Engaging Multiple Worldviews With Quantitative Decision Support: A Robust Decision ‐Making Demonstration Using the Lake Model

This study aims to build on recent advances in decision making under deep uncertainty (DMDU) to demonstrate methods and tools that may help resolve the tension between quantitative decision support and multiworldview approaches for addressing wicked problems. The study employs robust decision making (RDM), one common DMDU method, and a new version of the lake model, a simple and widely used model of a coupled human and natural system, to conduct a stylized analysis that reflects three different worldviews. The RDM analysis solves the decision challenge independently for each worldview and then compares each set of solutions from the vantage of the other worldviews. The resulting utopia –dystopia matrix informs problem reframing that seeks robust, adaptive strategies independently consistent with each worldview and thus provides a locus for agreement. The study describes how stakeholder engagements might use such analytic tools and their information products to provide overlappin g but alternative entry points for groups with fundamentally different worldviews to engage with each other in deliberative processes appropriate for wicked problems.
Source: Risk Analysis - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Original Research Article Source Type: research