Abstract
This paper reports on the development and application of a method
for establishing environmental priorities. The paper begins by reviewing
two common methods for identifying environmental priorities: state of
environment reporting (SER) and comparative risk analysis (CRA). The
review shows that SER does not provide clear priority ranking and CRA,
while providing clearer priority rankings than SER, is very costly to
undertake. An alternative method is developed based on an environmental
expert survey. This alternative technique, which is termed the expert
survey method (ESM), is applied to a case study region (British
Columbia, Canada) to illustrate its strengths and weaknesses. The
principal advantage of ESM is that it produces comparable results to the
more sophisticated CRA at a much lower cost and with greater
flexibility. Limitations of ESM are that the results are not necessarily
representative because they are based on sampling an elite segment of
society and they do not incorporate the benefits of inte ractive
learning. These limitations can be overcome by complementing ESM with
more inclusive approaches such as collaborative planning and using
subsequent steps in the process such as workshops to achieve interactive
learning. If these limitations are addressed, ESM can be a highly
effective tool for identifying environmental priorities. The paper also
provides a detailed summary of the ESM findings for the case study
region. These results from the case study provide a framework for the
development of an environmental agenda in a Canadian context.
Cet article porte sur la creation et l'application d'une
methode d'etablissement des priorites environnementales. Il examine
d'abord deux methodes habituelles: les rapports sur l'etat de
l'environnement (REE) et l'analyse comparative des risques
(ACR). Ce bref examen demontre que les REE ne fournissent pas une
hierarchisation claire des problematiques, tandis que I'ACR (qui
fournit une priorite de rang plus claire) est tres couteuse. Une
solution de rechange est proposee, creee partir d'un sondage
d'experts de l'environnement (SEE). Cette methode est
appliquee a une etude de cas regionale (la Colombie-Britannique, au
Canada), afin d'en illustrer les forces et faiblesses. Le principal
avantage du SEE est qu'il produit des resultats comparables a
I'ACR, a un bien moindre cout, et qu'il offre plus de
souplesse. En revanche, ses resultats ne sont pas necessairement
representatifs car ils sont bases sur un echantillonnage d'un
segment de l'elite de la societe et qu'ils n'integrent
aucun des benefices associes a l' apprentissage interactif. Ces
limites peuvent etre depassees en integrant aux SEE des approches plus
inclusives, comme la planification collaborative et l'apport
d'etapes subsequentes dans le processus (des ateliers, par
exemple), afin d'integrer l'apprentissage interactif. Si de
telles solutions sont apportees, les SEE pourraient etre des outils tres
efficaces dans l'identification des priorites environnementales.
Cet article presente aussi un resume detaille des resultats du SEE sur
les priorites environnementales dans l'etude de cas regionale, afin
de contribuer au developpement de la question environnementale dans un
contexte canadien.
Key Words
Environmental planning, environmental priorities, expert survey
methods, environmental risk assessment, state of environment reporting
Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to report on the development of a
method to identify environmental priorities and report findings from its
application to a case study in British Columbia. Development of the
method was in response to a request from the British Columbia government
to establish provincial environmental priorities at minimal cost within
a six-month period.
The paper begins by reviewing two of the most commonly used methods
for setting environmental priorities in North America: state of
environment reports (SER) and comparative risk analysis (CRA). The
review is followed by an outline of the Expert Survey Method (ESM), an
alternative based on a survey of environmental experts. ESM is designed
to identify environmental priorities, assess environmental policy and
generate an environmental mitigation plan. The method was applied to a
case study of expert respondents in the Province of British Columbia.
Results are reported here to illustrate strengths and weaknesses of this
method in comparison to CRA and SER and to identify environmental
management priorities in a Canadian context.
Priority Setting in Environmental Management
Priority setting is recognised as an essential step in the
environmental management process by a wide range of experts including
government agencies (Minard, 1996; USEPA, 1987, 1990), independent
research institutes (Carnegie, 1993; Davies, 1996; Finkel and Golding,
1994) and professional management associations (National Academy of
Public Administration, 1995). The reason for this is that empirical
research shows that setting clear priorities can increase the
effectiveness of environmental management by ensuring that resources are
allocated to the best use (Breyer, 1993) Public opinion research also
shows strong support for systematic environmental priority setting
(Graham and Hammitt, 1996).
