Abstract
Two trends currently shape water resources planning and decision making: reliance on participatory stakeholder processes to evaluate water management options; and growing recognition that deterministic approaches to the evaluation of options may not be appropriate. These trends pose questions regarding the proper role of information, analysis, and expertise in the inherently social and political process of negotiating agreements and implementing interventions in the water sector. The question of how one might discover the best option in the face of deep uncertainty is compelling. The question of whether the best option even exists to be discovered is more vexing. While such existential questions are not common in the water management community, they are not new to political theory. This paper explores early classical writing related to issues of knowledge and governance as captured in the work of Plato and Aristotle; and then attempts to place a novel, analysis-supported, stakeholder-driven water resources planning and decision making practice within this philosophical discourse, making reference to current decision theory. Examples from the Andes and California, where this practice has been used to structure participation by key stakeholders in water management planning and decision-making, argue that when a sufficiently diverse group of stakeholders is engaged in the decision making process expecting the discovery of the perfect option may not be warranted. Simply discovering a consensus option may be more realistic. The argument touches upon the diversity of preferences, model credibility and the visualization of model output required to explore the implications of various management options across a broad range of inherently unknowable future conditions.
Highlights
The use of computer models to support the evaluation of water resources management options has grown steadily since the first hydrologic [1] and water resource computer modeling tools [2]Water 2018, 10, 1009; doi:10.3390/w10081009 www.mdpi.com/journal/waterWater 2018, 10, 1009 were described in the 1960’s and 1970’s
In laying out their blueprint for a physically-based, digitally simulated hydrological response model, Freeze and Harlan echoed the developers of the Stanford Watershed Model [3] in claiming that the ability to accurately predict behavior is a severe test of the adequacy of knowledge in any subject [Emphasis added]
The use of innovative, interactive data visualization tools to explore the outcome space defined by the desired metrics of performance for each combination of articulated uncertainties and identified management options is critical to the success of the referred to as the Decision Support (RDS) practice
Summary
The use of computer models to support the evaluation of water resources management options has grown steadily since the first hydrologic [1] and water resource computer modeling tools [2]Water 2018, 10, 1009; doi:10.3390/w10081009 www.mdpi.com/journal/waterWater 2018, 10, 1009 were described in the 1960’s and 1970’s. As part of a review and evaluation of multi-objective programming techniques in water resources Cohon and Marks paraphrase the assertion in Loucks and Dorfman [4] that these models should be able to predict the outcome of the decision-making process [Emphasis added]. These early pioneers in the field of water modeling were sanguine about the power of early computers to provide this predictive power, with Freeze and Harlan even conceding that their blueprint was more of an artist’s conception. The expectation was clear, as data quality and computing power improved; it would become increasingly possible to predict outcomes related to hydrology and water management and to use these predictions to identify the best possible course of action.
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