Indicators Of Socio-Natural Change: Scientific Meaning And Contextual Interpretation

This paper addresses the disparity and conflict between scientific meaning and the contextualised interpretation of (predominately) empirical indicators. This disparity arises due to the difficulty that the scientific community experiences when attempting to communicate with the political and planning community whose perspective remainsoutsidethe scope of both the indicator and the tools used.We suggest that for empirical science to be communicated effectively to a policy oriented audience it must be transformed through both theoretical and virtual contexts. The significance of this approach is that at every stage communication becomes possible through a common negotiated reference point, or set of reference points. We highlight a mismatch between the science and the response, emphasising the value of an integrative approach to assessing environmental change and the need for accessible decision support tools in formulating responses to changes in the human-environmental balance.We propose a framework which directly addresses the perceptual, empirical, theoretical and virtual dimensions of indicators and through which the conflicts between the science and the interpretation of socio-natural change may be overcome.