One approach for identifying priorities is state of environment
reporting (SER). Recent Canadian examples include both international
reports (NACEC, 2002) and national reports (Canada, 1996). Some
provinces have instituted SER as part of ongoing management process
(e.g. BC-MELP, 1998, 2000). These reports provide a comprehensive
assessment of the state of environment by using a set of environmental
indicators such as air pollution levels and number of species at risk to
gauge the health of key environmental components. The assessment of
trends is intended to assist environmental managers in setting
priorities. However, the utility of SER for setting priorities is
limited because the absence of comparable indicators precludes explicit
ranking of problems.
A more explicit method for setting priorities is comparative risk
assessment (CRA). This technique was developed by the United States
Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) in 1987 to establish
environmental management priorities for the United States government.
The technique has since been applied in more than 36 regions in the
United States (Minard, 1996).
The first step in CRA is to identify the environmental hazards to
be assessed. A review of evidence on the relationship between the hazard
and human health follows. Exposures are then estimated and health
impacts are forecast for each hazard. Finally risks are ranked according
to overall health impacts. In most studies, human health and ecological
rankings are provided in separate categories because human health risks,
measured by deaths, and ecological risks, measured by damage to the
system, are difficult to compare.
CRA has a number of deficiencies (Finkel and Golding, 1994;
Commoner, 1994; McCloskey, 1994; Hornstein, 1992; Davies, 1996). One
problem is that CRA is resource intensive (Anderson, 1996): costs are
high and completion time is extensive, involving on average three years
by large teams of experts. Second, CRA does not give clear results
despite its comprehensiveness because indicators used for human hazards
and ecological hazards are not comparable. Even where the same
indicators are used, such as human death rates, results are not clear
because of the high degree of uncertainty over impacts (National
Research Council, 1994).
A third, criticism is that CRA excludes many variables considered
important by the public (Krimsky and Golding, 1992) -- results of CRA
often differ widely from the public ranking of risk (Minard, 1996). This
has led some critics to conclude that CRA is inimical to democratic
principles because it substitutes scientific judgement for public values
under the guise of objective research (Hornstein, 1992). It is alleged
that in some instances this reliance on scientific proof can repress the
precautionary principle and defer mitigative measures until negative
impacts are verified (McCloskey, 1994). Given these problems, the public
and key decision-makers are often uncomfortable with CRA results.
Consequently, CRA findings have not had a significant impact on resource
allocation (Minard, 1996).
In sum, the two most commonly used techniques for selling
environmental priorities have serious deficiencies. SER does not provide
clear rankings. Although CRA provides clearer rankings than SER, they
are still ambiguous and the costs are high. These factors, as well as
the limited impact on policy have led some critics to question the
utility of CRA. At the same time, critics acknowledge the importance of
utilising scientific judgements in the priority setting process. The
challenge is to find a method to set priorities that utilises scientific
knowledge and is easier and less costly to apply. The purpose of this
paper is to report on the development and application of an alternative
method that meets these objectives.
Environmental Survey Method (ESM)
An alternative to a costly CRA or SER is to undertake an expert
based survey to help establish environmental priorities. A small
advisory group of environmental experts was formed to assist the
research team in the design of the method, which is outlined in Figure
1. The method and results are outlined in detail in Gunton and Ponsford
(2000).
The first step in ESM is for the research team to complete a review
of relevant literature regarding environmental issues, the state of
knowledge on these issues, and to identify key environmental
researchers.
The second step is to categorise environmental issues for the
study, based on the literature review and discussions with the advisory
group. In the case study reported here, nine categories were chosen.
Summary descriptions (Table 1) were used by interviewees to ensure
consistency in definition of the problem area being considered and are
not intended to be a definitive definition of the problem. Also, it is
important to note that while it is useful to break environmental issues
into categories for analysis, they should also be considered from a
holistic perspective because they are inherently interdependent.
