Adapt or Perish: An Approach to Planning Under Deep Uncertainty

Much policy advice is formulated implicitly assuming that the future can be predicted. A static policy is developed using a single ‘most likely’ future, often based on the extrapolation of trends; or a static ‘robust’ policy is developed that will produce acceptable outcomes in a range of plausible future worlds. However, if the future turns out...

Transient scenarios for robust climate change adaptation illustrated for water management in The Netherlands

Climate scenarios are used to explore impacts of possible future climates and to assess the robustness of adaptation actions across a range of futures. Time-dependent climate scenarios are commonly used in mitigation studies. However, despite the dynamic nature of adaptation, most scenarios for local or regional decision making on climate...

Overcoming Methodological Obstacles in Business Process Simulation under Deep Uncertainty

Organizations are in ever changing environments which results in the need for constant adaptation of business processes and structures. Discrete Event Simulation (DES) is a commonly used application of Business Process Simulation to support decision makers in complex processes. However, in case deep uncertainty is present in a target business...

Adapt or Perish: A Review of Planning Approaches for Adaptation under Deep Uncertainty

There is increasing interest in long-term plans that can adapt to changing situations under conditions of deep uncertainty. We argue that a sustainable plan should not only achieve economic, environmental, and social objectives, but should be robust and able to be adapted over time to (unforeseen) future conditions. Large numbers of papers...

Polder pumping-station for the future: designing and retrofitting infrastructure systems under structural uncertainty

In designing and retrofitting infrastructure systems, engineers are increasingly confronted by uncertainties about the future operating conditions of these systems, stemming from climate change or rapid socio-economic development. Particularly for long-lived capital-intensive infrastructure components like pumping stations, current...

Impact of Scenario Selection on Robustness

Multiple plausible future scenarios are being used increasingly in preference to a single deterministic or probabilistic prediction of the future in the long-term planning of water resources systems. These scenarios enable the determination of the robustness of a system—the consideration of performance across a range of plausible futures—and...

Exploring Deep Uncertainty Approaches for Application in Life Cycle Engineering

Uncertainty assessment and management, as well as the associated decision making are increasingly important in a variety of scientific fields. While uncertainty analysis has a long tradition, meeting sustainable development goals through long-term Life Cycle Engineering (LCE) decision making demands addressing Deep Uncertainty (DU). DU...

Robustness Metrics: How Are They Calculated, When Should They Be Used and Why Do They Give Different Results?

Robustness is being used increasingly for decision analysis in relation to deep uncertainty and many metrics have been proposed for its quantification. Recent studies have shown that the application of different robustness metrics can result in different rankings of decision alternatives, but there has been little discussion of what potential...

Back to the future: Viewing a 1992 flood risk study through a 2017 lens

Here we examine whether a study conducted 25 years ago (1992) would have had different conclusions if concepts and analytical methods developed since then had been used. The 1992 problem was to identify a strategy for reducing flood risk in the Netherlands by, for example, strengthening the river dikes against the risk of flooding. Since then,...