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“The battle for sustainable development, for delivering a more environmentally stable and healthier world, is going to be largely won and lost in our cities.” Klaus Toepfer, Former Executive Director of United Nations Environment Programme said. "Over the past 50 years, humans have changed natural ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period in human history," said Dr LEE Jong-wook, Director-General of the World Health Organization. Approximately 60% of the benefits that the global ecosystem provides to support life on Earth (such as fresh water, clean air and a relatively stable climate) are being degraded or used unsustainably. World Health Organization published a report[1] in 2005 to warn that harmful consequences of this degradation to human health are already being felt and could grow significantly worse over the next 50 years, particularly acute to poorer countries. Harbin, a large city with almost 10 million populations in the northeast of China, is suffering serious ecological problems such as wetland degradation and biological diversity reduction. Harbin Eco-corridor System (HES), one of the core ecosystems in urban area of Harbin, is a representative serious degradation urban ecosystem in Harbin. So Harbin government is searching for a sustainable way to develop Harbin Eco-corridor System. Harbin Eco-corridor System, as an urban river ecosystem, is located along Songhua River with 123km length and 4.5km width, and consisted with 15 islands. Wetland is one of the important resources in the ecosystem. The ecosystem is not isolated with Harbin, even plays a crucial role for the progress of Harbin. It not only keeps the biological diversity in ecological aspects, but also has the value to create economic income and can keep carbon emission under control. So Harbin Eco-corridor System is expected to be sustainable from ecological, social and economic aspects. Harbin Eco-corridor Restoration and Conservation Plan and Developing Wetland Tourism are proposed strategy from Harbin government for the sustainable development in the future 30 years. But is the strategy the right way to help Harbin government to realize the objective? Policy analysis from the perspective of complex ecological-economic-social system and multi-stakeholders are expected. This paper proposes a policy analysis approach to help Harbin government to test the proposed policy. Moreover, identify the most robust policy for government through comparing the proposed one with alternatives. Additionally, find weaknesses of robust policy and propose preventive actions. The approach is consisted with eight steps. First, we can get a general description about what’s happening and what’s the problem in Harbin Eco-corridor System and what is the plan of Harbin government to solve the problem. Second, based on the problem and the proposed solution, objective analysis is conducted. The main goal-achieving a sustainable Harbin Eco-corridor System is divided into three sub-objectives: more ecological effective, more economic effective and more social effective. In order to make the sub-objectives measurable, nine indicators with units and weights are selected in criteria analysis, they are the area of wetland, wetland water consumption cost, Total CO2-equilavent of wetland, the number of employee in HES, Investment return rate, Total amount of revenue and The number of annual visiting times. The expected target value of each indicator is designed based on some documents from government. Meanwhile, because for each stakeholder, it has its own weight for each indicator, stakeholder analysis is conducted to get an integrated weight for each indicator. Third, external factors analysis is conducted to identify flooding, social power and demography as external factors which cannot be controlled by government but can bring large impact to the system in times of change. Fourth, causal relations analysis is an essential step for simulation to construct the structure