Translational Science for Climate Services:Mapping and Understanding Users'Climate Service Needs in CSSP China

• Published in: 气象学报（英文版） Vol. 35; no. 1; pp. 64 - 76
• Main Authors: Sarah OPITZ-STAPLETON, Roger STREET, Qian YE, Jiarui HAN, Chris D. HEWITT
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Overseas Development Institute,London SE1 8NJ,UK%Environmental Change Institute,University of Oxford,Oxford OX1 3QY,UK%Academy of Disaster Reduction and Emergency Management,Beijing Normal University,Beijing 100875,China%China Meteorological Administration,Beijing 100081,China%Met Office,Exeter EX1 3PB,UK 2021; University of Southern Queensland,Toowoomba QLD 4350,Australia
• Subjects: usefulness; climate services; diverse decision contexts; credibility; information users; information providers
• ISSN: 2095-6037

The Climate Science for Service Partnership China(CSSP China)is a joint program between China and the United Kingdom to build the basis for climate services to support the weather and climate resilient economic development and welfare in China.Work Package 5(WP5)provides the translational science on identification of:different users and providers,and their mandates;factors contributing to communication gaps and capacities between various users and providers;and mechanisms to work through such issues to develop and/or evolve a range of climate services.Key findings to emerge include that users from different sectors have varying capacities,requirements,and needs for information in their decision contexts,with a current strong preference for weather information.Separating climate and weather services when engaging users is often not constructive.Furthermore,there is a need to move to a service delivery model that is more user-driven and science informed;having sound climate science is not enough to develop services that are credible,salient,reliable,or timely for diverse user groups.Greater investment in building the capa-city of the research community supporting and providing climate services to conduct translational sciences and deve-lop regular user engagement processes is much needed.Such a move would help support the China Meteorological Administration's(CMA)ongoing efforts to improve climate services.It would also assist in potentially linking a broader group of"super"users who currently act as providers and purveyors of climate services because they find the existing offerings are not relevant to their needs or cannot access CMA's services.