Stakeholder Perceptions of Climate Change Impacts ...

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Stakeholder Perceptions of Climate Change Impacts at the Regional Scale: Implications for the Effectiveness of Regional and Local Responses Simon Shackley & Robert Deanwood Published online: 03 Aug 2010.

To cite this article: Simon Shackley & Robert Deanwood (2002) Stakeholder Perceptions of Climate Change Impacts at the Regional Scale: Implications for the Effectiveness of Regional and Local Responses, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 45:3, 381-402, DOI: 10.1080/09640560220133414 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09640560220133414

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Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 45(3) 381–402, 2002

Stakeholder Perceptions of Climate Change Impacts at the Regional Scale: Implications for the Effectiveness of Regional and Local Responses

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SIMON SHACKLEY* & ROBERT DEANWOOD† *Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, Manchester School of Management, UMIST, Manchester M60 1QD, UK. E-mail: [email protected] † School of Planning and Landscape, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK (now at Entec UK Ltd, Gables House, Kenilworth Road, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire CV32 6XJ, UK) (Received July 2001; revised November 2001)

ABSTRACT Interviews and three workshops with a wide range of stakeholders to explore their perceptions of climate change impacts and responses were conducted in two English regions (East Anglia and north-west England) as part of a UK government-funded research project on the integrated assessment of climate change impacts in the following domains: biodiversity, the coastal zone, agriculture and water resources. The Žndings suggest that whilst local and regional impacts are of considerable interest to regional stakeholders, their ability to respond through adapted policy and practice depends upon their existing frames of reference with respect to their understanding of the policy- and decision-making systems, and the operation of current institutional processes and response mechanisms. The authors use the empirical and conceptual Žndings to support the notion of the co-production of knowledge with institutional frameworks and processes.

Introduction The recent Third Assessment Review of climate change science conducted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has identiŽed research and policy insight at the subnational (regional) scale as an important and underexplored geographical and political arena for analysing the impacts of, and responses to, global climate change (IPCC, 2001b). The rationale for this argument (which is also articulated by the UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP) (McKenzie-Hedger et al., 2000)) is that many of the systems affected most by climate change are regional in scope and, furthermore, that there is a better prospect for mobilizing stakeholder interest and concern if climate change impacts can be demonstrated ‘on the ground’, in familiar locations, and upon landmarks and businesses, etc., than if impacts are analysed only at the national or international scales. A further rationale for more regional studies is the assumption that much of the policy response to climate change impacts can, and 0964-056 8 Print/1360-055 9 Online/02/030381-2 2 Ó 2002 University of Newcastle upon Tyne DOI: 10.1080/0964056022013341 4

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should, be formulated at the local and regional scales rather than at the national scale. Hence two key research questions emerge from the research agenda highlighted by the IPCC.

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· Do local and regional stakeholders’ perceptions of climate change impacts bear out the assumption that ‘on the ground’ effects will galvanize interest in and action on the issue in a way that impacts at other scales will not? · To what extent are the local and regional scales appropriate and useful for making decisions in response to climate change impacts relative to other scales (national and international)? Differentiating the local from the regional is problematic (Handley et al., 1998; Selman, 2000). ‘Regions’ in the English context are nascent socio-political constructs, born of historical and economic commonalities together with administrative expediency, although in the context of climate change their real value lies in acting as a bridge between national and local policy and decision making. Thus whilst we can identify distinct regional impacts and responses (such as through river catchment and coastal zone planning), the primary focus of many stakeholders is still likely to be on the local scale, until such time as stronger regional identities (reected in distinctive regional policies and institutions) emerge in the sustainable development context. The authors had, as a consequence, to recruit many stakeholders whose Žrst and foremost interest concerns local impacts and responses. For these reasons the authors do not attempt a strong delineation between local and regional impacts, perceptions and responses. The implicit assumption of the IPCC and UKCIP is that the experience of regional- and local-scale climate change impacts makes the issue become ‘real’ and ‘tangible’ for stakeholders in the way that a global-scale impact would not do. This can be related to a ‘realist’ view of environmental issues, according to which actual experiences can be perceived in an objective fashion by stakeholders if appropriate scientiŽc criteria of assessment are applied (Bhaskar, 1977; Dickens, 1997; Gandy, 1997; Drummond & Marsden, 1999). Thus, if a particular ood event can be ascribed to climatic change by (good enough) scientiŽc means, for example, then the problem becomes accessible to commonly held cognitive frameworks in a way that the aggregate potential risks of ood events at the global scale do not. At odds with this view is the social constructionist position that environmental problems are social constructs which reect institutional, political and social dynamics, tensions and changes (Wynne, 1994; Hannigan, 1995; Lash et al., 1995; Jasanoff & Wynne, 1998). As has been well rehearsed in the sociological literature, social constructionists view the scientiŽc knowledge of environmental issues as generally underdetermined by facts, and hence always supported by paradigmatic commitments, assumptions and values (Wynne, 1992). This paper reports on research conducted with local and regional stakeholders in four domains (biodiversity, the coastal zone, water resources and agriculture) in two contrasting regions of England (East Anglia and the North-west) (see Figure 1). The research was conducted on behalf of the UK government (former Ministry of Agriculture, Foods and Fisheries (MAFF), and former Department of the Environment, Transport and the Region) and UK Water Industry Research. The work was one component of an ‘integrated assessment’ of climate change impacts in the four domains (the REGIS project). As such it reects recognition

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Figure 1. North-west England and East Anglia: counties and main settlements. The Žgure illustrates the two regions. East Anglia is a largely lowland rural region, with several major cities (Cambridge, Peterborough, Norwich and Ipswich) and a total population of 2 million people (Government OfŽce for the East of England, 2000; Lorenzoni et al., 2000; UKCIP, 2001). The North-west has nearly 7 million inhabitants, most of whom live in the heavily urbanized southern part of the region, dominated by the two cities of Manchester and Liverpool. Northern Lancashire and Cumbria are largely rural with much upland (North West Regional Assembly, 2000).

by central government research organizations in the UK of the need for inclusion of a wider set of stakeholder perceptions, as well as a recognition of the growing importance of the regional scale (Healey, 1997; O’Riordan & Ward, 1997; Darier et al., 1999, Ja¨nicke & Jo¨rgens, 1999; Parker & Selman, 1999; Selman, 1999). The authors Žrst characterize stakeholder concerns across both regions with respect to the four domains. They then use the mid-level analytical concept of a ‘frame of reference’ to understand, interpret and compare stakeholder responses in each region, though a clear separation of the ‘local’ and ‘regional’ issues and perceptions was not possible. The implications for the development of a region-

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ally and locally focused climate change impact and adaptation strategy are then analysed. In the conclusions the authors explore whether a realist or a social constructionist understanding of climate change impacts and responses better explains the empirical material.

