Long-term planning in urbanizing deltas has to deal with deep uncertainties in socio-economic development and climate change. Adaptive Delta Management (ADM) has been developed as an approach that acknowledges these and similar uncertainties. The Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100 has, in principle, adopted the ADM approach, and it recognizes general uncertainties in (external) physical and socio-economic conditions. It does, however, not acknowledge uncertainties in the way local communities may adapt to uncertain conditions and policy measures. Historical analysis confirms that local adaptation may be different from policymaker’s expectations, and that ignoring this may seriously harm the effectiveness of such a planning approach. This research offers two novel approaches for systematic exploration of the uncertainties in community livelihood adaptation under a variety of uncertain future conditions. The first approach looks into the mental model that guides local actors’ decision making, while the second approach uses a model describing the impact of (external) triggers on actors’ motivation and abilities for a variety of adaptation actions. While both these approaches might be improved, case study applications in the polders of southwest Bangladesh illustrate their utility as instruments to create awareness of possible developments and to act as vehicles for participatory learning by both policymakers and local communities. @en

The liberalization of the Dutch energy market has led to a change of relation between energy companies and their customers. At the same time, the Dutch energy policy expects energy companies to contribute to an energy supply that is cleaner, smarter and more varied, and available at any time at affordable prices. The situation since the liberalization of the energy market can be summarized in the following points: - Energy companies provide a product: energy, that is of social interest and importance, which forces them to act in a socially responsible manner, - Energy as a product is a commodity - Energy consumers are free to choose the energy supplier they want, to provide in their energy need. Consequently, energy suppliers have to think and act like a commercial company, which means that energy companies in a liberalized market, next to their public responsibility, have strategic marketing issues to handle. The notion that energy companies a) need future energy consumers to help them understand changes going on at the consumer-end, and their probable implications on future energy supply, while b) they are unfamiliar with this specific group of consumers at the same time, has resulted in the following leading question of the research: How to involve the future energy consumer effectively in the strategy of an energy company? Answering this practical design question requires answering a variety of underlying knowledge questions, including definitions of key concepts such as ‘involvement’ and ‘effective’, and, more generally, ‘What factors and conditions affect the process of involvement, and what is their impact on the effectiveness of the process?’, and ‘What are the design principles following from these insights’? The theoretical basis to answer these knowledge questions lies in two research traditions; Policy Analysis and Consumer Research. Consumer Research and Policy Analysis assign three common elements to the concept of involvement. They both implicitly and explicitly consider: 1) The topic: the subject the involvement is about. In this research the topic was the strategy of Eneco concerning future energy supply. 2) The participant: the person or group of persons that is actively involved or being involved with the topic. In this research the future energy consumer, represented by participating member of Generation Y, was the participant. 3) The initiator: the party that initiates and/or organizes the involvement of the participant in the topic. In this research Eneco, representing the energy company, was the initiator. In this research the relations between these elements are conceptualised as “The Participation Triangle”:@en

Water resources in the Ganges delta are undergoing drastic change as a result of urbanisation. Increasing demand for water due to urban expansion around cities like Kolkata (India) and Khulna (Bangladesh) is affecting groundwater access in nearby peri-urban communities. Peri-urban areas lie outside the formal purview of urban institutions, while their prevailing rural institutions are not equipped to deal with the changing urbanization context. To support problem solving efforts by peri-urban communities, this thesis offers the ‘Approach for Participatory Institutional Analysis’ or APIA. This participatory and structured approach explores problems using an institutional lens. It offers communities insight into the underlying institutions or rules in their most-pressing problems, the actors involved, and strategies to address them. This book outlines the need for such an approach , particularly in peri-urban areas and tells the story of how the APIA helped peri-urban communities examine their groundwater-based drinking water problems. Case-study applications in Bangladesh and India provide insights into APIA’s potential as a capacity building tool and ways to further improve its design and use with stakeholders in different contexts. @en