Accordingly, the questionnaire should be designed to review these issues
from a holistic integrated perspective as well as from individual
perspectives.
The third step is to design a questionnaire for the interviews and
pretest the questionnaire with the advisory group. The questionnaire
should be based on both open-ended questions that allow for unstructured
responses with minimum bias and structured questions that allow for
easier quantitative comparison of interviewees' responses. The
open-ended and structured questions should also overlap subject areas to
allow for cross checking of responses and identification of
inconsistencies. The survey developed in this case study dissects
environmental issues into six principle components to provide better in
depth specificity in the responses. The components include:
* Significance of Problem
* Impediments to Solution
* Environmental Impacts
* Problem Solutions
* Quality of Monitoring Data
* Causes of Problems
The questionnaire, which is provided in the appendix, is divided
into four parts. Part I includes open ended questions identifying the
most serious environmental problems, principal causes of these problems
arid steps to mitigate these problems. Part II includes open-ended
questions of the linkages and synergy in environmental research. Parts
III and IV of the survey provide an in-depth review based on each of the
nine environmental issues identified in the study. Structured questions
were asked on the relative seriousness of environmental problems, the
state of knowledge of environmental impacts, the state of environmental
monitoring and principal causes and solutions for each of the nine
environmental issues.
The fourth step is to identify the environmental experts to be
interviewed. The experts in this case study were divided into two groups
-- generalist or comprehensive experts, who possess a broad knowledge
across large number of environmental areas, and specialist experts, who
possess in-depth knowledge of a limited number of environmental issues.
A panel of between five and nine specialist experts was identified for
each of the nine environmental issues listed above. Comprehensive
experts were included to provide a broader perspective that cuts across
narrower specialised areas while specialist experts were included to
provide in-depth analysis of individual areas. Both the generalist and
specialist responses provide important and potentially different
insights. The tracking of any differences between generalist and
specialists allowed for the identification of any systematic
differences.
Both comprehensive and specialist experts were asked to complete
the open-ended questions in Part I and II, as well as the rating
questions in Part III. In Part IV, comprehensive experts were asked to
answer the questions for as many of the nine environmental issues as
they felt they had appropriate expertise and knowledge. Most
comprehensive experts answered questions for an average of four to six
issues. Specialist experts were asked to answer questions in Part IV for
only the specific environmental issue panel(s) to which they were
assigned.
In choosing the experts it is important to ensure diversity in
representation from relevant disciplines and institutions. Based on the
literature review and discussion with the advisory group about 111
experts were asked to participate in the case study. Of these, 83
completed the questionnaire, resulting in a participation rate of 75
percent. Figure 2 illustrates that the participating experts represent a
diverse disciplinary background ensuring a broad range of expert views.
In most cases, the expert panels for each of the nine individual issues
included representation from government, academia, non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) and the private sector. It is also important to
note that the experts interviewed are all from British Columbia and that
the responses therefore focus on British Columbia's environmental
perspectives.
The fifth step is to conduct the interviews. In the case study,
questionnaires were sent out to potential respondents electronically.
Returned responses were reviewed by the researchers and follow-up
interviews were conducted in person or on the telephone to allow for
elaboration or clarification of responses. Interview times averaged
sixty minutes. The setting up of follow-up interviews also increased the
response rate.
The final step is to review and assess the results with the
advisory group for comment prior to publishing the findings.
Results from the ESM Case Study
Prioritizing Environmental Problems
Respondents were asked to rank the relative severity of
environmental problems in three ways: unprompted open-ended questions,
prompted numerical ratings of current severity and prompted numerical
ratings of future severity.
In the open-ended questions respondents could identify as many
environmental problems as they wished. Results (Figure 3) show that
seven environmental issues dominate: climate change, loss of habitat and
biodiversity, water pollution, degradation of fish and marine
ecosystems, air pollution (primarily particulate matter in air that
causes human health problems), mismanagement of forests and toxic
pollution. The top three issues of climate change, loss of biodiversity
and water quality received an equal number of mentions. It is important
to note that many respondents consider the environmental problems
identified in Figure 3 to be interdependent and symptoms of more
deep-rooted problems such as growth, which are the underlying drivers of
environmental decline.