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Methodology Interviews with key stakeholders in the four domains of biodiversity, the coastal zone, water resources and agriculture were conducted in both regions. These interviews involved discussions with the major water companies, the Environment Agency regional ofŽces, English Nature, several of the county-wide wildlife trusts, government ofŽces for the region, several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) (such as the Council for the Protection of Rural England and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) and local authorities. Some of the interviews were conducted by telephone (c. 15) and many were face-to-face (c. 20). Three workshops were also conducted as part of the research: two in the North-west region (c. 60 participants) and one in East Anglia (c. 40 participants). The aim of the workshops was to engage the stakeholders in the design of the integrated assessment modelling, by providing priority questions and problems for the scientiŽc team to address in addition to identifying possible response mechanisms. The workshops therefore provided further raw material for analysing stakeholder perceptions and perspectives on response options, which the authors draw upon here. Some General Stakeholder Perceptions of Climate Change The reality of anthropogenic climate change was only seriously questioned by a small number of interviewees and workshop participants. This is quite surprising given the perceived greater uncertainty about the reality and possibility of anthropogenic climate change in other countries (such as the USA) and at other times. On the other hand, all the interviewees and workshop participants are either employed in, or have a professional interest in, environmental resource management. Climate change scientists are, therefore, more likely to be taken seriously by the sample than by a random sample of stakeholders. In addition, for the past decade, the climate change science community (nationally and internationally) has been presenting an increasingly consensual viewpoint on the reality of human-induced climate change. This has been communicated via professional bodies and well respected organizations (e.g. IPCC, 1990, 1996, 2001a,b; Climate Change Impacts Review Group, 1996; UKCIP, 1998; RCEP, 2000). There is evidence, therefore, that a consensus has emerged amongst a wide range of environmental and resource policy makers and stakeholders at local and regional levels that anthropogenic climate change has been demonstrated and will continue into the future and that there are potentially serious consequences to address (Shackley et al., 2001). The authors cannot be certain, however, that all stakeholders involved were aware of the sometimes subtle distinctions between anthropogenic climate change, natural climate change, climate variability, extreme weather events and so forth. Indeed, sharp scientiŽc distinctions between these categories are not possible since the terms refer to interconnected systems (Trenberth, 1992). The exibility which arises from the resulting mixture of interconnected climate change phenomena perhaps permits

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more adherents to the ‘anthropogenic climate change’ banner than is strictly warranted. Overall, the perceived impacts of climate change on the water resource domain of the two regions emerged as the most important of the four domains. Whilst important, the climate change impacts in the other three domains were not generally regarded as the primary drivers at the regional level. The need for the scientiŽc community to reduce uncertainty and to provide more complete information on the impacts of climate change for each of the four domains was mentioned by many participants. This was particularly marked in the water resource sector, where more reliable information on changes in extreme events to aid water resource planning (supply, demand and wastewater management) was sought. A basic lack of data and scientiŽc understanding was also mentioned with respect to the likely impacts upon biodiversity. The relationship between wetland habitats and rainfall patterns, for example, is not properly understood; hence it is difŽcult to gauge the impacts of changes in precipitation regimes. In discussions of biodiversity within the groups, a common question emerged, namely: ‘what should the end-point of nature conservation policy actually be’? This question was provoked by thinking through the potential impacts of climate change, but was not solely about climate change, i.e. it related to what conservation and biodiversity policy means in the context of dynamic socioeconomic, ecological and climatic systems. Such wider questions were difŽcult to address in a discussion of climate change impacts More generally, there was a clear demand from stakeholders for Žner-grained predictions of climatic change, focusing on the regional and ideally subregional level, extreme events and the particular effects on, for example, river ow regimes and individual crop production (see McKenzie-Hedger et al., 2000). There was also a reasonably strong demand for very speciŽc local information, e.g. the impacts of climate change upon particular nature reserves, rivers, coastal localities and so on. This request for detail is perhaps only to be expected from stakeholders, many of whom are operating (or have responsibility for implementation) at the local level. They wish to reduce to a minimum the uncertainty which deŽnes their decision-making context, with the scientiŽc community looked to for help in achieving this. There was also a wider plea for the ‘experts’ to provide consistent messages. This reects the perception of sometimes ambiguous and conicting sets of messages emerging from the scientiŽc, policy and NGO communities on the details of climate change. Many of the participants in the workshops believed that a wide gulf exists between the perception of the climate change issue by the general public and the messages being communicated by ‘experts’. The nine separate break-out groups from workshops in both regions were asked to identify up to Žve key climate change impacts in each domain. The results are presented in Table 1. The impacts of climate change upon water are regarded as being the most important, followed by biodiversity and (equal third and fourth) agriculture and coasts. Approximately 20 issues have been highlighted in each sector, which suggests an overlap of about 50% in priority issues between the nine break-out groups. Biodiversity emerges as the issue about which there is most consensus as to what issues are most important, especially regarding the importance of biodiversity action plans (BAPs) and priority species and habitats, and the need for strategic planning, for example to facilitate

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S. Shackley & R. Deanwood Table 1. Analysis of key issues identiŽed in the nine break-out groups

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Sector

No. of groups tackling sector (out of 9)

Issues

Coasts

7

· Education/research/information, holistic strategy · Coastal squeeze, managed retreat, shoreline management plans, costs, sedimentology/drift · Industry, tourism, culture, saline intrusion, isostatic rebound, natural dynamism, environmental economics, climate change not a key issue, storms/surges, select non-Broads area, biodiversity

