As resource managers, policy makers, and citizens grapple with the effects of climate change, the demand for more usable or “actionable” science has increased. One promising approach to developing scientific information that can be easily and readily applied to management and policy decisions is to have scientists and decision makers work together to produce information. This approach, often referred to as the “co-production of knowledge”, integrates the background, experience, and know-how of each group to develop the scientific information that will be most useful to society.
This project will test an approach to knowledge co-production by introducing a trained social scientist to a co-produced drought-related research project. The objective of the social scientist will be to improve engagement with viticulturalists (wine grape growers) in order to spur discussion on how regional climate and weather events have affected different stages of their crops’ development. The scientist will be engaging with viticulturalists from the Southwest, a region where drought conditions are expected to become more severe. The goal of this project is to provide scientists and decision makers with tools to help them make their research more applicable and usable for addressing critical resource management questions in the face of a changing climate.