In the next open-ended question, respondents were asked why they
think these problems are so serious. They cited four key criteria that
they used to rank the seriousness of problems: direct impact on human
health and quality of life (28 mentions), impact on ecosystem health (24
mentions), impact on the economy (15 mentions), and reversibility of
impact (13 mentions). The results illustrate that human health and
ecosystem health received significantly higher weighting than impacts on
the economy and reversibility.
Prompted questions asked respondents to rank the seriousness of
nine environmental problems in British Columbia both currently and 10 to
15 years from now (Part 1, Question 8). Fisheries issues were cited as
the most serious problem both now and 10 to 15 years from now and ozone
the least serious problem (Figure 4). However, it is important to note
that although there is a difference in the rankings for the nine
problems, they all receive a ranking over 5, which indicates that they
are all serious problems. It is interesting to note that respondents
from NGOs rated all nine environmental problems as more severe than
other respondents' ratings.
In addition to rating the severity of environmental problems,
respondents were asked to assess the current state of understanding of
impacts for the nine environmental issues. Understanding impacts is
important for assessing reliability of the overall severity ranking: the
better the understanding of impacts, the more reliable the severity
ranking.
Results show that, for most problems, understanding of impacts is
considered to be moderate to good (Figure 5). There are three exceptions
where the knowledge of impacts receives a rating below 5: biodiversity,
toxics and climate change. In the case of climate change, respondents
concluded that while understanding of macroclimate changes is relatively
good, understanding of regional climate change trends and their impacts
on ecosystems is poor. Understanding the impact of biodiversity loss in
regional ecosystems is also rated as poor due to inadequate
understanding of ecosystem dynamics. In follow up interviews,
respondents explained their confidence in ranking climate change and
biodiversity problems as severe, despite the poor understanding of
impacts, because the magnitude of known impacts was severe. Documenting
additional impacts would not greatly affect the already high severity
rating based on known impacts.
The low severity ranking of toxics is perhaps more problematic.
Follow up interviews provided a logical explanation. Respondents
concluded that, for most toxics, understanding of impacts is good.
However, due to the large number of toxics in use some impacts are not
well understood, especially given the complex movement of toxics through
ecosystems and the difficulty in identifying cause/effect relationships.
Nonetheless, respondents concluded that the positive experience of
managing toxics when impacts were identified justified the low severity
rating.
Environmental Trends
Respondents were asked on a scale from 1 to 10 to predict changes
in environmental quality over the next 10 to 15 years with 1
representing significant deterioration, 5 representing no change and 10
representing significant improvement. The results show that a large
majority of respondents (78 percent) expect overall environmental
quality to deteriorate while 13 percent expect it to improve. The
average ranking was 3.45, which suggests a modest as opposed to
precipitous decline.
Respondents predicted that environmental quality would deteriorate
in all nine categories, with greatest deterioration occurring in climate
change, biodiversity, and water (Figure 6). Interestingly, the expert
panels for each of the nine environmental issues are more optimistic
regarding future trends than the generalist respondents. Expert
respondents anticipate improvements in air quality, forest management
and fisheries. In follow-up interviews, respondents explained the
difference between expert and generalist ratings by noting that experts
had more knowledge of mitigation strategies. This suggests expert
ratings on trend areas are more reliable than the generalist ratings.
The most common explanation for the anticipated decline in
environmental quality cited by respondents is that growth will outweigh
improvements in environmental management. Ineffective policy
implementation and inexorable trends such as climate change that can not
be easily reversed were also commonly cited explanations. The small
minority of respondents that anticipate improvement in environmental
quality concluded that this will occur because of improvements in
environmental policy and increased public awareness of environmental
issues.
