D5.1 - Description of a versatile benefit assessment approach and Arctic resilience societal indicators for the pan-AOSS

The purpose of Work Package 5 (WP5) in the Arctic PASSION project is to enable and demonstrate the valuation of selected information services provided by the creation of the pan-Arctic Observing System of Systems (pan-AOSS). The enablement includes the creation of conceptual designs for alternative valuation approaches fit for evaluating different types of information services engendering quite distinct types of benefits. The selected information services refer to Pilot Services (PSs) developed in Arctic PASSION, while it may also include service innovation ideas from observing system (OS) sensitivity experiments performed in WP3 and new services related to Shared Arctic Variable (SAV) proposals developed within Arctic PASSION. The conceptual designs developed in WP5 will be used to create a valuation tool, which is also meant to be a legacy product of the project. Finally, the demonstration of valuation of arctic information services and of the valuation outcomes will be conducted.

This report presents the first attempt to link societal benefits with PSs by the Value Tree Analysis. The strategy involved a first step where PSs developers were interviewed and took part in workshops to enable characterization of the PSs in terms of their inputs and outputs, expected user groups, and identified and conjectured benefits. The outcomes of the interviews and workshops were analyzed and used to create a first set of value tree components. The costs attribution to the OSs was based on previous studies on Arctic observation systems, while the weights of OSs components were assigned according to the share of the costs estimated for each PS. No weights were assigned to the links towards benefits, thus, they will be revised in the future.