Toward a Relational Concept of Uncertainty: about Knowing Too Little, Knowing Too Differently, and Accepting Not to Know

By Marcela Brugnach, Art Dewulf, C. Pahl‐Wostl, Tharsi Taillieu. 2008

387 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Uncertainty of late has become an increasingly important and controversial topic in water resource management, and natural resources management in general. Diverse managing goals, changing environmental conditions, conflicting interests, and lack of predictability are some of the characteristics that decision makers have to face. This has resulted in the application and development of strategies such as adaptive management, which proposes flexibility and capability to adapt to unknown conditions as a way of dealing with uncertainties. However, this shift in ideas about managing has not always been accompanied by a general shift in the way uncertainties are understood and handled. To improve this situation, we believe it is necessary to recontextualize uncertainty in a broader way?relative to its role, meaning, and relationship with participants in decision making?because it is from this understanding that problems and solutions emerge. Under this view, solutions do not exclusively consist of eliminating or reducing uncertainty, but of reframing the problems as such so that they convey a different meaning. To this end, we propose a relational approach to uncertainty analysis. Here, we elaborate on this new conceptualization of uncertainty, and indicate some implications of this view for strategies for dealing with uncertainty in water management. We present an example as an illustration of these concepts. Key words: adaptive management; ambiguity; frames; framing; knowledge relationship; multiple knowledge frames; natural resource management; negotiation; participation; social learning; uncertainty; water management

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, History and Philosophy of Science, Management Science and Operations Research

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6343139e180bd8f5e3b1a26a9065ad3fdfa408e3

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In Global and Planetary Change

In History and Philosophy of Science

In Management Science and Operations Research

Citations in the corpus

Public participation for sustainability and social learning: Concepts and lessons from three case studies in Europe (2010, background): “, 2001), can initiate social learning processes that go beyond individual and often predefined interests and/or values, and create opportunities for a shared understanding and joint action (Fiorino, 1990; Laird, 1993; Webler et al., 1995; Schusler et al., 2003; Brugnach et al., 2008).”
A philosophical basis for hydrological uncertainty (2016, background): “Cartwright’s (1983) simulacrum account of the relationship between the scientist and the apparent regularity of the universe recognizes a distinction between fundamental laws and phenomenological laws, where fundamental laws are essentially explanatory in nature and phenomenological laws are predict”
An uncertain future, deep uncertainty, scenarios, robustness and adaptation: How do they fit together? (2016, background): “Ambiguity in this context means that there exist multiple frames of reference about given phenomena (Brugnach et al., 2008; Dewulf et al., 2005).”
Advancing adaptive governance of social-ecological systems through theoretical multiplicity (2016, background): “…both slowly and abruptly in unpredictable directions, the notion of adaptive governance brings attention to how social-ecological systems can adapt to constantly changing conditions, especially where decisions need to be taken under high uncertainty (Brugnach et al., 2008; Hurlbert and Diaz, 2013).”
NEW HORIZONS FOR MANAGING THE ENVIRONMENT: A REVIEW OF COUPLED SOCIAL‐ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS MODELING (2012, methodology): “[2002]), to higher level ambiguities, relating to the way a problem is perceived or framed (Brugnach et al. [2011]). Parameter uncertainty can be treated with a variety of techniques, such as sensitivity and uncertainty analysis (for epistemic uncertainty, Pannell [1997], Burgman et al.”
A New Paradigm for Adaptive Management (2013, methodology): “‘incomplete knowledge’ (Brugnach et al. 2008); we use the label ecological uncertainty.”