Learning to Work at the Intersection of Science, Policy and Politics: Instream Flow 2008

Published November 26th, 2008
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It's not easy to reach agreement on how to allocate scarce water supplies when drought conditions reduce available water quantities to levels below what the law guarantees to various users and what's needed to ensure ecological sustainability.

How much water should be set aside to ensure the long-term viability of the fish stocks? How much should be used to sustain agriculture? How much should be set aside to meet the everyday needs of city residents? How much is needed to preserve cultural values?

In San Antonio on October 7-9, 2008, 350 water specialists—including government scientists, university researchers, land developers, water suppliers, resource managers and environmentalists—attended the first-of-its-kind North American Instream Flow Conference. CBI founder, Larry Susskind and MIT doctoral student, Catherine Ashcraft, prepared a science-intensive role play simulation called Long River. This simulation put all the conference participants in the midst of a hypothetical water management situation, requiring them to confront not just differing interpretations of a package of scientific information but the underlying political conflict that water managers typically face. Many of the scientists were forced into the uncomfortable position of having to play the part of one of the advocacy groups that typically makes their real life difficult. Each group of 12 participants (two in each of six roles) was assisted by a mediator.

Of the 24 groups that played the game, 20 were able to reach agreement on a set of four issues related to instream flow, long-term economic development, environmental sustainability, enforcement and the needs of an indigenous community. Only 12 groups were able to reach six-way agreement. 8 out of these 12 were assisted by professional environmental mediators who volunteered to help with the game. (Anyone interested in playing the game or in using it to teach others about how to work at the intersection of science, policy and politics can download it, along with a teaching note, from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.)

The impact of the game was immediate. The conferees--many of whom were enormously skeptical at the outset that they had anything to learn from such a face-to-face encounter—quickly realized that merely repeating what they thought the science “told them” wasn't going to convince anyone to act against their own interests. They also realized how important it is to have a skilled mediator directing the conversation when there are many parties, many issues and a great deal of uncertainty involved. Finally, the participants were eager to talk about what they had learned about collaborative problem-solving, the importance of joint fact finding, and the need to probe carefully to get at the interests of others.

The rest of the conference was spent working on a set of action recommendations that the participants could take home to their organizations to advance the practice of adaptive environmental management. The conferees, with the help of CBI, were able to reach unanimous agreement on a nineteen page package of recommendations that can be viewed at the Instream Flow Council’s FLOW 2008 conference website.