An ex ante assessment of value conflicts and social acceptance of sustainable heating systems: An agent-based modelling approach

This paper demonstrates an approach to assess, ex ante, the social acceptance of sustainable heating systems in city districts. More sustainable heating systems are required in city districts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, these systems may lack social acceptance as they often require significant adjustments to homes and may...

The Exploratory Modeling Workbench: An open source toolkit for exploratory modeling, scenario discovery, and (multi-objective) robust decision making

There is a growing interest in model-based decision support under deep uncertainty, reflected in a variety of approaches being put forward in the literature. A key idea shared among these is the use of models for exploratory rather than predictive purposes. Exploratory modeling aims at exploring the implications for decision making of the...

Comparing Robust Decision-Making and Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways for model-based decision support under deep uncertainty

A variety of model-based approaches for supporting decision-making under deep uncertainty have been suggested, but they are rarely compared and contrasted. In this paper, we compare Robust Decision-Making with Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways. We apply both to a hypothetical case inspired by a river reach in the Rhine Delta of the Netherlands...

Improving scenario discovery by bagging random boxes

Scenario discovery is a model-based approach to scenario development under deep uncertainty. Scenario discovery relies on the use of statistical machine learning algorithms. The most frequently used algorithm is the Patient Rule Induction Method (PRIM). This algorithm identifies regions in an uncertain model input space that are highly...

A scenario discovery study of the impact of uncertainties in the global container transport system on European ports

The global container transport system is changing quickly. Ports can be severely affected by these changes; therefore, ports need insight into how the system might change and what the impact of this will be on their competitive position. Given the intrinsic complexity of the container transport system and the presence of a wide range of...

Simulating endogenous dynamics of intervention-capacity deployment: Ebola outbreak in Liberia

During the first months, the 2014 outbreak of the Ebola virus (EBOV) in West Africa was characterised by inadequate intervention capacities. In this paper, we investigate (1) the influence of limited but dynamic intervention capacities and their effect on the effective reproduction number, and (2) the effects of proactive versus reactive...

The emergence of climate change mitigation action by society: An agent-based scenario discovery study

Developing model-based narratives of society’s response to climate change is challenged by two factors. First, society’s response to possible future climate change is subject to many uncertainties. Second, we argue that society’s mitigation action emerge out of the actions and interactions of the many actors in society. Together, these two...

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...