The Role of Academia in Assessing an Environmental Disaster
Notice bibliographique
Résumé
The University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) is a small, research-intensive university with a main campus in Prince George. It has several smaller campuses (e.g., Quesnel) as well as two research forests (John Prince and Aleza Lake) and a research centre (Quesnel River Research Centre, QRRC; www2.unbc.ca/quesnel-river-research-centre) that focuses on aquatic sciences, mainly within the Quesnel watershed. The catastrophic breach of the tailings storage facility (TSF) of the Mount Polley Mine in 2014 occurred about twelve kilometres from the QRRC and affected large parts of the Quesnel watershed. Given this close proximity, and past experience in the watershed, researchers from UNBC, along with other institutions, were uniquely positioned to study the aquatic impacts of this event. To date, the UNBC-led research is probably the largest academic study on the spill. This research has provided important information on the impacts on the downstream, receiving aquatic environment. In addition to peer-reviewed journal publications, presentations to provincial and federal agencies, both in Canada and abroad, and presentations at national and international conferences, the research team has also disseminated the findings through other outlets such as community meetings, an annual research open house hosted by the QRRC, media interviews and documentary films. This research has been generally well-received as being trustworthy and independent. However, the research team has recognized that there are aspects that have not met the expectations of all local residents and other concerned individuals in the region. This includes the expectation of immediate response to individuals’ concerns and of the fast turn-around of results and reporting. In part, this stems from the training that academics ‒ both graduate students and professors ‒ receive and the venues in which they are accustomed to reporting their results. It also stems from the diverse range of perceptions of the event on the environment ‒ from “it’s not a big deal” and “it was just like a natural landslide” to “it’s an environmental catastrophe” and “I will never eat the fish” ‒ and the misperception that academics operate on the same timeline as consultants in regards to the timing and distribution of academic research findings. Here we describe aspects of the spill, including the initial impacts on the local environment, and summarize some of the main research findings based on the first ten years of study. We also provide a personal reflection on some of the problems encountered and provide some thoughts on what we have learned along the way, explaining how academics undertake research on disasters like Mount Polley. We start with a discussion of why environmental disasters associated with human activities, such as mining, need to be considered as different to natural ones, and how this can shape the nature of research.
Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.
Comment cette classification a été obtenuedéplier
Prédiction machine sur la base complète
Imitation des enseignantsNi prévalence calibrée, ni vérité terrain. Validation humaine à venir. Le volet Gemma est une étiquette directe du modèle pour chaque travail de la base, lue sur la notice réduite au titre. Le volet Codex est un classifieur appris des 10 348 étiquettes directes de Codex et calibré sur les taux pondérés de l'échantillon; les champs sans appui suffisant ne portent aucun appel Codex. Le mode candidate est l'union des deux volets; le consensus est leur intersection. Ces sorties portent le statut machine_predicted_unvalidated et ne sont pas des étiquettes humaines.
Scores du classifieur distillé par catégorie (deux têtes)
| Catégorie | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Métarecherche | 0,054 | 0,126 |
| Méta-épidémiologie (sens strict) | 0,001 | 0,001 |
| Méta-épidémiologie (sens large) | 0,001 | 0,000 |
| Bibliométrie | 0,009 | 0,008 |
| Études des sciences et des technologies | 0,017 | 0,016 |
| Communication savante | 0,029 | 0,010 |
| Science ouverte | 0,003 | 0,014 |
| Intégrité de la recherche | 0,004 | 0,005 |
| Charge utile insuffisante (le modèle a refusé de juger) | 0,010 | 0,002 |
Scores machine (provisoires)
Les deux têtes enseignantes du modèle étudiant, lues sur ce travail. Un score ordonne la base pour la relecture; il n'affirme jamais une catégorie, et le statut de validation accompagne chaque rangée tel quel.
Scores de référence d'un modèle non mature (critères de maturité non atteints, 7 itérations). Un score ordonne; il n'affirme jamais une catégorie.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · tel quel depuis la passe de notation : score_only signifie que le nombre peut ordonner les travaux, et qu'aucune étiquette de catégorie n'en découleClassification
machine, non validéePrédiction automatique; un appel candidat d’une seule source (Gemma direct ou Codex distillé), pas un consensus.
Le détail, modèle par modèle et score par score, se trouve en fin de page sous « Comment cette classification a été obtenue ».