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Climate change risk management: a Mental Modeling application

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Abstract

The potential impacts of climate change are varied and highly uncertain, and pose a significant challenge to agencies charged with managing environmental risks. This paper presents a comprehensive and structured Mental Modeling approach to elicit, organize and present relevant information from experts and stakeholders about the factors influencing environmental risk management in the face of climate change. We present and review an initiative undertaken by the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to characterize climate change challenges to USACE environmental risk management activities, and to identify gaps with respect to science, engineering, and organizational processes for addressing these challenges. By employing Mental Modeling, the research has characterized the influences of climate change on USACE environmental risk management, and aggregating recommendations from 28 experts. In addition, the study identifies the most important opportunities to improve organizational response to climate change, ranging from focused research and development of technical capabilities to broad paradigm shifts and systemic organizational improvements within the USACE environmental risk management programs. This study demonstrates that Mental Modeling is a useful tool for understanding complex problems, identifying gaps, and formulating strategies, and can be used by a multitude of organizations and agencies.

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Acknowledgments

Special thanks to workshop participants for their involvement in this effort. Permission was granted by the USACE Chief of Engineers to publish this material. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual authors and not those of the US Army or other sponsors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. US Army Research and Development Center, Environmental Laboratory, 3909 Halls Ferry Rd., Vicksburg, MS, 39180, USA

    Todd S. Bridges

  2. Decision Partners, LLC, 313 East Carson Street, Suite 200, Pittsburgh, PA, 15219, USA

    Daniel Kovacs, Gordon Butte & Sarah Thorne

  3. US Army Research and Development Center, Environmental Laboratory, 696 Virginia Rd., Concord, MA, 01742, USA

    Matthew D. Wood, Kelsie Baker & Igor Linkov

Authors
  1. Todd S. Bridges
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  2. Daniel Kovacs
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  3. Matthew D. Wood
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  4. Kelsie Baker
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  5. Gordon Butte
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  6. Sarah Thorne
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  7. Igor Linkov
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Igor Linkov.

Appendix: Participating organizations in climate change Expert Model Workshop

Appendix: Participating organizations in climate change Expert Model Workshop

  • Carnegie Mellon University (CMU).

  • Department of Defense (DoD)—Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Environment, Safety and Occupational Health.

  • Exponent Engineering and Scientific Consulting.

  • Grayman Consulting Engineer.

  • National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

  • The Nature Conservancy.

  • University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR).

  • University of Florida (UF).

  • University of Virginia (UVA).

  • US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE):

    • Alaska District (PAO).

    • Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC):

      • Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (ERDC-CERL).

      • Coastal Hydrology Laboratory (ERDC-CHL).

      • Environmental Laboratory (ERDC-EL).

    • Headquarters (HQ).

    • Institute for Water Resources (IWR).

    • Jacksonville District (SAJ).

    • Sacramento District (SPK).

  • US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS).

  • US Geological Survey (USGS).

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Bridges, T.S., Kovacs, D., Wood, M.D. et al. Climate change risk management: a Mental Modeling application. Environ Syst Decis 33, 376–390 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10669-013-9461-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10669-013-9461-6

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