From science to technology adoption: the role of policy research in improving natural resource management

GCTE3 science seeks to predict the effects of global change on agriculture, forestry and soils. Better understanding the response of these ecological systems, it is argued, will enable society to better ameliorate, adapt to, and even benefit from, the forces of global change. The argument presented in this paper, however, is that the response of managed ecosystems can only be understood by treating likely human response to global change as an int egral part of the research agenda. Linking science and policy research matt ers because the adoption of technologies for improved natural resource mana gement, or of other interventions that scientific research may help design, is conditioned by socio-economic factors that policy research is better eq uipped to articulate. The paper first discusses how natural resource management and technology ad option are influenced by policy factors. It then explores why science - inc luding GCTE - research needs to be linked to policy research. The reasons i nclude: (a) that understanding biophysical processes is necessary but insuf ficient to understanding the socio-economic consequences of global change; (b) that the design of interventions to ameliorate negative and foster posi tive change at a global scale depends on gauging the likely human behaviora l responses to change; (c) that although global impacts arise from an accum ulation of local changes, interventions are often best coordinated in an in ternational forum where the interests of potential "winners" and "losers" c an best be matched. Different (winner and loser) nations have different pol icy stances on the underlying promoters of change. e.g., population growth, carbon emissions, biodiversity loss, etc. Failure to understand the (often economic) incentives underlying the "business-as-usual" position of many c ountries can hamper progress, even if the scientific arguments are compelli ng The paper also assesses how best to link GCTE science research and policy r esearch. Researchers need to be: (a) concerned at many scales, from local t o global; (b) able to predict and allow for the influences of technical cha nge; (c) able to model biophysical processes and behavioral norms and respo nses in an integrated way. Interactive models in which biophysical processe s impact on human behavioral response and vice versa are increasingly requi red. Even where land use and socio-economic models are not formally linked, significant gains may be made from multidisciplinary approaches and inform ation exchange that develop common scenarios under which biophysical and ec onomic analyses are made separately, but at least in complementary ways. (C ) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.