Abstracts
Uncertainties about climate and nexus issues stimulate new thinking about water planning. Building resilience involves the capacity to look ahead, ask “what if” questions about the future, remain flexible in the face of uncertainty, and seek out policies that provide good outcomes no matter what the future climate brings in terms of water impacts. This chapter introduces the idea of wicked problems characterized by uncertainty, complexity, and controversy. Decision Making Under Uncertainty (DMUU) strategies are appropriate for managing wicked problems. The shift to DMUU in the water sector involves a paradigm change because it calls for new modeling strategies, a new role for science in water planning, public engagement, knowledge mobilization, and learning to live with uncertainty.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Abbott, David R. 2000. Ceramics and Community Organization among the Hohokam. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press.
Abel, Nick, Russell Wise, Matthew Colloff, Brian Walker, James Bulter, Paul Ryan, Chris Normal et al. “Building Resilient Pathways to Transformation When No One Is in Charge: Insights from Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin,” Ecology and Society 21(2) (2016): 23. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-08422-210223. Accessed June 22 2017.
Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity. 2017. “Population Projections.” https://population.az.gov/population-projections. Accessed September 28 2017.
Bankes, Steve. 1993. “Exploratory Modeling for Policy Analysis.” Operations Research 41(3): 435–449.
Brandt, Leslie A., David J. Nowak, Allison R. Bodine, Andrew Bell, Shannon Still, Patricia R. Butler, Andrea Dierich, Stephen D. Handler, Maria K. Janowiak, Stephan N. Matthews, Jason W. Miesbauer, Matthew Peters, Anantha Prasad, P. Danielle Shannon, Douglas Stotz, and Christopher W. Swanston. 2017 “Chicago Wilderness Region Urban Forest Vulnerability Assessment and Synthesis: A Report from the Urban Forestry Climate Change Response Framework Chicago Wilderness Pilot Project.” U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station General Technical Report NRS-168. https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch-beta/pubs/54128. Accessed June 22 2017.
Chang, Heejun, G. Hossein Parandvash, and Vivek Shandas. 2010. “Spatial Variations of Single Family Residential Water Use in Portland, Oregon.” Urban Geography 31: 953–972.
City of Phoenix Water Service Department. 2014. “Water Production and Water Use: 1990–2013.” Obtained through public record request.
City of Tucson. 2017. “About Tucson Water (Part Two).” https://www.tucsonaz.gov/water/about-us-2. Accessed June 18 2017.
Colorado River Water Users Association. 2017. “Law of the River: The Colorado River Compact.” https://www.crwua.org/colorado-river/uses/law-of-the-river. Accessed September 23 2017.
Cook, Benjamin I., Toby R. Ault, and Jason E. Smerdon. 2015. Unprecedented 21st Century Drought Risk in the American Southwest and Central Plains. Science Advances, 1(1): https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1400082. http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400082. Accessed June 23 2017.
Glionna, John M. 2014. “Drought—And Neighbors—Press Las Vegas to Conserve Water.” Los Angeles Times, April 20, 2014. http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-las-vegas-drought-20140421-story.html. Accessed August 16 2017.
Gober, Patricia. 2006. Metropolitan Phoenix: Place Making and Community Building in the Desert. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Gober Patricia, Craig Kirkwood, Robert C. Balling Jr., Andrew W. Ellis, and Stephanie S. Detrick. 2010. “Water Planning under Climatic Uncertainty in Phoenix: Why We Need a New Paradigm.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 100(2): 357–372.
Gober, Patricia, Elizabeth A. Wentz, Tim Lant, Michael K. Tschudi, and Craig Kirkwood. 2011. “WaterSim: A Simulation Model for Urban Water Planning in Phoenix, Arizona, USA.” Environment and Planning B 38(2): 197–215.
Gober, Patricia, Ray Quay, and Kelli L. Larson. 2016a. “Outdoor Water Use as an Adaptation Problem: Insights from North American Cities.” Water Resources Management 30(3): 899–912.
Gober, Patricia, David A. Sampson, Ray Quay, Dave D. White, Winston T. L. Chow. 2016b. “Urban Adaptation to Mega-drought: Anticipatory Water Modeling, Policy, and Planning for the Urban Southwest.” Sustainable Cities and Society 27 (2016): 497–504.
Head, Brian. 2010. “Wicked Problems in Water Governance: Paradigm Changes to Promote Water Sustainability and Address Planning Uncertainty.” Urban Water Security Technical Alliance, Technical Report No. 38. http://www.urbanwateralliance.org.au/publications/UWSRA-tr38.pdf. Accessed May 29 2017.
House-Peters, Lily, Benjamin Pratt, and Heejun Chang. 2010. “Effects of Urban Spatial Structure, Sociodemographics, and Climate on Residential Water Consumption in Hillsboro, Oregon.” Journal of the American Water Resources Association 46(3): 461–472.
Kahn, Herman. 1984. Thinking the Unthinkable in the 1980s. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Larson, Kelli L., Amber Wutich, Dave White, Tischa A. Munoz-Erickson, and Sharon L. 2011a. “Multifaceted Perspectives on Water Risks and Policies: A Cultural Domains Approach in a Southwestern City.” Human Ecology Review 18(1), 75–87.
Larson, Kelli L., Dorothy C. Ibes, and Dave D. White. 2011b. Water Risks and Policy Strategies: A Tripartite Conceptual Approach? Environment and Behavior 43(3): 415–438.
Lempert, Robert J., and Michael E. Schlesinger. 2000. “Robust Strategies for Abating Climate Change.” Climatic Change, 45(3–4): 387–401.