Biodiversity

8

· · · ·

Agriculture

7

· Common Agricultural Policy reform · DiversiŽcation · Scenarios, managed retreat/saline intrusion, agricultural potential/ designation, soils and erosion · Macro/micro impacts, pests and diseases, soil carbon, water logging, droughts, interlinkages, environmentally sensitive areas (ESAs)/ nitrogen vulnerable zones (NVZs), global markets, landscape changes, education, rate of change, economic contribution of agriculture, time frames, land ownership

Water

9

· Extremes and their likelihood, supply–demand balance, abundance versus shortage of water (ooding/drought), role of consumer responses, supply exibility · Water quality, water is the big issue, socio-economic scenarios, demand management, run-off, erosion and siltation, security of supply · Housing/urban demand, water transfer, groundwater recharge, irrigation needs, drainage, radical policy change needed, biodiversity, planning blight, ooding, research, education/ consistent messages, European Union policy

Biodiversity action plans/priority species and habitats Strategic planning/allow for migration Information/research/baseline monitoring What to conserve and why? Public perceptions/culture/message to local level · Interactions, e.g. slurry, wetlands/water needs, values · Common species spread? Climate change just one issue … , scenarios, trees, separate human and non-human inuences, beneŽts, adaptation, do not just protect Sites of Special ScientiŽc Interest, precautionary principle

migration of species and habitats. Table 1 illuminates the very wide range of topics, drivers and pressures which confront the decision maker in each domain and reinforce the necessity to embed the topic of climate change into a context of multiple interacting systems and processes. It is interesting to note that a call for a holistic strategy was common, for example with regard to coastal zone protection, and a similar theme of ‘supply–demand’ balance for the water sector (reecting the popularity of ‘joined-up’ thinking within the groups). Public perceptions and values and the response of consumers and communities emerge as key issues for the way in which climate change will inuence biodiversity and water issues. For these broad groups of stakeholders, such procedural and social questions were frequently as important as more technical impact issues. For agriculture, reform of the Common Agricultural Policy emerges as the most highlighted issue, with the prospects for diversiŽcation of

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agriculture beneŽting from climate change the runner-up. For water resources, extreme events and their likelihood, the need for exibility of supply, water quality and the contradiction of an oversupply of water (during periods of ooding) with an undersupply (during droughts) all received three mentions, along with the issues of strategy and consumer reactions mentioned above. More issues were highlighted under the water theme than for the other areas, and there was greater diversity in what was regarded as most important.

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Incorporating Climate Change into a Systems Frame of Reference The perceived importance of climate change impacts to a stakeholder depended strongly upon whether, and how, climate change Žts into an existing systems frame of reference which is primarily concerned with short-term management of a resource or system. The systems frame of reference refers to the shared cognitive understanding of how a particular system operates: what causes it to exhibit a given state; what causes it to change over time; what drivers can cause rapid change; and so on. Knowledge of systems may be explicit scientiŽc knowledge (codiŽed knowledge), but for the systems discussed here, the knowledge is frequently also tacit (Polanyi, 1957), i.e. learnt through experience, not explicitly formulated. Thus we can expect that where climate change helps to explain or account for some past event or episode, i.e. where it promises to impose some explanatory order upon an otherwise more confusing, complex and uncertain set of events, then it will be much more likely to be adopted within the prevalent explanatory view of the system. Climate variability and change are drivers of system change which have frequently been ignored (or at least put into the background) by resource managers who have seen them as stable and too long-term in their effects to be relevant to everyday systems management; or inherently chaotic and hence not able to enhance systems management. When resource managers become persuaded that climate variability and change may have more immediate shortterm effects, then they have sometimes found the issue to be a useful additional system inuence to add to the list of other drivers. More speciŽcally, this is the case when inclusion of short-term climate variability helps to explain some pattern of events (with adverse effects). Hence, where a link can be established between longer-term climate change and more immediate changes, notably extreme weather events, then stakeholders tended to afford climate change a higher level of importance. Climate change therefore became really interesting to stakeholders when talking about the impacts of recent droughts, ooding, Žres, storms, intensive rainfall events and so on. The belief in anthropogenic climate change becomes coupled for the stakeholders with the experience of short-term variation, even though the scientiŽc case for such coupling is far from robust (IPCC, 2001a). As discussion turned from national impacts to the regional (and even more so) local impacts of climate change, so the importance of other drivers of change and pressures were more emphasized. Participants integrated climate change impacts into their existing set of knowledge, practices and contemporary programmatic concerns, rather than conceiving them as a separate issue, independent of other ongoing changes. Climate change was, however, identiŽed in a relatively small number of cases as a primary driver even at the local level, e.g. the impacts on wetland biodiversity at sites in East Anglia of reduced summer precipitation,

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or upon relic Arctic–Alpine species in the North-west uplands from higher temperatures, and impacts upon particular areas of the coastline in both regions from sea-level rise. For each domain, there are imminent pressures which are perceived as having a much larger immediate effect on environmental and resource management than climate change, such as natural coastal erosion and subsidence, coastal development, Common Agricultural Policy reform and agricultural intensiŽcation and its impacts on biodiversity, increasing demands for irrigation and household water and the discharge of pollutants into waterways. Finally, stakeholder discussion of impacts was rarely divorced from implicit or explicit consideration of response options. This reects stakeholders’ practical orientation, i.e. in which issues are considered in the framework of being able to do something in response. Incorporating Climate Change into a Process Frame of Reference Stakeholders in the sample were generally very well informed about policy processes, mechanisms and initiatives which were taking place at the local and regional levels in their own areas of interest, and with which the climate change issue could be integrated. Knowledge of how to tackle climate change impacts was more evident than knowledge of what the precise character of those impacts would be, reecting the action orientation of many of the stakeholders (as well as a basic lack of reasonably certain knowledge). Hence, the uptake of the climate change impact agenda depends upon how well the issue slots into a process frame of reference; that is, the existing sets of institutions and processes which are in place to manage resources, and associated programmes, policies and projects. The implication of accepting the importance of climate change, when the issue does not Žt readily into an existing process, would be that there is a aw or omission in the existing processes, which may be difŽcult to accept publicly for institutional reasons of legitimacy. Here we see that issue recognition is not simply an intellectual or cognitive process, but is also related to its ‘Žt’ with existing (and planned for) institutional processes. A good example of this ‘institutional Žt’ is the extent to which climate change could be integrated into existing processes for coastal zone management. Shoreline management plans (SMPs) have been developed with respect to particular lengths of the coastline in England and Wales. They have been co-ordinated by coastal engineers employed by local authorities and have involved public agencies (Environment Agency and English Nature), major coastal landowners and other relevant experts. This multi-agent stakeholder process has been operating for several years with the explicit intention of adopting a ‘holistic’ view of a particular geographically deŽned length of coastline (MacGuire, 1997; Turner et al., 1998). All the coastal stakeholders the authors consulted were either involved in the SMPs themselves, or were well informed of the SMPs and perceived them as the appropriate vehicle for developing a sound coastal zone management approach. Such stakeholders asked how climate change could be effectively integrated into the SMPs, rather than regarding the issue outside the SMP frame of reference. Indeed, many SMPs have considered climate change, though it was clear that this has not been done in a consistent way across different SMPs, and not all scientiŽc questions addressed, e.g. the potential change in frequency of extreme events due to climate change. Because this research took place towards the end of the SMP’s reporting cycle, it was not that

