A properly functioning toolkit should assist its users in their efforts to
interact during problem formulation (conceptualization) and beyond. As
such, the toolkit would be designed around the following four questions, as
adapted from Westervelt (2001):
• Who is the target user? The target user will have different sets of
requirements for the toolkit, as discussed below.
• What is the user’s starting point? The user would approach the toolkit
with a set of goals (e.g., management and technical objectives) and proposed management actions.
• What does the user want to do? The user will want to better understand
the risks and tradeoffs associated with the proposed actions relative to
resource management goals. This understanding will be achieved through
the use of the analytical tools available in the toolkit.
• What are the user’s skills? Users (or their staffs) should be comfortable
with computers for doing word processing, performing geospatial analyses,
and creating reports and presentations. These users will range from generalists who understand the system as a whole, but are typically less informed
regarding its specifics, to specialists who understand the mathematics and
theories associated with system details (but perhaps not the overarching
issues for the system).
Given this variety of users, resource managers and decision makers may
want a general set of tools geared toward conceptualizing problems (e.g.,
the formulation of problem geographic, socioeconomic, and political
boundaries; decision variables; and alternatives), determining approaches
where modeling would prove useful, interpreting model outputs, and visualizing or presenting results. Modelers will want much more detailed and
specific information on available models or modules (including access to
the models and their modules, themselves), site-specific data, model parameters, boundary conditions, etc. Stakeholders may be interested in some
combination of these capabilities. For a toolkit to function properly, significant interaction must occur among resource managers, stakeholders, and
modelers to ensure that questions are formulated in terms that can be
directly addressed by modeling and assessment tools.
From the discussion above, four differing, but interwoven, functional
spheres must be supported by a toolkit: those for the problem formulation/conceptualization process (which involves all three of the user classes),
for the decision maker, for the stakeholder, and for the modeler/analyst. As
such, one could envision the following four overlapping toolkits as shown
Figure 12.1:
• Conceptual toolkit—Decision makers, stakeholders, and technical staff
must operate from a common ground. The function of the conceptual
toolkit is to facilitate finding that common ground. This toolkit should
include methods to develop a common language for describing specific
environmental questions and the means to analytically identify problem
12. Role of Computational Toolkits in Environmental Management
223
interact during problem formulation (conceptualization) and beyond. As
such, the toolkit would be designed around the following four questions, as
adapted from Westervelt (2001):
• Who is the target user? The target user will have different sets of
requirements for the toolkit, as discussed below.
• What is the user’s starting point? The user would approach the toolkit
with a set of goals (e.g., management and technical objectives) and proposed management actions.
• What does the user want to do? The user will want to better understand
the risks and tradeoffs associated with the proposed actions relative to
resource management goals. This understanding will be achieved through
the use of the analytical tools available in the toolkit.
• What are the user’s skills? Users (or their staffs) should be comfortable
with computers for doing word processing, performing geospatial analyses,
and creating reports and presentations. These users will range from generalists who understand the system as a whole, but are typically less informed
regarding its specifics, to specialists who understand the mathematics and
theories associated with system details (but perhaps not the overarching
issues for the system).
Given this variety of users, resource managers and decision makers may
want a general set of tools geared toward conceptualizing problems (e.g.,
the formulation of problem geographic, socioeconomic, and political
boundaries; decision variables; and alternatives), determining approaches
where modeling would prove useful, interpreting model outputs, and visualizing or presenting results. Modelers will want much more detailed and
specific information on available models or modules (including access to
the models and their modules, themselves), site-specific data, model parameters, boundary conditions, etc. Stakeholders may be interested in some
combination of these capabilities. For a toolkit to function properly, significant interaction must occur among resource managers, stakeholders, and
modelers to ensure that questions are formulated in terms that can be
directly addressed by modeling and assessment tools.
From the discussion above, four differing, but interwoven, functional
spheres must be supported by a toolkit: those for the problem formulation/conceptualization process (which involves all three of the user classes),
for the decision maker, for the stakeholder, and for the modeler/analyst. As
such, one could envision the following four overlapping toolkits as shown
Figure 12.1:
• Conceptual toolkit—Decision makers, stakeholders, and technical staff
must operate from a common ground. The function of the conceptual
toolkit is to facilitate finding that common ground. This toolkit should
include methods to develop a common language for describing specific
environmental questions and the means to analytically identify problem
12. Role of Computational Toolkits in Environmental Management
223