Causes of Environmental Problems
The research team grouped responses identifying causes of
environmental problems into thematic areas. Four themes emerged as the
most significant: underlying public values (23 mentions), excessive
resource consumption (22 mentions), population growth (21 mentions) and
inadequate environmental planning (20 mentions). Underlying public
values includes materialism, poor understanding of environmental
problems and poor understanding of environmental impacts. Many experts
commented that human behaviour is based on the wrong paradigm, assuming
growth is good and that the environment can be "managed" to
meet excessive human demands. The per capita rate of consumption as well
as population growth were cited as interdependent causes
Inadequate planning incorporates a number of concerns including
failure to include multiple objectives such as conservation in planning
goals, weak implementation and enforcement of existing policies,
inadequate legislative framework for planning and inadequate resources
for planning and management. Respondents also referenced the need to
strengthen institutional capacity for integrated planning. Land-use
planning was the most frequently mentioned area where improvements could
be made.
Respondents rated understanding of causes of environmental problems
for each of the nine categories as moderate to high (Figure 7). The
source of particulates in air, the role of non-point sources of toxics
and the relative significance of threats to fish population such as
overfishing, habitat destruction and general water pollution are areas
where understanding was weakest.
Solutions to Environmental Problems
Respondents identified an array of measures to improve
environmental quality (Figure 8). Using financial instruments to
encourage environmentally friendly behaviour was the most frequently
cited measure. Examples include increasing taxes on environmentally
destructive behaviour such as driving single occupancy cars, and
reducing taxes on environmentally friendly behaviour such as purchasing
low polluting cars or using public transit. This is closely followed by
calls for stronger environmental regulations.
Respondents also recommended improving environmental education so
that the public understands better both the seriousness of environmental
problems and the consequences of consumer choices. A related
recommendation is the need for comprehensive environmental reporting and
monitoring. Clear, desired outcomes need to be set for each
environmental issue and ongoing auditing and public reporting done to
assess results.
Additional recommendations include integration of environmental
objectives into decision-making, improved forest management, more
research, more resources for environmental agencies, control of sprawl,
and improved public transit. In the case of climate change, respondents
emphasised the need for a two pronged strategy of reducing greenhouse
gas emissions and developing strategies to adapt to changes caused by
greenhouse gas emissions.
Respondents rated understanding of solutions and efforts to solve
environmental problems (9 and 10). The difference between knowledge of
solutions in Figure 9 and mitigation efforts in Figure 10 to can be
calculated to show the "action gap" (Figure 11). The existence
of an action gap for all nine environmental issues shows that
considerable progress can be made in solving environmental problems by
more effective implementation of known solutions. Therefore, research on
implementation strategies should be a high priority.
Environmental Research Priorities
The top three research priorities identified by respondents involve
generic research relevant to all environmental issues (Table 2). The
first priority is research on designing a comprehensive environmental
monitoring system that is based on key sustainability indicators,
provides early warning, assesses progress towards environmental
objectives, is user friendly and easy to understand. For illustration,
some experts cited the utility of emulating the environmental equivalent
of economic indicators such as unemployment and economic growth data,
which are reported on a regular basis, are easy to understand and
provide a timely assessment of the state of the economy. The second
priority is research on how to achieve better integration of
environmental objectives into decision-making. Specific research
proposals include development of full-cost accounting, risk management
techniques based on the precautionary principle and identification of
"best practices" in other jurisdictions. The third research
priority is how to implement environmental policy more effectively. This
priority is based on the observation that known solutions to
environmental problems are not being implemented because of stakeholder
and government resistance.
The remaining priorities that were identified relate to research on
specific environmental issues. Most of these research priorities relate
to better monitoring and policy implementation, instead of more basic
scientific research on ecological system dynamics.
Linkages and Synergy in Environmental Research
Respondents commented that opportunities for interchange among
environmental experts needed to be improved to expedite the development
and diffusion of environmental knowledge. Existing opportunities
received a relatively low ranking of 4.8 on a 10 point scale.
Respondents also rated adequacy of environmental information available
to the public a relatively low 4.0. Respondents in the NGO and academic
categories gave significantly lower ratings of 2.9 and 3.6 respectively.
Government respondents gave a rating of 4.6. This suggests that the
providers of information in the government sector have a much better
impression of the availability of environmental information than those
in the NGO sector who actually use the information.