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easy for the stakeholders to reopen consideration of coastal zone management and climate change. Clearly, such a ‘window of opportunity’ will occur again in the future when the SMPs are revised. A further example of the need for effective institutional Žt relates to the construction of local and regional BAPs. This process, led by English Nature, has also involved multiple stakeholders and, as with the SMPs, the present research took place long after the process had got under way. Whilst the production of BAPs has been characterized by the establishment of local partnerships and integration of biodiversity interests into a wide range of policies and programmes, there are concerns over bureaucracy, lack of engagement of local people, businesses and local authorities and insufŽcient priority given to the consideration of common issues affecting all species and habitats, such as climate change (Knightbridge, 2000; Ledoux et al., 2000; Tilzey, 2000; Wynde & Everitt, 2000). Unlike the case of coastal zone management, which has incorporated central MAFF guidance on increasing sea-level wall heights due to climate change since 1994 (Climate Change Impacts Review Group, 1996), the biodiversity community has not established a formal response to climate change impacts. Hence, the BAPs have not explicitly evaluated the implications of climate change for local and regional biodiversity management, though most have made some acknowledgement of it. Once again, the ‘process’ window of opportunity for incorporating climate change into biodiversity policy will occur primarily through the BAPs, though there are also more immediate opportunities given the diversity and attention to the demands of the site with which individual nature reserves are currently managed. Fit with Existing Responses Frame of Reference The workshop participants were invited to consider potential response options to the identiŽed potential problems of climate change. In the case of three groups in East Anglia the authors undertook a preliminary multi-criteria evaluation exercise, whereby the break-out groups identiŽed response options and evaluation criteria and attempted to score options against criteria (Stewart, 1992; Stirling & Mayer, 1999). The current work is a very early step towards developing a better understanding and methodology for assessing response options (Shackley & Wood, 1999). The response issues explored can be broadly classiŽed into the following areas: · · · · ·

coastal zone impacts/managed retreat/loss of habitats: 4; ooding/extreme hydrological events/public health impacts: 4; agriculture: 2; education/communication: 2; water demand management: 1.

Four groups chose to look at coastal issues—especially managed retreat—whilst a further Žve groups considered water-related issues (extreme hydrological events and demand management). Two groups considered public education/ communication issues, even though the authors did not include this as a speciŽc ‘domain’, reecting the importance the non-specialist participants gave to such dimensions. Only one group looked explicitly at a biodiversity issue, and this was coastal zone-related (loss of terrestrial habitats just behind the coast). What explains this selection? The emphasis on water issues is expected given the prior

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identiŽcation in the workshops of the priority issues. Managed retreat at the coast is perhaps the most commonly known and controversial response option to climate change impacts, which probably accounts for its occurrence here. The relative lack of attention to agriculture may, in part, reect the ‘powerlessness’ that many local and regional stakeholders perceive over inuencing agricultural policy to accommodate climate change impacts. There is a sense that decisionmaking authority lies at a high and somewhat distant level in the European Union (and to a lesser extent national) machinery and the latitude for inuencing individual farmer and landowner action is not great. The perceived levels of ‘agency’ associated with (and hence interest in) different policy options reects the degree of local (and, to a lesser extent, regional) involvement and control. The stakeholders involved were generally conŽdent in identifying a range of policy responses (typically between three and eight) and the agencies likely to be responsible for their implementation. They also seemed reasonably conŽdent in the time scales required for action: for many response options, it was felt that action could be taken in the short term (over the next 10 years or so), reecting once again the sense that participants knew more about appropriate responses than they did about the precise nature of the impacts. The readiness to propose certain response options also reects the multi-causality of environmental problems: the need for protection of habitats, or better farm waste management, or water demand management, emerges from a range of environmental and social issues and policies. They are to some extent existing ‘solutions’ looking to add further ‘problems’ to help build up the case for actions and resources already decided upon as desirable. There was less clarity on the means by which policy options would be implemented, though there was an abundance of good ideas and suggestions. Some of the more interesting issues and questions that emerged were as follows. · To what extent can and should managed retreat be planned for in advance? (Do we know what the extent and effects of retreat would be?) · Consensus formation between policy actors should be an important part of the decision making on coastal zone management. · Valuation of intangibles or ‘externalities’ (such as amenity and biodiversity) is central to decision making on coastal habitats, but is complex and controversial. There were calls for more research and analysis in this area, e.g. on environmental economics. Scepticism about the usefulness of environmental economics was expressed by more than one group, however. · A technical and social engineering ethos emerged around water resource management issues. · Multi-criteria decision-making approaches were favoured by several of the groups, but note that these were generally informal/judgemental through stakeholder participation, rather than being formalized quantitative processes. The key thing was to achieve consensus. · Participants generally found it difŽcult to weight different assessment criteria in a multi-criteria framework. This is partly because of different meanings given to the same assessment criteria within the group. Hence, a mixed group of stakeholders could agree on the desirability of ‘sustainable water resource management’, as an objective, but they meant different things by that term. They were reluctant to create sharp distinctions within the group by articulat-

