Availability of scientific and technical environmental data : their effect on

decision making mechanisms

International Cooperation

Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas CONICET

ARGENTINA

Jorge G. TEZON Ph.D

 Environmental decision making process is complex and affects or involves multiple actors and factors :

•government •actual people and future generations•firms and future business opportunities•the present and future environmental status•the academic/research community among others

 Each actor includes the environmental knowledge in its own set of values and practices.  

•Scientific Environmental knowledge helps but does not determine the decision making process.

•To be useful , environmental knowledge should be available in both “codified” and “de codified” forms.

•Generation and diffusion of knowledge respond to incentives mechanisms but also to regulations that reinforce them

Legal aspects in Argentina

Free access to information from government areas related to the environment is granted by

Law 25 381 January 2004

Access = data are generally asked to institutions through a specific “form”

It is assumed that data are NOT available on line

What is really available?

Knowledge , information or data?

Availability of information or data

• Information is codified by the author : statistics, average values, maps, graphical visualization.

• The actual data remain unavailable

Benefits of codified information (Cinf)

•Is strongly proprietary •Its value is recognized and assigned by pears

but also by the general public.•Reflects the coherence of a given hypothesis •Helps build up a scientific CV.•CInf can therefore be used as a product for personal and institutional incentives

Risks of Codified Information

•It leads to a conclusion based on average or selected data

•Authors usually do not record “useless” data

•Authors can reject contradictory data

•Can only be related or integrated by experts to other codified information

Availability of information or data

Benefits of Data availability

• Data can be re-interpreted by others,

• Data can be related to other variables• A different correlation of data can drive to

new conclusions and findings, different from that of the original data collector.

Risks of data availability

• Continuous need of agreement on new data and standards .

• Better and new conclusions can be drawn by others from existing data – Credit share.

• Data “value” is only recognized by expert pears

Risks of data availability (cont)

• The use of data is not usually “traced”.

• Assignment of “value” or importance to data is more difficult than to codified information.

• Incentives to persons or institutions are difficult to assign on the simple generation of data.

Profits-costs for research

• The cost for new retrieval of “hidden” information is growing.

• The use of available data in open databases would reduce significantly the costs and efforts of future studies. (gene databanks)

• This cannot be done with “codified” information.

Efforts towards a useful Data System

The more obvious ….• Financial or technical costs (software and

structure of data, exchangeability, etc) This problem can be approached by the technical agencies and could be funded from different sources.

• National and internationals funding sources should be coordinated.

Efforts towards a useful Data System

Organizational costs :

• many institutions base certain prevalence on the storage and publication of “their” data.

• Adopting a common database or exchangeability tends to eliminate this obstacle but will generate resistance.

Efforts towards a useful Data SystemNew incentives:

• Monitoring and input of data by technical personnel of Governmental agencies is part of their objectives and budget justification.

• Data collection from scientific work from academic or research organizations not related to these agencies need additional incentives.

New Iniciatives:“Academic value” of environmental data

• Scientific data are encoded in reports , articles or maps but the original data remain unavailable.

• The value of scientific contributions to databases is not fully recognized when compared to publications and not awarded the corresponding credit in the evaluation of research performance.

New Iniciatives:“Academic value” of environmental data

• Databases should comply with standards comparable to publications : traceable quotation and use of data , reviewed quality of data, relation to priority environmental programs among other variables

• Government Agencies should agree on these values with academic institutions responsible for research evaluation

Is necessary to build Recognition for Environmental Databases ,if possible explicit, by :

a) Decision Makers in environmental management

b) managers of other agencies directly or indirectly related to the monitoring of environment

(including ONG´s)

c) the evaluation system of Research or Academic institutions