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ATEAM final report Section 5 and 6 (2001-2004) 48 collaboration. EEA’s Executive Director Jacqueline McGlade concluded that the new method of integrated ecosystem assessment, using scenarios and land-use accounting as the ATEAM, is the focus of a fresh set of EEA activities. Finally all participants discussed ways to best exchange the information produced by the ongoing assessment projects and the EEA, which plays a key role in improving the communication of scientific results to the policy arena and the larger public. Working with the EEA will be necessary to provide the foundation for better environmental management in Europe. Overall, the workshop was an exciting networking activity between policy advisors of the European Commission, EU-funded research activities like ATEAM and AVEC and European organisations like the EEA, as well as the global initiative MA. 6.2.4.4 Dialogue Evaluation ATEAM’s value for stakeholders Stakeholder questionnaires and interviews of ATEAMers were carried out as part of the evaluation of the dialogue’s outcome. Independent observers participated in each general stakeholder meeting and provided the stakeholder dialogue coordinators with interesting feedback. A detailed report on the dialogue evaluation was produced (as listed in Annex 2). Stakeholders were in general satisfied with the amount of information provided prior to workshop events and had sufficient time to consult it. However, some respondents emphasised that documentation was sometimes too rough, too broad, or on the contrary too specific, as well as sent too late to fully understand the research focus and methods used. Most stakeholders believed that the ATEAM workshops had been worth the time taken from their work (Figure 34), as well as overall relevant to their work (Figure 35). This was supported by informal feedback during the workshop, as well as by the readiness of many stakeholders to participate in more than one activity. Indeed 11 of the 47 stakeholders participated in at least two of the ATEAM dialogue activities. It should be nevertheless be noted that circa a fourth of all participants did not fill the questionnaire and might have given less positive responses. Overall stakeholder appreciated the workshop contents and the topics covered by ATEAM’s presentations. However some stakeholders emphasised that too many topics were covered during the events, which sometimes prevented to have an in depth discussion. Moreover some stakeholders mentioned that some topics had been treated in a too dispersed way so that the outcomes of specific discussion were too vague (e.g. on sectoral adaptive capacity and dissemination of the results). Most stakeholders agreed that they had gained useful insights on European vulnerability to global change, some of which they would be able to integrate in their work (Figures 36 and 37). Fellow scientists and scientific/environmental advisers to the policy and management process were generally positive in the usability of the ATEAM results in their own research and work. In contrast, for many more professionally orientated stakeholders the actual model outputs, though interesting, were not suitable to specifically guide their strategic and daily decision-making and management practices. As awareness raising background information however, the ATEAM results were praised. The need to synthesise the research into clear messages and to target these to specific audiences was highlighted. Moreover the need for transparency was repeatedly brought forward, as stakeholders wanted to understand fully how ATEAM results were calculated, and which assumptions were made, in particular concerning policy and management. Specific questions were asked to evaluate the quality of the interactions. Overall stakeholders believed that they had been comfortable enough to express their opinions and that their views had been adequately valued by all participants. Although it is possible that non-respondents may have felt otherwise, it appears that ATEAM has managed to develop an atmosphere of trust and friendliness in which positive comments and constructive criticism were encouraged and valued. Each session was moderated (generally by ATEAMers), which allowed most speakers to participate actively. It was however noted by some stakeholders that at times the moderators were not neutral enough and
ATEAM final report Section 5 and 6 (2001-2004) 49 stepped in to “defend” the project rather than simply moderate the discussion. Most stakeholders had been sufficiently interested in the project to consider participating in follow-up activities. Interest in future participation was motivated by the possibility to obtain more information on potential European vulnerability, as well as on sectoral adaptive capacity, and adaptation measures. All stakeholders wished to be kept informed of future activities and to received further information on the project final results. Many had already talked about ATEAM to colleagues or planned to do so. The experience of the ATEAM stakeholder dialogue indicates that there is great scope for exchange and collaboration between scientists and stakeholders. The approach followed by ATEAM has been in general judged useful and relevant to stakeholders. Interest has been expressed for the vulnerability assessment methodology and the mapping tool developed by ATEAM. It was stressed that to increase the usability and clarity of the final ATEAM maps care should be taken to synthesise the most important take-home messages of these maps as well as clearly stating the assumptions and limitations involved in the modelling and the meaningfulness of the results at different scales. Three key messages to summarise ATEAM’s stakeholder dialogue experience are: 1. Research does not need to compromise on scientific rigour to be socially relevant. 2. The ATEAM assessment was made at a spatial resolution exceptionally high relative to many other global change vulnerability assessments (10’x10’ grid resolution). Nevertheless, ATEAM results are more useful at European/national scale. It would be interesting to explore in future how modelling and dialogue methods can further help to address stakeholders’ needs at subnational scale and to further improve the integration and communication of scientific results. 3. It is critical to think, design, conduct and interpret vulnerability assessments following a (loose) participatory research approach as this contributes substantially in shaping scientific assessments, which are meaningful to potential end users. Without this, vulnerability assessments may remain a fascinating but very expensive abstract exercise. Stakeholders influence on ATEAM The indicators of ecosystem services that were estimated by the ATEAM modelling framework were chosen together with stakeholders from the list of indicators that the ecosystem model were able to produce. Mostly this choice was straightforward, such as choosing the indicator “wood production” for the forestry sector, and “run-off quantity and seasonality” for the water sector. However, in some cases we experienced surprises during the stakeholder interaction. For example, many stakeholders from the agricultural sector were less interested in crop yield estimates than they were in estimates of future agricultural area (“farmer livelihood”). Furthermore, additional indicators were found to satisfy stakeholders’ interest in biomass energy production. We also discussed the temporal and spatial scales of our analyses and received a diverse range of answers. For some stakeholders both the temporal (time slices 1990, 2020, 2050, 2080) and spatial scale (10’x10’) were useful. Some wished to focus on long term developments (i.e. stakeholders from the forestry sector are concerned with 2080 and further), but the majority of stakeholders was more interested in short term estimates for the next five to ten years. For some stakeholders the spatial scale of the assessment was still too coarse, even though the resolution is already exceptionally fine for global change assessment. Especially stakeholders from regional nature conservation parks need more local information than the ATEAM was able to provide. Specific case studies would have been very welcome and ATEAMers were highly interested in conducting such research, but this plan could not be realised due to budget constraints. ATEAM researchers learned especially how ecosystem services are recognised and managed by stakeholders. Within ATEAM considerable effort has been made to include management in the vulnerability assessment. For example decision-making in a socio-economic and policy context enters the assessment via the land use scenarios and via ecosystem models that take into account agricultural
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