The most commonly cited impediment to effective communication
within the environmental community is government institutional and
organisational barriers. Such barriers include poor integration of
scientific knowledge and policy, lack of a co-ordinating body for
research, declining scientific capacity of government, and inadequate
professional development for government scientists. Lack of time for
interaction and lack of interdisciplinary interchange caused by the
segmenting of researchers' conferences and publications by
discipline were also cited as major problems.
The most common recommendation for improving communication among
respondents is to hold more conferences focused on environmental issues.
Some respondents suggested that an independent body such as a roundtable
hold annual environmental conferences to review major research findings
and provide impartial information to the public. The second most common
suggestion is to improve government institutional culture by investing
in good data management and supporting professional training and
participation in professional activities by increasing funding for
travel, professional conferences and courses. A further suggestion is to
require interdisciplinary research as a condition for research funding
approval.
Evaluating the Environmental Survey Method (ESM)
As the forgoing summary of the survey results illustrates, ESM can
provide a comprehensive assessment of environmental priorities,
mitigation strategies and research needs. But how does ESM compare to
the two other common methods of SER and CRA for setting environmental
priorities?
One criterion for evaluating alternative methods is cost. The
development of ESM, including survey design and identification of
experts, required about 16 person-weeks. The cost of completing the
survey is a function of the survey size. The survey completed for B.C.
required 12 person-weeks to complete the survey and write up the results
for 83 respondents. Each additional expert added to the survey requires
about 4 incremental hours, including the time required by the expert to
complete the survey. This time can increase per expert if follow-up
in-person interviews are done. This cost and time required to complete
the expert based survey is about 1 percent of the cost and time to
complete CRA studies, which take about 3 years and involve teams of over
60 experts working full time. The cost of ESM is also substantially less
than completing an SER.
A second evaluation criterion is flexibility. The application of
ESM to British Columbia illustrates its flexibility. Environmental
issues can be tailored to the jurisdiction being studied and open-ended
questions ensure that all relevant issues are incorporated in the
findings. ESM can address other issues such as assessment of existing
environmental policy, evaluation of mitigation options and research
priorities. CRA and SER are less flexible. CRA is restricted to ranking
environmental risks and SER compiles indicators on environmental health.
Neither is designed to assess existing policy or evaluate policy
options.
A third evaluation criterion is clarity of results. As discussed
earlier, SER does not provide clear results for ranking environmental
priorities. CRA is designed to provide clear results by ranking
environmental risks on the basis of objective criteria. As the critics
point out, CRA ranking does not provide clear results because the
criteria for human impacts and ecological impacts are not comparable. A
second problem is that CRA ranking excludes important factors in
determining environmental priorities such as quality of life,
reversibility of effects, feasibility of mitigation and public
preference.
ESM provides clearer results than SER and CRA because it provides a
single ranking for each issue based on a common scale. Respondents use
multiple criteria that may include human health, quality of life,
ecology, economics and reversibility to determine an overall ranking.
ESM also ranks environmental risks separately from environmental action
priorities, thereby ensuring that other important factors such as
effectiveness and feasibility are taken into account along with risk in
establishing an environmental action plan.
A fourth important evaluation criterion is accuracy. It is
difficult to assess accuracy of alternative methods because there is no
"right answer" that can be used to assess results. However, it
is useful to compare results of different methods with each other to
identify differences.
The two major SERs completed for British Columbia did not rank
environmental problems on the basis of an index ranking similar to the
one used in the ESM (Hodge and Prescott-Allan, 1997; BC -MELP, 2000).
Nonetheless, they did identify the major environmental problems as
biodiversity loss, fisheries loss, global warming, air pollution
(particulate matter) and water pollution. They also concluded that toxic
pollution and ozone emissions are environmental challenges that are
being managed with some success. The results of these two studies are
therefore similar to the ESM findings.
Results from two of the most comprehensive CRA studies completed by
the USEPA (1987, 1990) and the California Environmental Protection
Agency (CEPA, 1994) are very similar to the ESM results for B.C. (Table
3). The only major difference is that the US studies identify indoor air
pollutants as a major environmental problem while the B.C. ESM does not.