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ing their own individual deŽnitions. The aim of reaching consensus seemed to be more important for the break-out groups than the relative scoring of options against criteria by individuals. A multi-criteria approach is probably best attempted at an individual stakeholder level, at least initially (Stirling & Mayer, 1999). · Matching the assessment criteria against the response options was, however, possible in a qualitative fashion and could be useful in a policy-driven consensus-seeking exercise. · Much more time would be needed in stakeholder workshops in order to properly develop multi-criteria methodologies. However, prior to giving up their time to such an endeavour, stakeholders are likely to require some more explicit demonstration of use of the outcomes of such an exercise. It was found that the proposed policy responses being identiŽed were often not unique to climate change impacts: in other words, the same or similar response was being planned as a consequence of other environmental or socio-economic change. Responding to sea-level rise and storms, for example, involved undertaking similar measures as responding to the issue of improving or changing the level of coastal defences. The underlying reasons for such actions included: replenishment or replacement of (inadequate) existing coastal defences; and changing perceptions of what is an ‘adequate’ level of protection (e.g. a move towards managed retreat in certain areas). The point is that many of these changes would have been proposed without the looming threat of climate change. Likewise, it would be inaccurate to say that the move towards ‘softengineering’ and managed retreat is due to climate change, though the latter is often one of the important reasons behind change in the perceptions of the costs and beneŽts of coastal protection in non-urban areas. The implication of this observation is that we cannot regard climate change adaptation options as stand-alone, discrete responses. Problems which are already on the public or policy agenda are a useful ‘hook’ for considering the potential problems of climate change. We can refer to this as Žt with an existing responses frame of reference, the latter reecting the outcome of prior institutional decision-making processes. It refers to the actual decisions which have been taken as to policy, programmes and projects, as well as to decisions about processes for tackling an issue.

Analysis of Key Differences between Policy Domains, Regions and Stakeholders Between them, the three frames of reference provide the lens through which climate change is perceived and responded to by regional and local stakeholders. The ‘Žt’ with existing systems, process and responses frames of reference will determine to what extent climate change is recognized as ‘important’ and acted upon. Hence, climate change issues will frequently be accommodated into existing policy and political agendas, rather than generating a separate stream of policy informed predominantly by climate change science and research. Opportunities for improving ‘Žt’ will be explored by many stakeholders, especially if there are beneŽts in so doing for the present-day (and emerging) commitments to system views, processes and selected response options.

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Differences between the Policy Domains Complex and well established institutions underlie the decision-making context in each region and for each of the four issue domains. Water resource policy is regionally focused because of the collection of water across large geographical areas, but the absence of a national water grid means that water resource policy is highly dependent upon detailed local and regional knowledge of source catchments and wastewater systems, combined with national guidance. Coastal policy is locally to regionally oriented: a national approach would not make much sense given the speciŽcity of local situations (topographical, sedimentological, geological, historical, political, public perceptions and economic, etc.). Biodiversity policy is arguably becoming more regionally and locally oriented, with regional and local biodiversity action plans (LBAPs) being established alongside national BAPs, to reect species and habitats of regional/local importance and value. Agriculture is very different from the other three sectors in that the key deŽning policies are set at the European Union (EU) level, i.e. subsidy policy, and local or regional policies have limited scope for action. At the same time, the agricultural ‘decision maker’ is composed of thousands of individual farmers, each making a decision for multiple reasons. There is no mechanism for co-ordinating individual decision making, or for taking an overarching strategic view which can then provide the framework in which individuals make their decisions. This perhaps helps explain why agriculture was less discussed by our stakeholder sample than might have been expected. In the case of biodiversity management, some national-level experts regard climate change as challenging the entire basis of nature conservation policy. This is because the latter is geographically speciŽc, and climate change is seen as changing the spatial location of species and habitats. The implication is that biodiversity policy needs to be totally rethought, new policies put in place and new decision-making processes established. The other view has been presented by nature reserve managers, some of whom believe that there is much more ‘exibility’ in how such systems are managed than higher-level climate change specialists might imagine. Hence, reserve managers may be able to change the local micro-climate of sites through planting, shading, changing the water level through water table management and so forth. There are, in other words, ‘levers’ which can be employed to compensate for climate change impacts at the local level which are unknown to national-level experts (because some of the knowledge of their existence and effectiveness is non-codiŽed and tacit). The two biodiversity camps can agree, nonetheless, on the desirability of ‘habitat corridors’ at the regional to national scales and hence the biodiversity community can enrol climate change into its response frames of reference.

Differences between Regions The most striking difference between the workshop and interview discussions in the North-west and East Anglia is the extent to which climate change is already very much on the policy and political agenda in East Anglia. This is perhaps due to three factors. One is the extent to which coastal erosion is a signiŽcant natural process, with soft cliffs retreating at a rate of several metres a year in some locations. The rate of erosion is due to non-climate change processes, namely the soft geology (principally glacial till), sinking of the land