of the system. Most of the causal relations are referred from research outcomes of public academic papers. Fifth, the causal relations among factors are coded by data for the establishment of a model. After verification and validation, the model is built access to reality as nearly as possible. Sixth, proposed policy and alternatives are designed. Seventh, scenario is designed. Eighth, all the alternative policies are tested in different scenarios in the model and the most robust policy comes out. Through policy analysis, a sustainable development of Harbin Eco-corridor System can be achieved through: replenishing water for wetland and developing tourism, which is recommended by this dissertation. In detail, thought sensitivity analysis and policy test, replenishing water with 176900 tons per year is a sufficient condition for the wetland to recover wetland in Harbin Eco-corridor System. While, developing tourism has some alternatives-do not developing any industry, developing eco-agriculture or developing real estate. Through comparison, we found that developing tourism is a most robust way for government to get economic and social benefit from Harbin Eco-corridor System without at the cost of ecological loss. Recommended policy effect can be predicted: in ecological aspect, replenishing 176900 tons water per year for wetland can recover most part of island area into wetland as government expected in the next thirty years. In economic aspect, total amount of revenue in tourism will reach to 354billion Yuan, and total number of annual visiting times will reach to22.75million times per year in Harbin Eco-corridor in 2040. Average investment return rate is 43%. The predicted values of economic indicators are close to target. In social aspect, the tourism industry will bring 20633 employee positions in the system every year. Total CO2-equilavent value of wetland will reduce 31% of the value in the situation that wetland structure is maintained as the current proportion. However, there are two weaknesses of the developing tourism. First, tourism investors will face with some barriers: large initial investment and long investment return period. By analysis with increasing business tax rate from 5% in 2010 to 20% in 2040, tax credit solution is tested to be one of solutions. The total water consumption cost for replenishing wetland with 15 billion RMB will be covered by the total tax with 46 billion RMB before 2030, Even if the government always keeps fixed business tax rate at 5%, the gap will be covered at around 2035. Second, developing tourism also will bring lots of garbage, if without dealing with it in time, water quality in the system will be affected. One of the solutions-controlling the number of tourist is tested by model in this paper, 1km2 opened tourism area can maximum for 867 tourists per day would be a criterion for controlling the number of tourist. In conclusion, the approach proposed by this paper is to help government to get a deep understanding of Harbin Eco-corridor System, to achieve a general consistent policy in multi-actors environment, to test whether a policy is robust, to identify the barriers in proposed policy and to provide recommendation for the sustainable development of Harbin Eco-corridor System. However, it is difficult to make sure that the model is exactly the same as reality, the variance is mainly on model structure and data collection. Future researches are listed in chapter6.4. Meanwhile, there are some limitations for the approach to be used in China. First, Leader-oriented decision style will result in the ignorance of stakeholders’ perceptions. Second, promotion-oriented decision style probably leads to the absence of continuously fiscal budget for ecological recovery in the next political term. Third, the lack of post policy assessment and accountability system maybe produce policy strategy preferred by interest group, rather sustainable policy strategy. In order to avoid the barriers, some future researches are proposed in chapter6.3.

