Navigating the Unknown: Exploring the Use of Decision Making Under “Deep Uncertainty” Approaches

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is undergoing continual and often rapid change.  This poses challenges in predicting and preparing for the future, as past data and models are no longer sufficient to anticipate future conditions.  This uncertainty cannot be addressed by collecting more data, and decision-making becomes complex when stakeholders have differing views on the consequences of actions.  To effectively manage the Delta, managers need new methods for anticipating the future.

The Delta Independent Science Board is conducting a review of the Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty, an interdisciplinary approach that provides decision-makers with new tools and processes to make better-informed decisions despite the challenges they face.  The Board is focusing on scenarios as a useful tool within the toolbox.

The diagram below illustrates what is different about the DMDU approach.  The red cone to the left shows the historic range of variability; that is what has happened before and what may happen again.  But conditions are changing, increasing the uncertainty into the future.

So what scenarios try to do under DMDU is to not just look at the most probable outcomes (our best guess of the future) represented by the green center but also consider a broader spectrum of plausible conditions to understand how the management strategies will perform.

The Delta ISB is reviewing DMDU to provide support to help prepare for extreme and unpredicted events and to build an understanding of scientific tools and concepts that provide a structure for anticipating and managing uncertainty.  The effort will include a webinar series, a survey of how scenarios are currently being used in the Delta, and discussions with stakeholders to understand how scenarios are applied to policy.  The end product will be a report summarizing what has been learned and useful insights that agencies and others in the science enterprise can apply to the Delta.

The first webinar, Decision-making under deep uncertainty: What is it and why is it useful?, was held in spring of 2023 and is summarized here: DELTA ISB: Decision-making under deep uncertainty: What is it and why is it useful?

The second webinar of the series featured Dr. Robert Lempert, principal researcher at the RAND Corporation and director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for Longer Range Global Policy and the Future Human Condition, and Andrew Schwarz, the State Water Project climate action coordinator for the CA Department of Water Resources.  The presenters discussed successful applications of tools that apply the decision-making under deep uncertainty approach.

TOOLS FOR DECISION MAKING UNDER DEEP UNCERTAINTY: POLICY-RELEVANT SCENARIOS AND ADAPTIVE STRATEGIES

Dr. Robert Lempert began the webinar with an overview of Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty (DMDU) and how policy-relevant scenarios and adaptive strategies can be applied.

So how do we use science to inform important policy decisions when the world is hard to predict?  One thing we know about the future is we’re likely to be surprised, he said.  We also know that we won’t manage it very well if […]

Full article: mavensnotebook.com