Dealing with Uncertainty in Flood Management Through Diversification

This paper shows, through a numerical example, how to develop portfolios of flood management activities that generate the highest return under an acceptable risk for an area in the central part of the Netherlands. The paper shows a method based on Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) that contributes to developing flood management strategies. MPT aims at finding sets of investments that diversify risks thereby reducing the overall risk of the total portfolio of investments. This paper shows that through systematically combining four different flood protection measures in portfolios containing three or four measures; risk is reduced compared with portfolios that only contain one or two measures. Adding partly uncorrelated measures to the portfolio diversifies risk. We demonstrate how MPT encourages a systematic discussion of the relationship between the return and risk of individual flood mitigation activities and the return and risk of complete portfolios. It is also shown how important it is to understand the correlation of the returns of various flood management activities. The MPT approach, therefore, fits well with the notion of adaptive water management, which perceives the future as inherently uncertain. Through applying MPT on flood protection strategies current vulnerability will be reduced by diversifying risk

Model designed through participatory processes: whose model is it?

International audienceParticipatory modelling is increasing steadily in importance because of opportunities to obtain new; kinds of information, perspectives on validation and implementation of social learning. The concept of participation is spreading towards modelling processes. It uses a wide range of approaches, however, differing notably in relation to timing and involvement of stakeholders in the design process. The inclusion of stakeholders in the design process might alter the usual notion of authorship as well as ownership or appropriation of these models. In this paper we address the issue of ownership of participatory-designed models through examples that have been investigated in the FIRMA project, and through discussion on timing and level of involvement of stakeholders in the design process. The issue of ownership of models itself has to be explained because it is made up of several property regimes. As far as models are concerned these various facets of ownership are: authorship, allowance of use, permission to modify, responsibility for content, responsibility for use, control of access, control of use, and defining the proper use of models. If these facets of ownership are not properly defined, this may generate several types of conflict or under-use of the model. Technological control and legal control are the current ways of dealing with this issue of ownership through passwords, licenses, software agreements, specific interfaces, etc. Their translation to participatory-designed models may not be easy since there is a required dispersal of the model among participants, and any form of appropriation of the result by only one party of the participatory process might be difficult to justify. Participatory modelling (PM) is, however, also paving the way for a third way of dealing with this issue of model ownership through the development of mutual appropriation of the model: i.e. through a thorough and pragmatic knowledge of the model. This third way is analysed through three case studies of PM, all within the frame of the FIRMA project. PM in itself is not sufficient to make 2 this third way enforceable. The issue of timing and level of involvement of stakeholders in design and use has to be considered. Ownership of models is the result of this pattern of interactions among stakeholders (including scientists) mediated by the model itself. Résumé La modélisation participative est de plus en plus fréquente, étendant le concept de participation à l'activité de modélisation. Elle utilise une large gamme d'approches, se différentiant par le niveau et le temps d'implication des acteurs. L'inclusion des acteurs dans la conception altère les notions usuelles de propriété et d'appropriation. Dans cette communication nous nous intéressons à la question de l'appropriation de modèles conçus de manière participative dans le même contexte du projet de recherche FIRMA, via une discussion du niveau et du phasage de l'implication des acteurs. L'appropriation des modèles est discutée selon plusieurs dimensions : droits d'auteur, droits d'usage, droits de modification, responsabilité vis-à-vis du contenu, contrôle d'accès et définition des conditions d'usage. SI ces différentes dimensions ne sont pas correctement appréhendées cela peut amener à des situations de conflit ou de sous emploi des modèles produits dans des démarches participatives. Le contrôle technologique ou légal sont les moyens courant actuels pour traiter cette question sur les modèles produits de manière classique. Leur traduction pour des modèles produits de manière participative est difficile du fait de la distribution des droits et responsabilités perçus. La modélisation participative propose une troisième voie vie une appropriation mutuelle des modèles ainsi produits, impliquant une connaissance profonde et pragmatique de ces modèles. Nous analysons cette troisième voie au travers d'une comparaison des études de cas du projet Firma. L'appropriation des modèles et le résultat de processus d'interactions entre les différents acteurs (inclus les modélisateurs), via l'intermédiaire du modèle lui-même