Lempert, Robert J., Steven W. Popper, and Steven C. Bankes. 2003. Shaping the Next One Hundred Years: New Methods of Quantitative, Long-term Policy Analysis. Santa Monica, CA: Rand.
Luckingham, Bradford. 1989. Phoenix: The History of a Southwestern Metropolis. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press.
Meko, David M., Connie A. Woodhouse, Christopher A. Baisan, Troy Knight, Jeffrey J. Lukas, Malcolm K. Hughes, and Matthew W. Salzer. 2007. “Medieval Drought in the Upper Colorado River Basin.” Geophysical Research Letters 34 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2007GL029988/epdf. Accessed September 23 2017.
Millar, Constance I., Nathan L. Stephenson, and Scott L. Stephens. 2007. “Climate Change and Forests of the Future: Managing in the Face of Uncertainty.” Ecological Applications 17: 2145–2151.
Murray-Darling Basin Authority. 2010. “Guide to the Proposed Plan, Volume 2: Technical Background.” https://www.mdba.gov.au/sites/default/files/archived/guide_pbp/Guide-to-proposed-BP-vol2-0-12.pdf. Accessed June 23 2017.
Murray-Darling Basin Authority. 2017. “2017 Basin Plan Evaluation.” https://www.mdba.gov.au/basin-plan-roll-out/2017-basin-plan-evaluation. Accessed March 2 2018.
Neel, Rebecca, Edward Sadalla, Anna Berlin, Susan Ledlow, and Samantha Neufeld. 2014. “The Social Symbolism of Water-conserving Landscaping.” Journal of Environmental Psychology 40: 49–56.
Quiggin, John. 2011. “Managing Risk in the Murray-Darling Basin,” In Basin Futures “Water Reform in the Murray-Darling Basin,” edited by D. Connell and R. Q. Grafton, 313–326. Canberra: Australia National University E-Press.
Redman, Charles L. 1999. Human Impacts on Ancient Environment. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Sampson, D. A., Escobar, V., Tschudi, M. K., Lant, T., and Gober, P. 2011. “A Provider-based Water Planning and Management Model WaterSim 4.0 for the Phoenix Metropolitan Area.” Journal of Environmental Management, 92: 2596–2610.
Sampson, D. A., Quay, R., and White, D. D. 2016. “Anticipatory Modeling for Sustainability in Phoenix.” Environmental Science & Policy 55: 36–46.
San Francisco Indicator Project. 2014. “Water Use.” http://www.sfindicatorproject.org/indicators/view/3. Accessed June 23 2017.
Shandas, Vivek, and G. Hossein Parandvash. 2010. “Integrating Urban Form and Demographics in Water Demand Management: An Empirical Case Study of Portland Oregon (US).” Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 37: 112–128.
Southern Nevada Water Authority. 2015. “Water Resource Plan 2015.” https://www.snwa.com/assets/pdf/wr_plan.pdf. Accessed June 23 2017.
Stein, Bruce A., Amanda Staudt, Molly S. Cross, Natalie S. Dubois, Carolyn Enquist, Roger Griffis, Lara J. Hansen, Jessica J. Hellmann, Joshua J. Lawler, Erik J. Nelson, and Amber Pairis. 2013. “Preparing for and Managing Change: Climate Adaptation for Biodiversity and Ecosystems.” Frontiers of Ecological Environment 11((9): 502–510.
US Bureau of the Census. 2006. Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2006 (125th Edition). “Large Metropolitan Statistical Areas, 1990–2005.” https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2005/compendia/statab/125ed.html. Accessed June 22 2017.
US Bureau of the Census. 2016. “Annual Estimates of the Resident Population: April 1 2010 to April 1, 2016.” iiihttps://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=PEP_2016_PEPANNRES&src=pt. Accessed September 23 2017.
US Department of Interior, Bureau of Reclamation. 2007. “Colorado River Interim Guidelines for Lower Basin Shortages and the Coordinated Operations for Lake Powell and Lake Mead.” https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/programs/strategies/RecordofDecision.pdf. Accessed September 23 2017.
Wahlquist, Åsa. 2011. “The Media and the Guide to the Basin Plan.” Water Reform in the Murray-Darling Basin, edited by D. Connell and R. Q. Grafton, 115–134. Canberra, Australia: Australia National University E Press.
Weir, Jessica K. 2011. “Water Planning and Dispossession.” In Basin Futures “Water Reform in the Murray-Darling Basin,” edited by D. Connell and R. Q. Grafton, 179–192. Canberra, Australia: Australia National University E Press.
White, Dave D., Lauren Withycombe Keeler, Arnim Wiek, and Kelli L. Larson. 2015. “Envisioning the Future of Water Governance: A survey of Central Arizona Water Decision Makers.” Environmental Practice 17(1): (2015): 25–35.
Wiek, Arnim, Lauren W. Keeler, Vanessa Schweizer, and Daniel J. Lang. 2013. “Plausibility Indications in Future Scenarios.” International Journal of Foresight and Innovation Policy 9(2/3/4): 133–147.
Williams, John. 2011. “Understanding the Basin and its Dynamics,” In Basin Futures “Water Reform in the Murray-Darling Basin,” edited by D. Connell and R. Q. Grafton, 1-38 Canberra, Australia: Australia National University E Press.
Woodhouse, Connie A., David M. Meko, Glen M. MacDonald, Dave W. Stahle, and Edward R. Cook. 2010. “A 1,200-year Perspective of 21st Century Drought in Southwestern North America.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 170(50): 21283–21288.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Gober, P. (2018). Decision Making Under Uncertainty (DMUU). In: Building Resilience for Uncertain Water Futures. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71234-5_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71234-5_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-71233-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-71234-5
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)