An increase in unprecedented environmental crises as a result of climate change and human influence has amplified calls for recognizing the complexity of decision-making under uncertainty (DMUU). How decision-makers act in institutional settings under uncertainty has, however, received limited attention in decision-making in planning practice. This article investigates DMUU in the context of Wayanad, a peri urban hill district in Kerala, India through two decision settings; the response to unprecedented heavy monsoon floods in 2018 and 2019 as a case of short-term uncertainty, and policy and plan making regarding quarrying in ecologically sensitive areas as a case of long-term uncertainty. Through empirical findings from semi-structured interviews of 58 decision-makers from state and non-state actors, the article discusses individual and collective actions made before, during and after the floods by combining insights on DMUU from spatial planning and governance literature underpinned by spatial-temporal and political ecology narratives. The article argues that factors such as community resourcefulness and decentralized governance appeared to facilitate effective decision-making under short-term uncertainty. However, the same factors did not have an intrinsic influence on decision-making under long-term uncertainty with current ways of decision-making regarding quarrying in ecologically sensitive areas likely obstructing sustainable long-term planning and land use transformation in Wayanad. The article concludes with recommendations for potential improvements in decision-making under long-term uncertainty in contexts with weak institutional mechanisms, chronic vulnerabilities and resource scarcity, through structural organizational change, cross-sectoral decision-making arenas, and decision-making frameworks that foregrounds heuristic, flexible, incremental, and cumulative actions across scales over time.
While trajectories of community resourcefulness, solidarity, and mutual trust during and following environmental crises are abound in the literature, how these trajectories are taken into consideration and influences spatial planners, humanitarians and decision makers working under uncertainty remains under documented. Our article explores the concept of community resilience in action to illustrate where community resilience in action is supported, hindered or ignored by the state and non‐state organizations. Through an inductive epistemological approach, it draws examples from the exploratory fieldwork of two case studies and interviews in settlements in developmental contexts where the inhabitants, built environments and livelihoods have been severely affected following a hazardous event. Using observations and testimonies from Wayanad, a hill district in India affected by heavy monsoon floods in 2018 and 2019, and from marketplaces in Port‐au‐Prince, Haiti, following the 2010 earthquake, the article discusses how understandings of community resilience in action in post‐disaster developmental contexts could contribute to enhancing institutional responses under uncertainty.
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