Flood risk perceptions and spatial multi-criteria analysis: an exploratory research for hazard mitigation

The conventional method of risk analysis (with risk as a product of probability and consequences) does not allow for a pluralistic approach that includes the various risk perceptions of stakeholders or lay people within a given social system. This article introduces a methodology that combines the virtues of three different methods: the quantifiable conventional approach to risk; the taxonomic analysis of perceived risk; and the analytical framework of a spatial multi-criteria analysis. This combination of methods is applied to the case study ‘Ebro Delta’ in Spain as part of the European sixth framework project ‘Floodsite’. First, a typology for flood hazards is developed based on individual and/or stakeholders’ judgements. Awareness, worry and preparedness are the three characteristics that typify a community to reflect various levels of ignorance, perceived security, perceived control or desired risk reduction. Applying ‘worry’ as the central characteristic, a trade-off is hypothesized between Worry and the benefits groups in society receive from a risky situation. Second, this trade-off is applied in Spatial Multi-Criteria Analysis (SMCA). MCA is the vehicle that often accompanies participatory processes, where governmental bodies have to decide on issues in which local stakeholders have a say. By using risk perception-scores as weights in a standard MCA procedure a new decision framework for risk assessment is developed. Finally, the case of sea-level rise in the Ebro Delta in Spain serves as an illustration of the applied methodology. Risk perception information has been collected with help of an on-site survey. Risk perception enters the multi-criteria analysis as complementary weights for the criteria risk and benefit. The results of the survey are applied to a set of scenarios representing both sea-level rise and land subsidence for a time span of 50 years. Land use alternatives have been presented to stakeholders in order to provide the regional decision maker with societal preferences for handling risk. Even with limited resources a characteristic ‘risk profile’ could be drawn that enables the decision maker to develop a suitable land use policy

Model Designed Through Participatory Processes: Whose Model is It?

Participatory modelling is increasing steadily in importance because of opportunities to obtain new; kinds of information, perspectives on validation and implementation of social learning. The concept of participation is spreading towards modelling processes. It uses a wide range of approaches, however, differing notably in relation to timing and involvement of stakeholders in the design process. The inclusion of stakeholders in the design process might alter the usual notion of authorship as well as ownership or appropriation of these models. In this paper we address the issue of ownership of participatory-designed models through examples that have been investigated in the FIRMA project, and through discussion on timing and level of involvement of stakeholders in the design process. The issue of ownership of models itself has to be explained because it is made up of several property regimes. As far as models are concerned these various facets of ownership are: authorship, allowance of use, permission to modify, responsibility for content, responsibility for use, control of access, control of use, and defining the proper use of models. If these facets of ownership are not properly defined, this may generate several types of conflict or under-use of the model. Technological control and legal control are the current ways of dealing with this issue of ownership through passwords, licenses, software agreements, specific interfaces, etc. Their translation to participatory-designed models may not be easy since there is a required dispersal of the model among participants, and any form of appropriation of the result by only one party of the participatory process might be difficult to justify. Participatory modelling (PM) is, however, also paving the way for a third way of deal..

Simulating Stakeholder Support in a Policy Process: An Application to River Management

The authors present an agent-based model representing a policy process among stakeholders of river management. For evaluating the different river management alternatives, the agent-based model is coupled to an integrated river model that describes the impacts of river management, such as flood risk, nature development, and costs. The model is applied to the case of the ongoing Dutch river management project "Grensmaas." The authors analyze stakeholder support and reconstruct the observed policy outcomes of the Grensmaas project over the past 15 years to provide a first validation of the model. They then assess how stakeholder support and the policy outcome might change when stakeholders would change their preference structures or take climate change into account. They argue that the main virtue of the developed modeling framework lies in its application within participatory processes, to support stakeholders to reflect on their goals and uncertainty perspectives in a social context