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due to isostatic rebound in the north of Britain, the highly dynamic nature of the East Anglian coastline and the well established tradition in the region of land reclamation, which has made land more vulnerable to sea-level rise and extreme events. The second factor is the droughts of the late 1980s and 1990s in East Anglia which had serious adverse effects upon wetland habitats in East Anglia and led to noticeable impacts on waterways, with unusually low ows or drying up, etc. It is not possible to attribute the droughts of the 1990s to anthropogenic climate change with any scientiŽc certainty (Environment Agency, 1998, 1999) yet many (non-specialist) stakeholders have made this connection (Norfolk Society, 1998), sometimes adopting a ‘precautionary’ approach in justiŽcation (i.e. arguing that in the face of uncertainty we should err on the side of caution in responding as if the drought is the type of extreme weather event associated with anthropogenic climate change). The drought has also entered into debates over new housing developments in East Anglia in the course of drawing up 15-year county structure plans. Examination in public of structure plans in East Anglia has already raised the issue of whether climate change means that there is insufŽcient water to support the level of new housing that the government has said is necessary and planned. To some developers, as well as to some experts, this could look like appropriation of climate change to other political causes (i.e. anti-development). Given the high degree of uncertainty surrounding climate change and its impacts, however, it is likely that the climate change issue will advance on the policy agenda (or get thwarted) through such combination with other issues, at least in the short term. The third reason for the uptake of the climate change issue is the presence of the University of East Anglia, which has been a pioneer in climate change research and has a strong role as a provider of environmental knowledge at the local to regional scale (e.g. O’Riordan & Ward, 1997; Turner et al., 1998; Lorenzoni et al., 2000). Very little was said about water supply-side issues in the North-west, in particular the possible need for new reservoirs, which were viewed negatively when mentioned. There was much more discussion around demand-side issues, in line with recent thinking and policy by government, the water companies and regulatory agencies. In East Anglia, by contrast, a very lively discussion of new water supply options took place. This ranged from major new reservoirs to on-farm reservoirs and small water holdings for household supplies. The high level of existing demand management in the region, and the small amount of leakage from pipelines (partly for topographical reasons compared to the Northwest), mean that the ‘low-hanging fruit’ have already been plucked, so forcing the agenda back on to supply issues. In addition, there is already a water transfer scheme operating from Norfolk to Essex (to the immediate south of East Anglia) and a proposal to build a new reservoir in Norfolk to increase the export potential has been extensively discussed. The controversial history of this proposal has put water resource management and transfers high on the agenda amongst East Anglian stakeholders. There is also a vigorous ongoing debate in East Anglia concerning the intensiŽcation of agriculture and its impacts on biodiversity and landscapes, a debate into which climate change enters as a possible additional ‘stress’. For these reasons, climate change issues in East Anglia are more Žrmly established on the policy agendas of agencies and NGOs such as the local authorities, the Environment Agency, English Nature, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the government ofŽce for the Eastern region, etc., than in the North-west.

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Cross-agency institutions at the East Anglian level are less developed than in the North-west, however. Hence there have been more policy assessments and responses to climate change by separate agencies in East Anglia, but a regional debate and institutional response is only just emerging, whereas in the Northwest the opposite is true. Stakeholders in East Anglia were highly conscious of their region as a site of major importance for biodiversity, nationally and internationally. There was a general feeling that the region should not only act to retain its distinctive biodiversity assets, but also actively restore biodiversity assets which have been lost because of agriculture, land-use change and (arguably) water abstraction. Stakeholders from the southern part of the Northwest region (Greater Manchester, Cheshire, southern Lancashire and Merseyside) appeared more concerned with urban and community-related concerns—especially water and urban coastal zone management—and with the question of how to improve upon the greatly altered and damaged landscape and depleted biodiversity. This has to be seen in the context of massive adverse environmental impacts in the southern North-west subregion from the industrial revolution up until the present day. The environmental ‘baselines’ in East Anglia and Cumbria are very different from those in the southern North-west: the emphasis in the former is on maintenance and conservation of a large existing biodiversity and landscape asset, and climate change is perceived more as a threat. In the latter, a more pragmatic stance of opportunistic restoration prevails and climate change is potentially an opportunity from which to mobilize interest and resources to promote improvements. For example, stakeholders in the post-industrial southern North-west region were generally positive about increasing tourism opportunities arising from climate change. Even here, though, threat perception is also highly visible and more evident than talk of opportunities: hence the difference being alluded to is relative. Differences between Stakeholders The authors’ research involved two quite distinct groups of local and regional climate change stakeholders. On the one hand, there are those stakeholders from local government, NGOs, local groups and other organizations which have a general interest in climate change as part of a wider ‘sustainable development’ portfolio. Such stakeholders are typically less technical, more concerned about engagement of the public, more concerned about interconnections between different elements of sustainable development agendas and so on. On the other hand, there are the representatives of agencies and companies operating at the regional or local level which have already been involved in integrating the impacts of climate change into their decision-making processes. Such agencies generally have a statutory responsibility for resource management, and hence a professional interest in incorporating climate change into decision-making frameworks and processes. The agencies that most demonstrated this role were the Environment Agency (on water resource and coastal issues), English Nature (on biodiversity) and local authorities (on coastal defence issues). The regional water companies also have a statutory requirement to produce technical analyses of water supply and demand in their area of operation, and have evaluated climate change impacts in collaboration with the Environment Agency. Some of the stakeholders were therefore already knowledgeable on the impacts of climate change for water resources, coastal protection and biodiversity at the

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regional and/or local level. The interests and demands of such technical experts are understandably quite different from those of the non-specialist stakeholders. In Table 2 the key differences between these two groups in terms of their decision-making heuristics are outlined. There are sometimes conicts between the expert and non-specialist stakeholder communities. A good example is water resource management in East Anglia, where the non-specialists have nearly universally taken a precautionary view that droughts in the 1990s imply a serious water shortage already, and that climate change can only make matters worse (e.g. Norfolk Society, 1998). The expert stakeholders in the Environment Agency (1997, 1998, 1999) and water companies have been consistently sceptical of this viewpoint. Technical analyses do not show to their satisfaction that the droughts of the 1990s are anything other than natural variation, nor that climate change will necessarily reduce the availability of water. (The reason is that some model studies suggest that the aquifer will beneŽt from enhanced recharge due to increased winter rainfall, and the net effect of climate change may be to improve the supply over demand balance relative to today (Climate Change Impacts Review Group, 1996).) Here, the expert’s scientiŽc framing of the issues is at odds with the non-specialist’s tendency to assume that there is a relationship between droughts in the 1990s and climate change (that which has already occurred and in the future).