A method is developed that deals with uncertainties concerning the possible future train services and to what extent different infrastructure alternatives accommodate these train services. A case study is done for the rail line The Hague - Rotterdam. Amongst other methods, a policy analysis approach, a traffic modeling program and a net present value method has been used. The result is a method that enables the rail sector to figure out what infrastructure alternative accommodates what kind of train service. Furthermore, for the line The Hague - Rotterdam this includes 3 different train services tested on 4 infrastructure alternatives. Based on the net present values choices can be made what alterenative to choose when a train service is to be implemented.

With a sizeable expected growth of demand for rail transport in the Netherlands the coming decades, and limited resources for expansion of the rail network, intensified utilization of the infrastructure is to be expected. To adequately manage this growth a ppropriate tools for policy analysis are needed. Because of the unstructuredness of many problems in the rail sector and decision-making in a network type environment additional scrutiny is placed on these tools. By performing a modelling study into the interrelations of modal split, mobility and operations using System Dynamics, the possibilities and pitfalls of using this method for policy analysis in Dutch rail system have been explored. Although classical policy analysis has proven to be possible, modelling the operational part of the system has proven challenging. Alternative usages of System Dynamics for enhancing policy analysis, by improving understanding about the complex dynamic behaviour of the system are suggested.

In this research, the central objective was to explore how cultural and political factors might affect participatory practices of policy analysis. For this purpose, initially the concept of policy analysis and its evolutionary process from traditional and expert-based approach to participatory style, and role of context in policy analysis in general and participatory policy analysis in particular are studied. Next, the concept of public participation is elaborated through studying the levels and purposes of participation, type of participants, and the methods or techniques of public participation. Afterwards, risk and challenges of participation are enumerated, and a number of "factors of participation (FP)" which are sensitive to politico-cultural context are identified. Thirteen FPs are introduced and classified into four main categories of factors. Next, the cultural and political indicators which steers these FPs are explored. Hofstede's Theory, World Value Survey (WVS) by Inglehart, Schwartz cultural values orientations, cultural study of GLOBE project and Minkov cultural study, are the cross-cultural theories examined in order to extract measurable cultural indicators to explore the identified FPs. Subsequent to the recognition of cultural indicators three globally reputable research projects, namely Freedom in the World Survey, The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Index of Democracy and Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI), in which governance indexes and democracy indicators are periodically calculated in the national level, are scrutinized in order to identify the most relevant political indicators to this thesis. Exploiting the relation between cultural and political indicators and factors of participation (FP), a framework is developed for each category of FPs. In this framework, each FP is evaluated by national scores of some cultural and/or political indicators, every FP has two poles which are assigned to extreme scores of relevant indicators and are distinguishable by specific attributes. In order to test the applicability of the developed framework, several national cases have been studied utilizing the framework. A comparative case study for a specific participatory method - consensus conference – would be done for some other countries. The case studies show that the framework can effectively explain the influence of contextual factors. Furthermore, the case studies are also helped to revise and improve the framework in a reciprocal process. It is revealed that the framework can provide awareness for policy analysts who want to employ participatory approach. This is in fact the descriptive application of the framework. Moreover, the framework can have the prescriptive application. Although this application should be elaborated in a separate research, the practical application of the framework initiates at the end of thesis. The implication of each FP's attributes is indicated and accordingly can guide the analysts to select and adapt the purpose and method of participation. Some relevant features of known public participation methods are introduced and a tentative example of practical considerations is demonstrated. The research concludes with an indication of the considerations about the research/framework and gives some suggestions for future research.

This thesis synthesizes different perspectives on scale choices (spatial boundary setting, temporal boundary setting and the selection of the level of aggregation) in policy analysis. Scale choices influence the content of a study: the problems on the agenda, the options found and the impacts addressed. This also affects the process, because scale choices are not politically neutral: they may benefit or disadvantage certain actors by putting their urgent problems and/or preferred options on the agenda, and may hide or stress the positive or negative impacts of options. They may also influence the actors that are involved, the possibilities for consensus building and the political sensitivity of the study. It is important, therefore, to pay sufficient attention to scale choices in the design of policy analyses. Yet little is known about the specific effects of scale choices and how they are made in practice. In this research, the making of scale choices was studied using two empirical cases: the Long-Term Vision for the Scheldt Estuary and the Netherlands Water Shortage Study. Scale choices appear to be an important framing instrument that can be used by policy analysts. The tool presented in this thesis to make scale choices a subject of discussion can also serve as a means for the policy analyst to address other fundamental issues that are usually present below the surface but are hardly ever out in the open, such as differences in power, interests and hidden agendas. For more information: sonja.karstens@deltares.nl

Introductory lecture on policy analysis and decision making, with a focus on decision makers in ports and harbours.

Purposive Interaction in Multi-Actor Decision Making; Operationalizing Coleman's Linear System of Action for Policy Decision Support, started out with a ball and a web, a policy domain moved by a network of actors. How can the ball maintain its pace? Who are the actors that make the difference? How can policy annalists support them in moving the decision-making process forward? These are the challenges to policy analyses laid out by the pluricentric perspective on decision making. This book takes up the challenge by developing analytical methods based on Coleman's linear System of Action (Coleman, 1990). The Linear System of Action models policy decision making as a negotiating process in which agreements are reached on the exchange of control over issues. The book describes how to operationalize the Linear System of Action for real-world policy arenas, it introduces mathematical tools for analyzing decision processes and shows how the Linear System of Action can be used to discuss dependency relations. Observed relations between the model and real-world experiences of actors and changes in the way they perceive their position, demonstrate the strength of the methods developed. Purposive Interaction in Multi-Actor Decision Making is the result of five years of scientific work at the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management of Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. It covers both theory and practical applications and is therefore of equal interest to policy annalists and practitioners in the field.

