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Uncertainties in perspective
... Plural rationalities postulate four distinct social and cultural forms (worldviews) that explain much of the wide variety of ways that people experience, interpret, and respond to risk. In addition to allowing us to link our analytics to a previously conducted stakeholder process, plural rationalities also proves useful in this study because it highlights the often persistent and unavoidable disagreement on the framing of many problems involving risk, has been used to address wicked problems by identifying clumsy solutions that contain elements of different worldviews Verweij et al., 2006), and has been used to represent multiple worldviews in previous modeling studies ( van Asselt & Rotmans, 1997. While there exists debate over the extent to which plural rationalities is the best framework for organizing differing perspectives on risk (Cherry, Kallbekken, & Kroll, 2017;Douglas & Wildavsky, 1983;Renn, 2008;Stern, Dietz, Abel, Guagnano, & Kalof, 1999), we expect that this study's analytic tools should be adaptable to a wide range of worldview taxonomies. ...
Many of today's most pressing policy challenges are usefully characterized as wicked problems. With contested framings parties to a decision disagree not only on potential solutions, but on the nature of the problem they are trying to solve. The quantitative tools of risk and policy analysis, commonly designed to develop and compare choices within a single decision framing, are poorly designed to bring quantitative information into debates with contested framings. This study aims to build on recent advances in decision making under deep uncertainty (DMDU) to demonstrate methods and tools that may help resolve the tension between quantitative decision support and multiworldview approaches for addressing wicked problems. The study employs robust decision making (RDM), one common DMDU method, and a new version of the lake model, a simple and widely used model of a coupled human and natural system, to conduct a stylized analysis that reflects three different worldviews. The RDM analysis solves the decision challenge independently for each worldview and then compares each set of solutions from the vantage of the other worldviews. The resulting utopia–dystopia matrix informs problem reframing that seeks robust, adaptive strategies independently consistent with each worldview and thus provides a locus for agreement. The study describes how stakeholder engagements might use such analytic tools and their information products to provide overlapping but alternative entry points for groups with fundamentally different worldviews to engage with each other in deliberative processes appropriate for wicked problems.
This book discusses how citizens can participate more effectively in sustainability science and environmental policy debates. It discusses designs for participatory procedures, and experiences of their application to issues of global change. While the focus is on citizen participation, the involvement of specific stakeholders - including water managers and venture capitalists - is also addressed. The book describes how focus group methods were combined with the interactive use of computer models into new forms of participation, tested with six hundred citizens. The results are discussed in relation to other important topics, including greenhouse gas and water management. By combining this with an examination of issues of interactive governance and developing country participation, the book provides state-of-the-art, practical insights for students, researchers and policy makers alike.
The uncertainties surrounding climate change are creating challenges for policy makers with regard to investments in water-related infrastructure. A promising new approach is the adaptation pathways approach. This article contributes to this approach by introducing an institutional and socio-cultural perspective. It presents an analytical framework to evaluate the necessary institutional and socio-cultural conditions, uncovering challenges with regard to the governance of adaptation and of keeping options open for the future. The framework has been applied to the case study of fresh water supply in the Netherlands. Based on an institutional and socio-cultural analysis, the feasibility, flexibility and governance of adaptation strategies are discussed. Reflecting on the presented framework, critical issues are addressed with regard to the further development of the adaptation pathways approach.
There is increasing interest in long-term plans that can adapt to changing situations under conditions of deep uncertainty. We argue that a sustainable plan should not only achieve economic, environmental, and social objectives, but should be robust and able to be adapted over time to (unforeseen) future conditions. Large numbers of papers dealing with robustness and adaptive plans have begun to appear, but the literature is fragmented. The papers appear in disparate journals, and deal with a wide variety of policy domains. This paper (1) describes and compares a family of related conceptual approaches to designing a sustainable plan, and (2) describes several computational tools supporting these approaches. The conceptual approaches all have their roots in an approach to long-term planning called Assumption-Based Planning. Guiding principles for the design of a sustainable adaptive plan are: explore a wide variety of relevant uncertainties, connect short-term targets to long-term goals over time, commit to short-term actions while keeping options open, and continuously monitor the world and take actions if necessary. A key computational tool across the conceptual approaches is a fast, simple (policy analysis) model that is used to make large numbers of runs, in order to explore the full range of uncertainties and to identify situations in which the plan would fail.
Over the past few decades Integrated Assessment (IA) has emerged as an approach to link knowledge and action in a way that
is suitable to accommodate uncertainties, complexities and value diversities of global environmental risks. Responding to
the complex nature of the climate problem and to the changing role of climate change in the international climate policy process,
the scientific community has started to include stakeholder knowledge and perspectives in their assessments. Participatory
Integrated Assessment (PIA) is in its early stage of development. Methodology varies strongly across PIA projects. This paper
analyzes four recent IA projects of climate change that included knowledge or perspectives from stakeholders in one-way or
another. Approaches and methods used turn out to differ in whether stakeholders are involved actively or passively, whether
the approach is bottom-up or top-down, and whether the different functions in the IA process are open or closed to stakeholder
input. Also, differences can be seen in the degree to which boundaries are pre-set that limit the roles and domains of competencies
attributed to each scientific or non-scientific participant (so-called boundary work). The paper discusses pros and cons of
the various approaches identified, and outlines heuristics and considerations to assist those who plan, design or fund new
IA processes with stakeholder input on what approaches best to choose in view of the objectives for stakeholder involvement,
in view of the role that the IA plays in the overall risk management process and in view of considerations regarding boundary
work.
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