Scientific Diversity, Scientific Uncertainty and Risk Mitigation Policy & Planning: Final Report

This is the Final Report of the ‘RMPP project’ (Scientific Diversity, Scientific Uncertainty and Risk Mitigation Policy and Planning project), which addressed the use and utility of science and other forms of knowledge by natural hazard practitioners, and the pragmatic meaning these hold for their risk mitigation work. Natural hazard managers often expect, and are expected, to achieve outcomes by using scientific facts and rational problem-solving to increase certainty of decisions in the face of hazardous events (Funtowitcz and Ravetz, 2003). At the same time, the uncertainties of natural hazards means that this sector has always set different terms to the this ‘pipeline’ approach to the use science (also called the ‘linear model of scientific expertise’). The ability of policymakers and practitioners to explain and justify risk mitigation and its evidence is compromised without greater insight into how science and other forms of knowledge are used in emergency management policy and practice. The sector does not receive the full range of information it requires, and continues to be vulnerable to the perpetuation of ‘myths’ about science, its use and its usefulness. Instead of relying on facts to generate better policy and practices, as invaluable as they are, we ask: what are ‘facts’, how do facts, values and action interrelate, and what are the implications of these insights to allow practitioners to make better decisions? Two literature reviews were conducted, the first examined the use of scenario methods for environmental risk, and the second identified the types of scientific uncertainties in flood and bushfire science. These uncertainties were then organised into three categories: historicist, reliance on historical data, due to assumed determining relationship between the past, the present and the future; instrumental, uncertainty arising out of limitations of a given apparatus, heuristic or theory, and interventionist, are those uncertainties in the predictive calculations about the effect of mitigation interventions (e.g. flood levy banks). Three case studies were conducted, each located in an important risk landscapes in which scientific knowledge was being used to change policy and/or practice and address a complex emergency management problem: Wildfire risk and prescribed burning, in the Barwon-Otway region, Victoria; Wildfire risk and an invasive fire-weed, in the Greater Darwin area, Northern Territory; and, Flood risk and mitigation planning in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley, New South Wales.