How to embrace uncertainty in participatory climate change risk management—A roadmap

Döll, Petra; Romero‐Lankao, Patricia

doi:10.1002/2016ef000411

Cited by 55 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 69 publications

(122 reference statements)

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“…In some instances, the level of tolerable risk might be defined by regulation (as it is often the case for flood protection standards). Under other circumstances, the level of tolerable risk may be identified using participatory risk management techniques (Döll & Romero‐Lankao, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Risk, Robustness and Water Resources Planning Under Uncertainty

et al. 2018

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Risk‐based water resources planning is based on the premise that water managers should invest up to the point where the marginal benefit of risk reduction equals the marginal cost of achieving that benefit. However, this cost‐benefit approach may not guarantee robustness under uncertain future conditions, for instance under climatic changes. In this paper, we expand risk‐based decision analysis to explore possible ways of enhancing robustness in engineered water resources systems under different risk attitudes. Risk is measured as the expected annual cost of water use restrictions, while robustness is interpreted in the decision‐theoretic sense as the ability of a water resource system to maintain performance—expressed as a tolerable risk of water use restrictions—under a wide range of possible future conditions. Linking risk attitudes with robustness allows stakeholders to explicitly trade‐off incremental increases in robustness with investment costs for a given level of risk. We illustrate the framework through a case study of London's water supply system using state‐of‐the ‐art regional climate simulations to inform the estimation of risk and robustness.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Risk, Robustness and Water Resources Planning Under Uncertainty

et al. 2018

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“…For example, different structures and feedbacks can be tested as discrete hypotheses to determine if they are influential relative to the many other uncertainties discussed previously, in terms of one or more system performance metrics. Table 3 An Example Classification of Uncertainties According to Their Nature, Level, and Potential for Learning, Following Kwakkel et al (2010), Döll and Romero-Lankao (2017), and Fletcher et al (2017) Note. This classification is only an example and would vary substantially between case studies.…”

Section: Uncertainty In Endogenous Human-environmental Model Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

Climate Adaptation as a Control Problem: Review and Perspectives on Dynamic Water Resources Planning Under Uncertainty

Herman

Quinn

Steinschneider

et al. 2020

Water Resources Research

144

111

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Climate change introduces substantial uncertainty to water resources planning and raises the key question: when, or under what conditions, should adaptation occur? A number of recent studies aim to identify policies mapping future observations to actions—in other words, framing climate adaptation as an optimal control problem. This paper uses the control paradigm to review and classify recent dynamic planning studies according to their approaches to uncertainty characterization, policy structure, and solution methods. We propose a set of research gaps and opportunities in this area centered on the challenge of characterizing uncertainty, which prevents the unambiguous application of control methods to this problem. These include exogenous uncertainty in forcing, model structure, and parameters propagated through a chain of climate and hydrologic models; endogenous uncertainty in human‐environmental system dynamics across multiple scales; and sampling uncertainty due to the finite length of historical observations and future projections. Recognizing these challenges, several opportunities exist to improve the use of control methods for climate adaptation, namely, how problem context and understanding of climate processes might assist with uncertainty quantification and experimental design, out‐of‐sample validation and robustness of optimized adaptation policies, and monitoring and data assimilation, including trend detection, Bayesian inference, and indicator variable selection. We conclude with a summary of recommendations for dynamic water resources planning under climate change through the lens of optimal control.

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“…Advances in the research and practice of risk, water, and natural resources management provide tools to analyze systemic water risks and inform cross‐sectoral planning, including causal risk assessment (Fenton & Neil, ), water resources systems analysis (Brown et al, ), and participatory approaches (von Korff et al, ). As yet, there is only limited understanding about how to combine different knowledge types and different tools to support decision‐making under extreme uncertainty (Döll & Romero‐Lankao, ; Hale et al, ), and also an unmet need for physical science and economic research on water resources to better integrate social dynamics and, hence, provide a useful basis for real‐world decisions (Loucks, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decision‐Making for Systemic Water Risks: Insights From a Participatory Risk Assessment Process in Vietnam

et al. 2018

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Systemic threats to food‐energy‐environment‐water systems require national policy responses. Yet complete control of these complex systems is impossible and attempts to mitigate systemic risks can generate unexpected feedback effects. Perverse outcomes from national policy can emerge from the diverse responses of decision‐makers across different levels and scales of resource governance. Participatory risk assessment processes can help planners to understand subnational dynamics and ensure that policies do not undermine the resilience of social‐ecological systems and infrastructure networks. Researchers can play an important role in participatory processes as both technical specialists and brokers of stakeholder knowledge on the feedbacks generated by systemic risks and policy decisions. Here, we evaluate the use of causal modeling and participatory risk assessment to develop national policy on systemic water risks. We present an application of the Risks and Options Assessment for Decision‐Making (ROAD) process to a district of Vietnam where national agricultural water reforms are being piloted. The methods and results of this project provide general insights about how to support resilient decision‐making, including the transfer of knowledge across administrative levels, identification of feedback effects, and the effective implementation of risk assessment processes.

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How to embrace uncertainty in participatory climate change risk management—A roadmap

Cited by 55 publications

References 69 publications

Risk, Robustness and Water Resources Planning Under Uncertainty

Risk, Robustness and Water Resources Planning Under Uncertainty

Climate Adaptation as a Control Problem: Review and Perspectives on Dynamic Water Resources Planning Under Uncertainty

Decision‐Making for Systemic Water Risks: Insights From a Participatory Risk Assessment Process in Vietnam

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