This difference is likely due to the fact that the ESM did not
explicitly address risks to humans in the survey. Other differences such
as the specific mention of fish in the ESM study and the lower ranking
of toxics and waste sites likely reflect differences in the environment
in the respective jurisdictions.
The results of the B.C. ESM can also be compared to public opinion.
As discussed earlier in this paper, the difference between public
priorities as reflected in opinion polling and priorities identified in
CRA studies was a major concern in assessing the validity of CRA.
Although the ESM could not be directly tested in a public poll, a recent
poll of the British Columbia public on environmental issues allows for a
limited comparison (Viewpoints, 1998). The top environmental issues
ranked by the public in order of significance were water pollution, air
pollution, global warming, wildlife protection (including fish) and
quality of life. These were ranked by the public on a scale from 1 to
10, with the ranking for the top issues cited above ranging from 7.4 to
8.4. Although the order of ranking of these issues by the ESM and public
opinion varies, the list of the issues and the numerical ratings are
very similar. ESM rankings were between 7.0 and 8.1 for the same set of
issues in the public opinion poll based on the expected seriousness 10
to 15 years from now and between 5.3 and 7.3 for current seriousness.
The public poll also rated how well these problems were being addressed
on a 10 point scale. The results ranged from 4.5 to 6.4, which is a
higher score than 2.2 to 4.8 recorded in the ESM results. The experts in
the ESM are less impressed with mitigation efforts than the public.
A final consideration in testing the accuracy of the ESM results is
to identify any internal contradictions between open-ended and
structured question results, and between respondents. As discussed
earlier, the only systematic difference in responses was that specialist
experts are more optimistic about future trends in their environmental
speciality areas than generalist experts and NGO respondents are more
pessimistic about environmental conditions. No contradiction in
responses between open-ended and prompted questions existed and the
standard deviation of responses was not high.
In sum, ESM compares favourably to SER and CRA methods. ESM is less
costly, more flexible, and provides clearer rankings on a wider range of
issues than SER and CRA. ESM meets standard tests of accuracy: results
are similar to the more rigorous CRA studies and there are no internal
contradictions in responses. This is not to suggest that ESM is
necessarily a replacement for other methods. SER and CRA studies provide
important findings helpful for experts and the public to develop
informed judgements. But ESM is a useful complement to these more
traditional approaches.
While ESM has advantages over SER and CRA methods, it is important
to acknowledge that it has limitations. First, ESM reflects views of
only a small segment of society and therefore suffers from the same
criticism that is made of CRA: it is undemocratic. Also because it
surveys only a subset of experts, it is not necessarily representative
of the expert opinion that is seeks to record. Consequently, ESM can
exclude important considerations. In the case study, for example, issues
of equity were not mentioned even though they receive prominent
attention in other environmental studies such as in the landmark study
by the World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) and the
CRA study for Vermont (VANR, 1991).
This limitation can be mitigated by ensuring that there is a
diversity in experts surveyed and that ESM is complemented by other
techniques such as collaborative planning, which involve a broader array
of stakeholders in the environmental management process. Principles for
more inclusive approaches such as collaborative planning to complement
ESM are well outlined in Cormick et al. (1996).
A second limitation is that ESM is a single step survey that is
inferior to more dynamic group processes, such as workshops, in terms of
the quality and quantity of ideas produced (de Loe, 1995). The reason
for this is that single step surveys exclude the learning process that
occurs with more interactive processes. This limitation can be overcome
by using the initial ESM survey as the first step to be followed by
interactive step processes such as a Delphi structured follow up survey
and/or workshops. De Loe (1995) provides a good overview of these
options for follow up processes.
Conclusion
Clear environmental priorities must be established to guide
environmental management. The two most common methods to identify
priorities have serious limitations. SERs provide useful inventories of
environmental conditions but do not prioritize issues in a way useful
for allocating scarce management resources and CRAs provide clearer
priorities but are costly to complete and omit important variables.
