California’s climate presents extreme challenges, from droughts, floods, wildfires, and mudslides. These issues are exacerbated by climate change and are particularly pronounced in the Delta due to human-induced landscape modifications. Managing these complex challenges in the Delta has been likened to a “wicked” problem – difficult but not impossible with the right knowledge and institutions.
Inspired by the National Research Council’s identification of grand challenges in environmental science, the Delta Science Program proposes to frame its next update of the Delta Science Plan around these significant tasks. By focusing on specific grand challenges, the program aims to foster transdisciplinary research to tackle the wicked problem of the Delta more effectively and support long-term goals.
The upcoming third iteration of the Delta Science Plan will emphasize collaboration and coordination around these grand challenges to accelerate scientific understanding and decision-making. The program seeks to make the 2025 plan update strategic and forward-thinking through a targeted approach, serving as a powerful call-to-action for coordinating Delta science efforts.
To identify the grand challenges to Delta science, the Delta Science Program conducted a literature review and synthesis of grand challenges for Delta science and identified 125 relevant candidate grand challenges that were ultimately distilled down into four:
- Grand Challenge #1 – Scientists and managers must anticipate a world in which environmental conditions and regulations may differ fundamentally from those faced today. As species become functionally extinct or shift their habitat to adapt, or water levels in upstream reservoirs make existing targets impossible to meet, scientists and managers must adapt science to shape regulations. Anticipate a world where norms are different from today.
- Grand Challenge #2 – Environmental change is outpacing the traditional pace of science. Approaches to managing this challenge can focus either on changing the pace of Delta science to allow for quicker decision-making or slowing the pace of environmental change by prolonging environmental tipping points and minimizing surprises. However, despite strategies to better align the pace of management-relevant science with that of environmental change, a high degree of uncertainty will likely remain the norm. Ensuring robust decision-making under uncertainty is synthesized and effectively communicated to decision-makers is an important aspect of managing this grand challenge.
- Grand Challenge #3 – Flows of scientific information remain decentralized and poorly connected to communities and decision-makers. In the Delta, information and collaboration among entities like agencies and groups are highly networked, forming a polycentric governance system. Information flows through this network but often indirectly, risking loss or alteration. Poor direct communication between scientists and decision-makers hampers adaptive governance and undermines public trust. The challenge of science coordination remains paramount, particularly concerning major topics that span agency or geographic mandates.
- Grand Challenge #4 – There is growing attention on including Tribes and marginalized communities in policy discussions because they play a key role in creating strong social-ecological systems. Additionally, involving diverse knowledge improves the long-term effectiveness of science. This challenge highlights the need to transform the Delta science and resource management community so that decision-making is informed by historically marginalized groups, with a focus on equity, diversity, and justice.
The essay concludes, “The Grand Challenges offer a set of goals for the Delta science community to work toward together. By design, the Grand Challenges are intended to be the starting point of a conversation amongst Delta scientists and decision-makers on improving flows of information and needs in both directions. Indeed, the resilience of our social-ecological system depends on all vested parties of the Delta working together to create strategies to address these challenges and prioritize tools that can advance progress.”
The Delta Science Program welcomes your input on the grand challenges. Comments may be submitted via this online survey, emailed to collaborativescience@deltacouncil.ca.gov, or mailed to the Delta Science Program, Collaborative Science and Peer Review Unit, 715 P Street, 15-300, Sacramento, CA 95814. Comments must be received by July 12, 2024, to be considered for the final Grand Challenges Essay.