In 2008, the author has conducted a research study on behalf of the Caribbean Water Association on the consequences of the constitutional change of the Netherlands Antilles for the drinking water supply on Bonaire, St Eustatius and Saba (BES). This research study formed the basis for further research in the form of this MSc. thesis. Being the responsible Ministry for the supply of drinking water on the future BES islands, VROM positively embraced the idea to study solution alternatives to improve the current situation on the BES islands. The Ministry of VROM granted the author with the financial means and support to conduct this thesis research study. In chapter 7 of this report a set of guidelines and instruments is presented that can support the Ministry of VROM in defining and preparing an improved drinking water supply on the BES islands.

The Water Board in Lilongwe, Malawi is facing enormous challenges in providing access to urban citizens to safe and affordable drinking water. These challenges includes; keeping production levels up with drinking water demand, reducing the amount of physical and commercial water losses and collecting sufficient revenue to cover operational cost, repayments on loans and investments. This study analysis the incentives and disincentives that contributes to improve accessibility by reducing water losses and safeguarding continuity of drinking water supply to citizens of Lilongwe, Malawi. This study undertakes a qualitative in-depth analysis. First a conceptual framework is made by using the IAD framework distinguishing exogenous variables and action situations. Second, exogenous variables are described by highlighting incentives and disincentives from two data sets of two different countries; Lilongwe Water Board, Malawi and Vitens NV, the Netherlands. Third, by using game theory five action situations have been analyzed in depth to extract institutional lessons. The analyses suggest that the presence of an external donor organization which provides funds to make necessary investment displaces local efforts to contribute to maintenance efforts. To ameliorate donor disturbances a more effective allocation of institutional capacity is needed. This study concludes that first, better information gathering and information management will reduce uncertainty and improves decisions making by management and planners. In addition, an increase in transparency through bi-directional communication and ownership of information management will provide an incentive to commit to decisions of participants involved. Second, the frequency of encounters between a government institutions and a drinking water supply company will provide a government institution with more credible institutional instruments to withhold funds or conversely reward funds for new investments. Third, given limited institutional capacity of government offices, creating transparency on maintenance outcomes of different urban regions will create competition among maintenance teams, managers and planners. Consequently, this will provide an incentives to improve maintenance efforts to achieve better outcomes.

The centralized drinking water supply system of the Metropolitan Area of Amsterdam, operated and owned mainly by Waternet, has high performance indicators and satisfies the full demand for water in the urban grid and surrounding areas on a full cost recovery basis. Social and technological developments, stemming mainly from (i) the increasing world-wide concern about the sustainability of resources, water scarcity and the effects of climate change, (ii) concepts related to integrated urban water management with a target towards sewage load reduction and rain water retention, and (iii) innovation in housing appliances and waste-water treatment technology, suggest that the current regime of drinking water demand of retail customers could change. A decrease of water demand concerns the water utility, that is operating a system in under-capacity and is currently working on a Long-Term Vision for their water supply system. The future seems highly uncertain and it is essential to understand (i) how and by whom water saving could be induced in an area of abundant water resources like the Metropolitan Area of Amsterdam and (ii) what kind of effects a further decrease of water demand could bring about. Standard Policy Analysis techniques are applied to address this issue and the approach is largely qualitative. Desk study and interviews are conducted to collect information and data that are systemized and further processed through uncertainty and systems analysis to supply an answer to the above. The anticipated changes that could lead to water saving –drivers of water saving– are clustered in categories for supplying clarity and are, then, classified according to their potential effect and uncertainty. Stakeholders and their actions that could induce water saving are also identified. The system is decomposed into embedded subsystems in order to identify potential effects on each one, and mitigating alternatives are discussed after examining the available practices for maintaining a high performing water supply system. The analysis supplies insights on the type of information that Waternet needs to seek in order to perform educated explorations about the future, as well as on how this could be achieved. The outcome of the research can be utilized towards this end and towards developing further the Long-Term Vision of the water supply system. However, further research is necessary in order to make elaborate quantitative estimations in this direction.

