Haasnoot, M., van Aalst, M., Rozenberg, J., Dominique, K., Matthews, J., Bouwer, L. M., … Poff, N. L. (2019). Investments under non-stationarity: economic evaluation of adaptation pathways. Climatic Change. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-019-02409-6 Investment decisions about capital-intensive, long-lived infrastructure are challenging due to uncertainty about their future performance, particularly if the performance is…
Dynamically Optimizing the Strategic Plan of Mining Complexes (2019)
Del Castillo, M. F., & Dimitrakopoulos, R. (2019). Dynamically optimizing the strategic plan of mining complexes under supply uncertainty. Resources Policy, 60, 83-93. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301420718302307 Abstract Mining complexes are comprised of multiple mines and mineral processing streams, each governed by internal (mineral deposit, operation) and external (commodity prices) uncertainties, and must be optimized jointly…
Advancing disaster policies by integrating dynamic adaptive behaviour in risk assessments using an agent-based modelling approach (2019)
Haer,T. Botzen, W.J.W, Aerts, J.C.J.H. (2019) Advancing disaster policies by integrating dynamic adaptive behaviour in risk assessments using an agent-based modelling approach. Environmental Research Letters 14 044022 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab0770 Recent floods in the United States and Asia again highlighted their devastating effects, and without investments in adaptation, the future impact of…
Bezos World Or Levelers: Can We Choose Our Scenario?
Artificial intelligence (AI) augurs changes in society at least as large as those of the industrial revolution. But much of the policy debate seems narrow – extrapolating current trends and asking how we might manage their rough edges. This essay instead explores how AI might be used to enable fundamentally different future worlds and how one such future might be enabled by AI algorithms with different goals and functions than those most common today.
Climate Change Requires Long-Term Action. How Can Policymakers Deal with Uncertainty When Planning Far Ahead?
By Ichiro Sato, World Resources Institute The Paris Agreement invites countries to integrate sustainability and climate action into their broader economic and social policies by creating “mid-century, long-term low greenhouse gas emission development strategies” (LTS) by 2020. Only 10 countries have submitted their strategies to date, with one of the…
Decision under Normative Uncertainty (2018)
Franz Dietrich, Brian Jabarian. Decision Under Normative Uncertainty. PSE Working Paper n°2018-46. 2018. <halshs-01877769> Abstract: How should we evaluate options when we are uncertain about the correct standard of evaluation, for instance due to conflicting normative intuitions? Such `normative’ uncertainty differs from ordinary `empirical’ uncertainty about an unknown state, and…
Risk Analysis under Structural Uncertainty (2018)
Sven Ove Hansson, “Risk analysis under structural uncertainty”, pp. 241-264 in Terje Aven and Enrico Zio, Knowledge in Risk Assessment and Management, Wiley 2018. Abstract: Standard decision theory is devoted to problems in which we have a well-defined decision to make. We are assumed to know what we are going to…
Designing a monitoring system to detect signals to adapt to uncertain climate change
Haasnoot, M., van ’t Klooster, S. & van Alphen, J. Designing a monitoring system to detect signals to adapt to uncertain climate change. Glob. Environ. Chang. 52, 273–285 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2018.08.003 Adaptive plans aim to anticipate uncertain future changes by combining low-regret short-term actions with long-term options to adapt, if necessary. Monitoring…
Including robustness considerations in the search phase of Many-Objective Robust Decision Making (2018)
Eker S & Kwakkel JH (2018). Including robustness considerations in the search phase of Many-Objective Robust Decision Making. Environmental Modelling & Software 105: 201-216. DOI:10.1016/j.envsoft.2018.03.029. Many-Objective Robust Decision Making (MORDM) is a prominent model-based approach for dealing with deep uncertainty. MORDM has four phases: a systems analytical problem formulation, a search phase to generate candidate solutions, a trade-off analysis where different strategies…
Incorporating stakeholder perspectives into model-based scenarios: Exploring the futures of the Dutch gas sector (2017)
Eker S, van Daalen E, & Thissen W (2017). Incorporating stakeholder perspectives into model-based scenarios: Exploring the futures of the Dutch gas sector. Futures 93: 27-43. DOI:10.1016/j.futures.2017.08.002. Several model-based, analytical approaches have been developed recently to deal with the deep uncertainty present in situations for which futures studies are conducted. These approaches focus on…