal Systems Assessment
SPICOSA aims at delivering tested
methodologies to support implementation of
environmental sustainability agenda along European coasts by:

- promoting the integration of knowledge about natural and

social processes in coastal systems

- from a policy perspective (problem oriented integrated

assessment, « what if » scenario to explore consequences of
policy options or changes in external forcings)

- with a participatory approach (co-expertise between science

and managers, support to stakeholders’ deliberation)

Science and Policy Integration for

COastal Systems Assessment
 The Systems Approach Framework (SAF)
Modelling based on system thinking.
Focus on interactions between processes rather than
processes themselves, explore feedback loops driving
systems’ dynamics
Start at high scale (low resolution) and then downscale to
the extend extra information significantly improves
understanding of the problem
Trust benefits of communicative rationality : more
communication improves understanding and efficiency of
collective choices

Science and Policy Integration for

COastal Systems Assessment
 System Approach Framework (SAF)

Open programming of conceptual systems


Modelling of Ecological, Social and Economic dynamics interactions

Co-construction of the model

Deliberation over outputs

Iterative process
Governance

Multiple uses of water

Resources

Science and Policy Integration for

COastal Systems Assessment
   18 Study Sites

The Project tests and improves the SAF at eighteen Study Site
Applications (SSAs) all over Europe representing the diversity of
coasts that differ in geomorphology, environmental conditions,
cultures, and human activities.

Each SSA is run by a multidisciplinary team involving natural

scientists, social scientists and modellers, working in interaction with
local policy-makers and stakeholders.

Science and Policy Integration for

COastal Systems Assessment
SPICOSA Study Site Applications
1. Gulf of Riga
2. Gulf of Gdansk
3. Oder Estuary
4. Himmerfjarden
5. Limfjorden
6. Sondeled
7. Firth of Clyde
8. Cork Harbour
9. Scheldt Delta
10. Pertuis-Charentais
11. Guadiana Estuary
12.Barcelona Coast
13. Thau Lagoon
14. Taranto Mar Piccolo
15. Venice Lagoon
16. Thermaikos Gulf
17. Izmit Bay
18. Varna Bay

Science and Policy Integration for

COastal Systems Assessment
The co-evolution of human and natural components in
coastal systems is problematic.

The coasts, defined as the relatively narrow

transitional space between pure terrestrial and marine
ecosystems, are under high and still increasing human
pressure.

That puts at stress the wide range of opportunities that

we solicit from ecosystem good and services to
support human well-being.

Science and Policy Integration for

COastal Systems Assessment
Most of ecosystem goods and services are:

•
renewable resources, so theoretically sustainable if the pressures
are wisely managed within the limits of these resources.

•
commons in the sense that without strong political will and societal
commitment to collective stewardship, the range of existing and
expanding private rights over space and resources cannot, alone,
fulfill in effective ways the objectives of a balanced development,
economically efficient, socially equitable and environmentally
sustainable. Increase in threats and vulnerability from any of these
dimensions immediately reveals that they are closely interconnected.

Science and Policy Integration for

COastal Systems Assessment
These notions of limit/scarcity and needs for collective
action based access regulation are relative to human
preferences/values, to natural variability in space and time
and to technical and institutional innovations. So most of
them are within the range of complexity for which system
thinking is required.
 
Reunify/integrate rather that further segment and slice the
reality of the world and the efforts to increase our capacity
to deliver sustainability.

Science and Policy Integration for

COastal Systems Assessment
Making collective choices about objectives and means to
organize human occupancy of land or sea coastal space,
or to maintain water quality, biological productivity,
biodiversity, esthetics of landscape or other ecosystem
functionalities calls for high levels of information flows
both in quantity and quality.

But the type of knowledge and networks required for

sharing information in an effective way still need to be
developed or re-invented when they have been destroyed
in rapidly changing contexts (indifferently driven by wealth
creation or poverty generation)..

Science and Policy Integration for

COastal Systems Assessment
Leaving aside the science communication, useful to raise
public and political awareness about threats and needs to
maintain high the potential of ecosystem goods and
services, there is a full range of activities where more
inputs from research are awaited.

Society is demanding for expertise to set diagnostics, to

define objectives and actions and to evaluate
implementation. More and more sources of expertise and
knowledge are harnessed in this process. Research
cannot stay back. We have our ways to explore the world
that are worth to be used.

Science and Policy Integration for

COastal Systems Assessment
There is a question for researchers: Is that type of work really to
be considered as research or only as knowledge transfer
(expertise for service) ?

SPICOSA is an attempt to demonstrate that not only it can be

both at once but also that research input can really be valuable.

And that happens only if the incentives and pressure selection

specific to research as well as policy-making processes are
respected.

It “simply” requires a different perspective, training and practices

to learn to work more collaboratively across disciplines but also
across areas of knowledge and expertise beyond science.

Science and Policy Integration for

COastal Systems Assessment
A sustainability problem is rarely a pure engineering problem.

It is a challenge to human collective intelligence. Inventiveness,

rigor and high technicity of research in creating and processing
information are not only usefull. They are needed.

The fact that the problem is framed by a societal demand should

not be seen as constraining but as a door to a large range of new
research challenges.

SPICOSA has demonstrated that researchers remain stakeholders

in setting research questions though they have to learn on how to
negotiate with the many other sources of knowledge and interests
vested when working at policy oriented problems.

Science and Policy Integration for

COastal Systems Assessment
An on-going debate is about the limitations of a project based
approach to reverse the trends towards unsustainability.

Having set 18 project based experiments that lasted for 3 years, I

think we have demonstrated how science-policy integration can
make the difference if both science and policy are done seriously
and if integration is really at the core of everything.

There seem to be a threshold in such project beyond which the

question of long-term science-policy partnership becomes an
existential question. Projects are instrumental to these partnerships
but the partnership must be considered for itself. And long term
commitment requires trusts with mutual recognition of benefits and
limitations. To build this trust, new working frameworks are needed

Science and Policy Integration for

COastal Systems Assessment
GIS as a tool to map part of the complexity of the world has proved
to be very powerful for that. Indicator based analytical frameworks
(DPSIR, ecological footprint…) have communicative power but also
strong analytical limitations.

We have developed the System Approach Framework as a science-

policy collaborative framework. Based on system thinking, it aims at:

- building common understanding and representations of complex

system dynamics across different areas of expertise
- to explore with managers, policy-makers or stakeholder (according
to the problem and context) the properties/potential of the social and
ecological systems they live in and the possibilities to influence its
trajectory.

Science and Policy Integration for

COastal Systems Assessment
This is without rejecting any of the highest level of research
technicity, including numerical modeling and virtual reality, but with
a primary focus on the efficiency of the communicative process.

Not all problems require such high investment in collective thinking.

Bot we claim most of the persisting environmental problems do.

ICZM as a governance reform to make the “coast” exist for its own
needs in the minds of people and power structure of institutions is
certainly one of the many “policy problems” that social science can
help explore and implement as part of these partnerships with local
authorities and communities beyond small demonstration projects.
Though a mix of regulatory and incentive based new impulse will
probably be needed for that to happen in Europe.

Science and Policy Integration for

COastal Systems Assessment
 SPICOSA outputs in 2011

Scientific publication (special issue of Ecology and Society journal

and others)

A web-based handbook describing SAF methodology

An introduction to the SAF (student textbook)

Study site portofolio with the results of experimenting the SAF

Modeling libraries for ExtendSim®

Training material (professional and academic)

Science and Policy Integration for

COastal Systems Assessment
Science and Policy Integration for
COastal Systems Assessment