The authors, along with Helen Ingram and Mark Houck, a water engineer at George Mason University, developed three case studies of water resource managers’ awareness of and possible use of probabilistic forecasts1 in the Pacific Northwest (PNW), the Los Angeles Basin, and the Potomac River Basin with funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (Lach et al. 2003, 2005, 2006; Rayner et al. 2005). These three case studies represented the ecosystems familiar to at least one of the social scientists, although we worked on all three cases together. While we were working on the project, there was a popular commercial claiming that the advertised SUV could overcome any weather conditions—snow, rain, sleet, wind—and, therefore, any “forecasts are for wimps.” This slogan struck us as particularly apt when we started talking with water resource managers who had been dealing with extreme weather—floods, droughts, storms— for decades. They had built water infrastructure and systems—dams/ dikes, storage, distribution—to withstand wide swings in temperature and precipitation, ensuring that water resources could be delivered regardless of the forecast or actual weather. While all the authors are knowledgeable about water resources, Dr. Ingram brought a wealth of knowledge about the political and institutional arrangements necessary for delivering water resources to a wide variety of constituents. Her understanding and experience helped make the original research insightful and provocative in challenging how new forms of information can be integrated into existing decision routines.

中文翻译：

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预测仍然适用于懦夫吗？

作者与乔治梅森大学的水利工程师 Helen Ingram 和 Mark Houck 一起开发了三个案例研究，研究了太平洋西北地区 (PNW)、洛杉矶盆地和在美国国家海洋和大气管理局 (NOAA) 的资助下，波托马克河流域 (Lach et al. 2003, 2005, 2006; Rayner et al. 2005)。这三个案例研究代表了至少一位社会科学家熟悉的生态系统，尽管我们一起研究了所有三个案例。在我们进行该项目的过程中，有一个流行的商业广告声称广告中的 SUV 可以克服任何天气条件——雪、雨、雨夹雪、风——因此，任何“预测都是针对懦夫的。”当我们开始与几十年来一直在应对极端天气——洪水、干旱、风暴——的水资源管理人员交谈时，这个口号让我们感到特别贴切。他们建造了水基础设施和系统——水坝/堤坝、储存、分配——以承受温度和降水的大幅波动，确保无论预报或实际天气如何都能输送水资源。虽然所有作者都了解水资源，但英格拉姆博士带来了关于将水资源输送给各种选民所需的政治和制度安排的丰富知识。她的理解和经验有助于使原始研究在挑战如何将新形式的信息集成到现有决策程序方面具有洞察力和启发性。