Conclusions · Do local and regional stakeholders’ perceptions of climate change impacts bear out the assumption that ‘on the ground’ effects will galvanize interest in and action on the issue in a way that impacts at other levels will not? The question implies a realist model of environmental responsiveness, i.e. we ‘see’ things happening (or think certain things will happen) in our backyard, decide that we do not like the impacts of what we perceive and therefore take appropriate actions to try and stop the things happening or ameliorate their impacts. The authors certainly did Žnd that the local and, to a lesser extent, regional climate change impacts were of considerable interest to environmental and resource management stakeholders. There did indeed appear to be an accessibility to the climate change issue at the local to regional scales which is less apparent at higher spatial scales (see also McKenzie-Hedger et al., 2000). This may reect some change in the ‘ownership’ of the climate change issue, away from the global policy and scientiŽc community, to resource managers who can point to speciŽc systems that may be affected and whose expertise is required to integrate climate change with other system variables. The realist interpretation downplays the powerful shaping role of existing frames of reference. The authors have identiŽed three key frames of reference which shape the response to climate change impacts: these are ‘system’, ‘process’ and ‘response’ frames of reference. The extent to which climate change impacts can be made to integrate with such frames of reference will determine the level of responsiveness, not the geographical scale of the analysis per se. The differences between the four policy domains can be understood (in part) in terms of different patterns of institutional structure, process and response. The responses to climate change can more readily be incorporated at the regional scale where

Aims for quantitative decision making, but only if agreed to be credible; frequently difŽcult to achieve in practice. Expert judgement is widely used, informed by quantitative methods.

Clear allocation in some areas (e.g. water resources, coastal); in other areas less clear and/or more widely spread (e.g. biodiversity). Allocation of responsibility depends in part on structure of decision-making processes: more top-down or bottom-up.

For climate change to be properly assessed in decision making, it needs to Žt into existing patterns of responsibilities and decision-making processes (e.g. as part of regional and national water resource management plans, regional and local BAPs). Existing functions and regulation do not always include climate change; this makes inclusion of climate change in decision making—and allocation of resource to assessment—problematic. However, climate change also seen as a potential new area of responsibility, which could secure further resources and/or reinforce existing policies and programmes.

Reliance on quantiŽcation

Allocation of responsibilities

Functions

Professional, expert stakeholders (e.g. Environment Agency, water companies, English Nature, some NGOs, coastal engineers, etc).

Climate change commonly regarded as a threat to existing functions/decision-making processes, especially for natural resource management. Further assessment and amelioration of the threat required. Some more business-oriented stakeholders search for opportunities emerging from climate change.

Some concern about lack of more shared responsibility in some areas (e.g. water resources in one region). Local/regional initiatives favoured by many as they encourage greater ownership and participation.

Some expect decision making to be quantitative, but generally little inherent commitment to quantiŽcation.

Non-specialist stakeholders (e.g. some NGOs, many businesses and local authorities, regional government ofŽces, etc.).

Table 2. Regional stakeholders: perceptions of decision making and climate change impacts and adaptation

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Uncertainty of climate change seen as being compounded by uncertainty of other socio-economic changes which will change the degree of vulnerability to climate change impacts. Need for inclusion of such socio-economic changes in climate change assessment seen as paramount. UKCIP socio-economic scenarios seen as suitable approach by one group of professional stakeholders.

Generally high conŽdence in ability to effectively include climate change in decision making and to undertake necessary adaptations, provided appropriate responsibilities are allocated and resources made available. (Exceptions to this include biodiversity interests, where there is more circumscription about adaptive capacity).

Highly varied, depending upon sector or domain, statutory/regulatory functions, organizational structures and available resources. Climate change generally perceived as a useful way of extending thinking into the long term. Climate change can act as an ‘island of relative certainty’ in a very uncertain ocean.

Other socio-economic changes

ConŽdence in ability of decision-making process to incorporate climate change

Capacity for long-term decision making

Desire for more ‘consistent’ message on climate change from authoritative sources. Some difŽculty in accepting high levels of uncertainty surrounding climate change. Sometimes uncertainty may be used as reason for not changing decision making and putting onus onto science to reduce uncertainty.

High uncertainty deemed a problem for effective decisionmaking response. (An example is the difŽculty of using climate change scenarios in advice on water resource supply–demand balance calculations.) Statutory responsibilities may ‘resolve’ uncertainty through forcing some decision to be taken. Sometimes uncertainty may be used as reason for not changing decision making and putting the onus onto science to reduce uncertainty (e.g. over knowledge of changes in extremes).

Perceptions of uncertainty

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there is a nationally co-ordinated, but regionally to locally conceived and implemented, system of management such as occurs with coastal defence and water resources, than where there is a less co-ordinated system, such as occurs with biodiversity and agriculture. The empirical material presented here also supports the importance of experiential events to the uptake of climate change within existing frames of reference. Experiential events provide the ‘windows of opportunity’ by which climate change can be incorporated into (more or less) exible frames of reference (Rayner & Malone, 1998; Social Learning Group, 2001). Flood events mobilize political interest and spur policy organizations to take action, as witnessed in the aftermath of the 1998 and 2000 oods in England and Wales (Environment Agency, 2001). A sufŽcient build-up of extreme events is also capable of changing the frames of reference themselves. Change in planning guidance, discouraging development in oodplains, has been a concrete result of the increasing incidence of ooding and the associated costs in the UK since the mid-1990s, in turn reecting a change in understanding of catchment ood water management and the need for change in decision-making procedures (Pettifer, 2001). The extended drought of 1995–96 was likewise pivotal in changing government and regulatory policy towards the investment of water companies in leakage reduction, and demand management in general. Such experiential events do not have to be scientiŽcally authorized at 95% levels of certainty in order to function as catalysts for the uptake of climate change or to elicit change in frames of reference, as witnessed in the case of droughts and oods in East Anglia and (to a lesser extent) the North-west. If climate change adds explanatory value to a stakeholder’s understanding of a system and/or provides an ancillary beneŽt to an already sanctioned or desired policy trajectory, then it is a most useful ‘ally’ and will be enrolled into the appropriate frame of reference where and when a suitable ‘gap’ appears. The comparison of East Anglia with the North-west shows quite clearly just how important experienced events can be, the former region having experienced far worse and extended droughts in the 1990s. The dried-up habitats and waterways, and the eroded cliffs and sea defences, leave a very tangible climate change ‘footprint’ for East Anglian stakeholders which is much less evident in the North-west. An important limitation of such experienced events is contestation over their precise meaning. If scientists describe extreme weather events as ‘climate variability’, which is ‘natural’ and ‘random’, then the credibility of incorporating climate change into frames of reference is threatened. Such incorporation risks looking ‘unprofessional’, ‘pandering to fashion’ and ‘unscientiŽc’. This is where cracks emerge in both the realist interpretation and the participative, stakeholder process. Contestation between stakeholders on the meaning of ‘natural events’ can be difŽcult to manage at any scale, and there is a risk that divisions, rather than healing, simply become more pronounced through wider participation of stakeholders. New levels of policy making at the regional scale, which often engage a wider set of stakeholders, also have much less experience than established policy-making processes, of how to manage disagreement and division. The authors’ analysis leads them to embrace elements of social constructionism and realism, which is perhaps best termed a ‘constrained relativist’ stance (Thompson et al., 1990). ScientiŽc knowledge, whilst uncertain (and, ultimately,

