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Getting the vital dialogue going between global change researchers and potential users of the Atlas.
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Representing the global science sector: Prof Roland Schulze of the University of KwaZulu-Natal and Christine Colvin of the CSIR.
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Imraan Patel, the DST's General Manager: Science and Technology for Economic Impact and workshop presenter Prof Coleen Vogel of the University of the Witwatersrand discuss issues of risk and vulnerability.
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Researchers and decision-makers from various government sectors concerned with global change met in Pretoria in June for a landmark workshop aimed at bridging the gap between global change science and global change policy.
The South African Risk and Vulnerability Atlas (SARVA) workshop was aimed at stimulating engagement between the two groups to determine the information requirements of potential users of the Atlas in the government sector. The first version of the Atlas is due for release in January 2010, in electronic and hard-copy format.
In his welcoming address Dr Bob Scholes, CSIR systems ecologist and principal investigator in the Southern African Millennium Assessment, said that risk and vulnerability represented a "common currency" between the research and application domains, and that the Atlas is set to improve access to global change information.
"The Atlas will not only contain continually updated maps - it will be an easy-to-navigate, interactive spatial product at many scales, and will include case studies and other narratives to inform global change adaptation responses and planning," he explained. "The end product will be a widely encompassing storehouse of information about global change."
Dr Emma Archer, principal climate change scientist on the Atlas project, said that it is widely acknowledged that South Africa's climate change research is world-class. "We now need to make sure that this world-class science is put to good use to inform policy," she told workshop participants.
In his presentation the Department of Science and Technology's Imraan Patel, General Manager - Science and Technology for Economic Impact, briefly informed delegates of the key science-policy initiative that the DST is conceptualizing together with both the science and policy communities. This is the Bureau for Global Change Science. “The bureau will draw together the best of South Africa’s global change research and will act as a high-level knowledge broker between researchers and policy-makers,” Patel said.
"The Bureau on Global Change Science will draw together the best of South Africa's global change research and will act as a high-level knowledge broker between researchers and policy-makers in parliament," Patel said. He called for an Atlas User Forum to be established and to have regular meetings to keep the vital dialogue going between the different stakeholders so that the Atlas can effectively support the needs of users. He challenged workshop participants to "push the limits of innovation" in global change.
SARVA project manager Dr Rebecca Maserumule told workshop participants that South Africa has learnt a valuable lesson from one of its neighbouring countries. "Despite the fact that the country produced a truly admirable risk and vulnerability atlas, they face a huge challenge in persuading decision-makers to use it. With our Atlas we want to create a platform for researchers and potential users to walk hand in hand from the outset to make doubly sure that the Atlas meets user requirements," she said.
As an introduction to the workshop, six case studies were presented by global change researchers to illustrate how the Atlas information could potentially be used in decision-making.
A lively debate followed where the decision-makers representing local, provincial and national government shared their expectations and requirements with the researchers. Issues raised included the fact that there were gaps in existing climate change research, and that in many cases climate change research findings were still inaccessible.
Maserumule explained that the Atlas was set to contribute to efforts to coordinate research and identify gaps. The Atlas should be seen as a living platform - as new information becomes available it will be added to the body of knowledge.
"The Atlas will become a one-stop shop for relevant climate change findings, which would inform projections of global change, land cover change and biogeochemical change for the region," she said. "It will facilitate value-addition to 'raw' research data to make the resulting information accessible to decision-makers in a practical application format," she explained. The Atlas is being designed as a 'distributed' system, linking to outlying databases to build a community engaged in spatial data provision in global change and risk and vulnerability.
Discussion in the workshops focused on important features to include in the Atlas. These were identified as mapping of climate extremes; risk indices; links to other important databases; and base maps of population growth, economic activities, physical parameters which influence coastal sensitivity, coastal zones, land-use and environmental resources. Participants also mooted that the Atlas should provide a platform where environment impact assessments can be shared to allow lesser resourced municipalities access to this information and drive down costs.
Stakeholders also requested that the Atlas should function as a decision support tool in aspects such as risk associated with specific developments, land reform vulnerability, highly sensitive areas which preclude development such as mining, and vulnerability of different sectors such as forestry and tourism.
In conclusion, Maserumule challenged decision-makers to feed the findings of their own case studies into the Atlas system to enable researchers and decision-makers to come to a mutual and more comprehensive understanding of global change and its impacts.
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