Water related problems such as floods, droughts, declining groundwater tables or polluted rivers have a major impact on numerous societies throughout the world. Despite these serious problems, policy makers seem to make scant use of the knowledge that is available with water experts. Conversely, water experts face the task of finding out how they should position themselves to ensure that their analysis contributes to policy making. The task for those water experts is further complicated by the fact that water resources management involves various parties, called actors. Each actor has its specific position and responsibility in policy making, its own interests and objectives and its own perceptions of the main problems to be addressed. Actor analysis offers a potentially promising tool to support water experts, as it can be used to investigate the multi-actor policy making setting in which water experts find themselves. This is likely to help water experts design and execute analyses that are relevant to policy makers. Actor analysis for water resources management provides insight into how actor analysis is done in practice. A model-based approach for actor analysis is developed and its use is described for cases in Egypt, Turkey, the Netherlands and the Philippines. The results of these four cases are used to examine to what extent actor analysis lives up to its promise for water experts. The findings shed light on the use of actor analysis in practice and its potential to help water experts in their interactions with policy makers. Policy analysts and water experts alike may find the guidelines on executing an actor analysis valuable, and the examples of applications inspiring to their daily tasks.

A persistent challenge for the development of well-informed and sound environmental policies is to improve the connection between environmental experts, decision makers, and other involved actors. Answers are sought in processes for social learning and adaptive co-management that engage experts, decision makers, and local actors in an interactive way of policy making. The preparation and organization of such interactive processes is usefully supported by actor analysis, which can help to identify the main actors to be involved in environmental policy making, to locate useful local knowledge, to identify potential conflicts, and to assess the feasibility of different policy measures. I explored the promise that actor analysis holds to support environmental experts in environmental policy analysis activities. I present and discuss the findings from four cases in water resources management. These findings are counterintuitive in that they suggest that environmental experts are more reluctant to use the insights provided by actor analysis than one would expect based on their frequently expressed desire to improve their connection with decision makers. Therefore, I conclude with a discussion of three mechanisms that might explain these findings, as well as their consequences for the future use of actor analysis in environmental policy analysis.

The aim of this paper is to provide a conceptual basis for the systematic treatment of uncertainty in model-based decision support activities such as policy analysis, integrated assessment and risk assessment. It focuses on the uncertainty perceived from the point of view of those providing information to support policy decisions (i.e., the modellers’ view on uncertainty) – uncertainty regarding the analytical outcomes and conclusions of the decision support exercise. Within the regulatory and management sciences, there is neither commonly shared terminology nor full agreement on a typology of uncertainties. Our aim is to synthesise a wide variety of contributions on uncertainty in model-based decision support in order to provide an interdisciplinary theoretical framework for systematic uncertainty analysis. To that end we adopt a general definition of uncertainty as being any deviation from the unachievable ideal of completely deterministic knowledge of the relevant system. We further propose to discriminate among three dimensions of uncertainty: location, level and nature of uncertainty, and we harmonise existing typologies to further detail the concepts behind these three dimensions of uncertainty.We propose an uncertainty matrix as a heuristic tool to classify and report the various dimensions of uncertainty, thereby providing a conceptual framework for better communication among analysts as well as between them and policymakers and stakeholders. Understanding the various dimensions of uncertainty helps in identifying, articulating, and prioritising critical uncertainties, which is a crucial step to more adequate acknowledgement and treatment of uncertainty in decision support endeavours and more focused research on complex, inherently uncertain, policy issues.

An airport’s operation and development impacts many stakeholders. Therefore, an airport should be treated as a socio-technical system. An airport operator and its stakeholders should strategically plan and develop the airport together. This dissertation describes the development of the HARMOS Decision Support System that can facilitate such collaborative strategic planning.