Simulation models are increasingly used for exploring the consequences of deep uncertainty in complex societal issues. The complexity of societal grand challenges, often characterised by the interrelatedness of different elements in the systems underlying these challenges, often renders mental simulation impossible, necessitating the use of simulation models to assist human reasoning. In addition, these grand challenges are typically also subject to deep uncertainty, making it, for example, impossible to come to a shared understanding of parts of the system and exogenous inputs to it, or even a shared problem definition. Under deep uncertainty, simulation models can be used to explore the consequences of different combinations of assumptions about uncertain factors or attributes of the problem situation and the underlying system. This type of simulation model use was introduced in 1993 as Exploratory Modelling and Analysis (EMA). In more recent years, this approach has become a major underpinning of the Decision Making under Deep Uncertainty (DMDU) field. The treatment of deep uncertainty in much DMDU research can be improved, however. In most DMDU research to date, pre-existing models are used. These models were generally developed for ‘consolidative’ use: the modellers tried to unify existing knowledge to come a single, ‘best’ model. While most modellers will agree that these models are not perfect representations of reality, and often agree that they as such cannot be validated in the strict sense of the word, these modellers and their models do not acknowledge deep uncertainty. The use of consolidative models is arguably problematic if one agrees that the issue at hand is characterized by deep uncertainty. Therefore, models are needed that are explicitly developed for ‘exploratory’ use: models that explicitly incorporate deep uncertainty potentially relevant for the research question or questions at hand. However, little experience and guidance exists regarding development and use of specifically exploratory models. In this dissertation, a first attempt is made to identify, and provide guidance for, the critical choices made during the development and use of exploratory models.@en

Policymaking often involves different parties such as policymakers, stakeholders, and analysts each with distinct roles in the process. To assist policymakers, policy analysts help in structuring the problem, designing, and evaluating policy alternatives. Analysts face many challenges, like complexity and uncertainty in a system of interest, while supporting the policymaking process. Frequently, analysts rely on mathematical models that represent the key features of the system. Assumptions made during modelling introduce a significant level of uncertainty in the models, and forecasting based on models is therefore always bound by this uncertainty. Instead of focusing on limited best-estimate predictions under uncertainty, exploring a plethora of plausible futures by using mathematical models can help supporting decision-making. In current practice, uncertainty analysis for decision-making is mostly limited to technical and shallow uncertainties but not focused on deep uncertainty. This thesis contributes to a solution for enhanced handling of deep uncertainty to support policymaking. We have developed a new methodological approach for improving analytical support for policymaking under deep uncertainty, and demonstrated each analytical advancement stage with case studies. This thesis proposes to improve analytical support for policymaking to better handle deep uncertainty. Building upon the existing pragmatic practice, a systematic approach for designing adaptive policies under uncertainty is developed. The Adaptive Robust Design (ARD) approach in combination with multi-objective robust optimization will improve the support for policymaking under deep uncertainty. The effectiveness of ARD for developing adaptive robust policies under deep uncertainty is shown by illustrative case studies. @en

In 2015, the global community came together in Paris and agreed on a CO2 emissions pathway to avoid a temperature anomaly of more than 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. A significant source of CO2 emissions, the main greenhouse gas causing climate change, is the tourism sector. From research published by the UNWTO (World Tourism Organisation) in 2008, this contribution to anthropogenic CO2 emissions was found to be significant at 4.9% in 2005 and to increase. These growing emissions contrast with the Paris Agreement goal to obtain a very substantial reduction of global CO2 emissions. This thesis examines what the main drivers for tourism’s CO2 emissions development are. It also indicates what the tourism sector should look like in terms of improved energy efficiencies and volumes of trips, guest-nights, transport distances and transport mode choice to fit a ‘climatically sustainable development’ and what policies may evoke changes toward such a tourism development. The main research question of my thesis is: ‘Which mechanisms drive the development of global tourism and its CO2 emissions, and what are potential effects and consequences of policy strategies to mitigate these emissions?@en