Facilitating professional normative judgement through science-policy interfaces:  the case of anthropogenic land subsidence in the Netherlands

Dries Hegger; Peter Driessen; Esther Stouthamer; Heleen Mees

doi:10.1080/1460728x.2023.2235184

Facilitating professional normative judgement through science-policy interfaces: the case of anthropogenic land subsidence in the Netherlands

Dries Hegger^*
, Peter Driessen
, Esther Stouthamer
, Heleen Mees

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Science-policy interactions can both facilitate and hamper professional normative judgement, i.e. a value judgement about the desirability of a certain situation. Anthropogenic land subsidence, contributing to relative sea-level rise in the economically important Western peatland areas in the Netherlands is a case in point. The implementation of mitigation, adaptation and compensation measures is lagging, partly due to science-policy interaction problems potentially leading to conflicts between stakeholders, including agrarians, climate scientists and inhabitants. We find that professional normative judgement is enhanced when researchers and societal stakeholders reflect more critically on their role and engage in more inclusive science-policy interactions.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	144-162
Number of pages	19
Journal	Legal Ethics
Volume	26
Issue number	1
Early online date	13 Jul 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/1460728x.2023.2235184
Publication status	Published - 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Funding

Elaine Mak is thanked for constructive comments on the manuscript. The research presented in this paper is part of the project Living on soft soils: subsidence and society (grantnummer: NWA.1160.18.259). This project is funded by the Dutch Science Foundation (NWO-NWA-ORC), Utrecht University, Wageningen University, Delft University of Technology, Ministry of Infrastructure & Water Management, Ministry of the Interior & Kingdom Relations, Deltares, Wageningen Environmental Research, TNO-Geological Survey of The Netherlands, STOWA, Water Authority: Hoogheemraadschap de Stichtse Rijnlanden, Water Authority: Drents Overijsselse Delta, Province of Utrecht, Province of Zuid-Holland, Municipality of Gouda, Platform Soft Soil, Sweco, Tauw BV, NAM. This work was supported by Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek: [grant no NWA.1160.18.259].

Funders	Funder number
Drents Overijsselse Delta
Ministry of Infrastructure & Water Management, Ministry of the Interior & Kingdom Relations
NWO-NWA-ORC
Technische Universiteit Delft
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek	NWA.1160.18.259

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 13 Climate Action
SDG 15 Life on Land

Keywords

Normative judgement
post-normal science
science-policy interfaces
sustainable land use
the Netherlands
wicked problems

Access to Document

10.1080/1460728x.2023.2235184Licence: CC BY

Facilitating professional normative judgement through science-policy interfaces the case of anthropogenic land subsidence in the NetherlandsFinal published version, 1.73 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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