The purpose of this paper was to report on the development arid
application of an alternative method for identifying priorities through
an expert based survey. The results show that ESM provides clearer
results than SER and provides equivalent results to CRA at a lower cost
and with greater flexibility.
The limitations of ESM are that it is not representative because it
is based on a survey of a small segment of society and it is a single
step survey that does not benefit from interactive group learning. These
limitations can be overcome by ensuring that ESM is complemented by more
collaborative approaches to set priorities and by including second steps
such as workshops or Delphi methods to ensure interactive leaming. If
these limitations are addressed, ESM can be an effective tool for
identifying environmental priorities.
The results of the ESM case study for British Columbia also provide
important insights into the current state of environmental issues in
Canada. First, environmental problems are expected to get worse as
negative impacts of continued growth outweigh positive impacts of
improved environmental policy. Second, current knowledge of solutions
far exceeds the rate at which solutions are being implemented. A key
priority therefore is a more concerted implementation effort to reduce
this action gap. Third, there are three key research priorities: state
of environment monitoring, integration of environmental objectives into
decision-making and policy implementation. Fourth, linkages and synergy
in the environmental research community are weak and need to be improved
by more interdisciplinary research. Fifth, an independent authority
needs to be created to provide objective information of environmental
trends.
The research findings summarized in this paper need to be qualified
by the fact that they are based on opinions of an elite group of
environmental experts in one province, British Columbia. These
priorities do not reflect the opinions of a broader public derived
through a larger consultative process. Nonetheless, these insights into
environmental issues provided by a diverse group of over 80 leading
environmental experts provide a good basis for commencing a dialogue on
an environmental agenda for the first decades of the 21st-century.
Appendix
Expert Survey Questionnaire
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Please describe the following aspects of your work. The information
provided will be used to compile a summary description of the
environmental experts interviewed in this study. This summary will be
included in the final report.
Name:
Institutional affiliation(s) and position(s) currently held:
Brief description of current research interests and specialty
areas:
Please list your advanced education degrees by discipline:
How would you define your current discipline? (please chose one)
Biologist
Ecologist
Economist
Engineer
Forester
Geographer
Lawyer
Medical doctor
Planner
Political Scientist
Other...
* Please ensure that your contact information (phone number,
mailing address, etc.) are included with your return email.
PART I Overall Environmental Problems
The following questions are designed to be open-ended, allowing you
maximum flexibility in your responses. The words "serious" and
"environmental problem" are not explicitly defined, nor are
criteria suggested with which to answer these questions. Instead, we
rely on your overall knowledge and experience to answer these questions
using definitions and criteria as you think most appropriate. Please
answer these questions as an independent expert in the environmental
field, not necessarily as a representative of your organization.
1. Considering both current and future implications, what are the
most serious environmental problems in BC?
2. Why do you think these problems are so serious?
3. What would you identify as the most significant underlying
causes of environmental problems in BC?
4. What are the most significant steps the BC government could take
to address environmental problems?
5. What is the single most significant step the BC government could
take to address environmental problems?
6. What should be the environmental research priorities in BC? (The
word research includes the full range of research activities, from pure
to applied research, in all topic areas, including law, policy, science,
etc.)
7. What should be the top environmental research priority in BC?
8. On a scale of 1 to 10, how do you think BC's environmental
quality is likely to change over the next 10 to 15 years?
Where:
1: significant deterioration
5: no change
10: significant improvement
9. Please provide the rationale for your answer to question 8.
PART II Communication
1. On a scale from 1 to 10, how adequate are the current
opportunities for environmental experts in British Columbia to exchange
information with each other?
Where:
1: not at all adequate
10: very adequate
2. What are the key barriers to communication between environmental
experts in British Columbia?
3. How could the communication between experts be improved in
British Columbia?
4. On a scale from 1 to 10, how adequately is environment
information circulated or made available to the public?
5. What are the key barriers to adequately circulating or making
environmental information available to the public?
6. How could this communication between experts and the public be
improved in British Columbia?
PART III Seriousness of Specific Environmental Problems
Based on your general knowledge