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paradigmatic), can also, in the authors’ view, claim some epistemic authority where appropriate processes of peer and extended peer review (Funtowicz & Ravetz, 1993) have taken place. Because of uncertainty, however, it is frequently the case that the same body of scientiŽc knowledge can support more than one hypothesis and its associated research programmes (Wynne, 1994). Floods and droughts can be used as ‘evidence’ to support both the hypothesis that humans have already inuenced the global climate system, and the hypothesis that changes experienced so far are attributable to natural variation. It is the different social agendas of institutions and their concomitant frames of reference, in combination with the prevailing scientiŽc opinion as expressed through expert and professional bodies, which largely select which of the viable scientiŽc theories is adopted by different stakeholders (Jasanoff, 1990). Anthropogenic climate change is sufŽciently exible as a concept, particularly in drawing out its potential implications, that it is feasible to incorporate it into many existing system, process and response frameworks. The powerful scientiŽc consensus at the national scale surrounding climate change knowledge provides plentiful justiŽcation for enrolment of climate change by local and regional stakeholders. Conveniently, however, that same consensus does not necessitate any single form of inclusion, since there is still signiŽcant uncertainty surrounding climate change parameters at the regional and local scales. In this sense, climate change provides some rather good strategic and explanatory opportunities for regional stakeholders, though not without constraints. Hence, the authors do not argue that the droughts and oods are ‘just’ socially constructed, but rather that their precise meaning is constructed within deŽned parameters according to existing authoritative assemblages of scientiŽc knowledge and institutionally provided frames of reference. This is akin to the notion that scientiŽc knowledge is ‘co-produced’ in tandem with institutional forces (Jasanoff & Wynne, 1998). · To what extent are the local and regional scales appropriate and useful for making decisions in response to climate change impacts relative to other scales (national and international)? Local- and regional-scale responses are frequently appropriate, but are rarely divorced from other levels of decision making. In each of the four domains there are distinctive multi-level decision-making processes at work, which have emerged from historical processes of political negotiation and accommodation. MAFF (now the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) decides the broad parameters for coastal defence works at the local scale through control of much of the required funding; EU decision making provides the context for land-use decisions; English Nature exerts some commonality in biodiversity management issues at the national scale; and the Environment Agency and Ofwat (the regulatory authority for the water industry) exert a national-level guidance on how water resources should be assessed and managed. There are, however, some broad differences in the four domains vis-a`-vis the multi-layers of governance. Top-down and bottom-up approaches are combined effectively in coastal zone management, and the existence of a cohesive body of coastal engineers who span the higher and lower levels of decision making, as well as joint funding by central and local government, help to account for its success. Because the coastline is geographically continuous, integration between authorities is also desirable (from the local to the regional scale), so encouraging

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the emergence of common methods, procedures and practices. Of all the stakeholders consulted, coastal zone stakeholders are perhaps the most conŽdent of their ability to respond adequately to climate change, which reects this multi-layered and well embedded decision-making system. Agriculture combines a very top-down and distant decision-making process for subsidies with a very bottom-up and fragmented local decision making on land use: an example of fractured multi-layer governance. Biodiversity management is more bottom-up than top-down, because of the uniqueness of habitats and the disconnection between separate habitats. However, a professional cadre of biodiversity managers is perhaps beginning to forge new levels of communication between top-down and bottom-up decision-making processes using the BAP and LBAP frameworks. Water resource management is regional- to localscale because catchments allocated for water collection are geographically deŽned; hence the top-down role is in providing general methodologies and guidelines. Uncertainty on responding to climate change was greatest amongst the stakeholder sample in the agriculture and biodiversity domains, possibly reecting the relative lack of integration between top-down and bottom-up decision-making modes. Hence, an effective combination of bottom-up and top-down decision making appears to be more important than concentrating decision-making powers at any one scale. The identiŽcation of climate change impacts and responses is readily achieved at the local scale and, for some systems, the regional scale. Where regional-scale recognition occurs there are two contributory factors: (1) the existence of regional institutions and regulation for the management of environmental resources (e.g. for water resource and ood control); (2) the physical continuity of environmental systems beyond the local scale (coastline and river catchments, etc). Whilst such systems rarely extend to the regional scale (as deŽned administratively), the fact that they are beyond the local scale encourages a conceptual move to a higher-scale perspective. The growing importance of the regional scale in the UK is therefore an important opportunity for improving the connection between national and local climate change decision making, as well as for generating strategic insights which are unlikely to emerge at either higher or local scales. Acknowledgements The authors acknowledge funding from the UK government (MAFF and DETR) and UK Water Industry Research. Special thanks go to Diana Wilkins, other members of the steering committee, all other members of the REGIS project team and to the stakeholders who consented to be interviewed or who attended the workshops. They also thank the very helpful comments of an anonymous reviewer. Full results of the REGIS project can be found at www.ukcip.org.uk. References Bhaskar, R. (1977) A Realist Theory of Science (Brighton, Harvester Press). Climate Change Impacts Review Group (1996) Review of the Potential Effects of Climate Change in the United Kingdom (London, HMSO). Darier, E., Gough, C., de Marchi, B., Funtowicz, S., Grove-White, R., Kitchener, D., Guimaraes Pereira, A., Shackley, S. & Wynne, B. (1999) Between democracy and expertise? Citizens’

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