Download or read book Decision Making under Deep Uncertainty written by Vincent A. W. J. Marchau and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-04-04 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book focuses on both the theory and practice associated with the tools and approaches for decisionmaking in the face of deep uncertainty. It explores approaches and tools supporting the design of strategic plans under deep uncertainty, and their testing in the real world, including barriers and enablers for their use in practice. The book broadens traditional approaches and tools to include the analysis of actors and networks related to the problem at hand. It also shows how lessons learned in the application process can be used to improve the approaches and tools used in the design process. The book offers guidance in identifying and applying appropriate approaches and tools to design plans, as well as advice on implementing these plans in the real world. For decisionmakers and practitioners, the book includes realistic examples and practical guidelines that should help them understand what decisionmaking under deep uncertainty is and how it may be of assistance to them. Decision Making under Deep Uncertainty: From Theory to Practice is divided into four parts. Part I presents five approaches for designing strategic plans under deep uncertainty: Robust Decision Making, Dynamic Adaptive Planning, Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways, Info-Gap Decision Theory, and Engineering Options Analysis. Each approach is worked out in terms of its theoretical foundations, methodological steps to follow when using the approach, latest methodological insights, and challenges for improvement. In Part II, applications of each of these approaches are presented. Based on recent case studies, the practical implications of applying each approach are discussed in depth. Part III focuses on using the approaches and tools in real-world contexts, based on insights from real-world cases. Part IV contains conclusions and a synthesis of the lessons that can be drawn for designing, applying, and implementing strategic plans under deep uncertainty, as well as recommendations for future work. The publication of this book has been funded by the Radboud University, the RAND Corporation, Delft University of Technology, and Deltares.

Download or read book Climate Change and Cities written by Cynthia Rosenzweig and published by . This book was released on 2018-03-29 with total page 855 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate Change and Cities bridges science-to-action for climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts in cities around the world.

Download or read book Flexibility in Engineering Design written by Richard De Neufville and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2011-08-12 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guide to using the power of design flexibility to improve the performance of complex technological projects, for designers, managers, users, and analysts. Project teams can improve results by recognizing that the future is inevitably uncertain and that by creating flexible designs they can adapt to eventualities. This approach enables them to take advantage of new opportunities and avoid harmful losses. Designers of complex, long-lasting projects—such as communication networks, power plants, or hospitals—must learn to abandon fixed specifications and narrow forecasts. They need to avoid the “flaw of averages,” the conceptual pitfall that traps so many designs in underperformance. Failure to allow for changing circumstances risks leaving significant value untapped. This book is a guide for creating and implementing value-enhancing flexibility in design. It will be an essential resource for all participants in the development and operation of technological systems: designers, managers, financial analysts, investors, regulators, and academics. The book provides a high-level overview of why flexibility in design is needed to deliver significantly increased value. It describes in detail methods to identify, select, and implement useful flexibility. The book is unique in that it explicitly recognizes that future outcomes are uncertain. It thus presents forecasting, analysis, and evaluation tools especially suited to this reality. Appendixes provide expanded explanations of concepts and analytic tools.

Download or read book Adaptation Policy Frameworks for Climate Change written by Ian Burton and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-11-15 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adaptation is a process by which individuals, communities and countries seek to cope with the consequences of climate change. The process of adaptation is not new; the idea of incorporating future climate risk into policy-making is. While our understanding of climate change and its potential impacts has become clearer, the availability of practical guidance on adaptation has not kept pace. The development of the Adaptation Policy Framework (APF) is intended to help provide the rapidly evolving process of adaptation policy-making with a much-needed roadmap. Ultimately, the purpose of the APF is to support adaptation processes to protect - and enhance - human well-being in the face of climate change. This volume will be invaluable for everyone working on climate change adaptation and policy-making.

Download or read book Confronting Climate Uncertainty in Water Resources Planning and Project Design written by Patrick A. Ray and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2015-08-20 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Confronting Climate Uncertainty in Water Resources Planning and Project Design describes an approach to facing two fundamental and unavoidable issues brought about by climate change uncertainty in water resources planning and project design. The first is a risk assessment problem. The second relates to risk management. This book provides background on the risks relevant in water systems planning, the different approaches to scenario definition in water system planning, and an introduction to the decision-scaling methodology upon which the decision tree is based. The decision tree is described as a scientifically defensible, repeatable, direct and clear method for demonstrating the robustness of a project to climate change. While applicable to all water resources projects, it allocates effort to projects in a way that is consistent with their potential sensitivity to climate risk. The process was designed to be hierarchical, with different stages or phases of analysis triggered based on the findings of the previous phase. An application example is provided followed by a descriptions of some of the tools available for decision making under uncertainty and methods available for climate risk management. The tool was designed for the World Bank but can be applicable in other scenarios where similar challenges arise.

Download or read book Climate Risk Informed Decision Analysis CRIDA written by Mendoza, Guillermo and published by UNESCO Publishing. This book was released on 2018-12-31 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Decision Making for the Net Zero Transformation Considerations and New Methodological Approaches written by Mark Workman and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2024-02-01 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Special edition compiled in partnership with Frontiers sponsored by the Clean Air Task Force. The realisation of Net Zero by 2050 will require the ability for strategy developers, operational planners and decision makers to better manage uncertainty, complexity and emergence. The application of the orthodox set of decision support tools and processes that have been used to explore deep decarbonisation options to 2050 have blinded decision makers to uncertainty, complexity and emergence. Tools have often been used which are inappropriate to the types of decisions being made – a competency which has been glaringly revealed during the C-19 Pandemic. This Frontiers Research Topic will highlight the need for an interdisciplinary, mixed methods approach bringing together insights from modelling, decision science, psychology, anthropology, and sociology to form a compendium of current best practice for decision making for the net zero transformation and new research frontiers. Develop greater awareness amongst policymakers, practitioners and academics as to the importance of: • Understanding the nature of uncertainty when dealing with problems associated with the Net Zero Energy System Transformation; • Increasing importance of deliberative processes to map different value sets beyond least cost; • Acknowledging that decision making under uncertainty requires competency-based training leading to a full appreciation of the tasks at hand. Suggested areas within scope are listed in points 1-12 below. Authors are free to choose specific areas of interest, and to combine these where useful. In general, it will be useful to consider practical application of [ideas], e.g • development of `Use Cases’ and `Decision Making Contexts’ may be useful, e.g. National Govt establishing its Carbon Budget; Institution setting up its investment portfolio. • understanding of how decisions are being made within different jurisdictions, political cultures, and types of organizations (public/private). What is the role of `Decision Context' i.e. organisational decision-making structures, cultures, the role of zeitgeist and dominant narratives, or the relation between academic expertise and policy-makers. 1. Decision making from an end-to-end perspective and the need to take a holistic and interdisciplinary perspective [Editorial Cover Article]. 2. Gap between what policy makers and decision makers around net zero climate policy seek to address and what decision support tools can actually do. Why that gap is increasing (if it is)? 3. Understanding the nature of uncertainty when applying the relevant decision support tool and processes. Not all uncertainty can be addressed within the decision support tool itself. Role of optimism bias; potential role of least worst regret approaches etc 4. What different decision support tools can inform decision makers around net zero climate policy and need for a basket of tools. 5. Why parametric decision support tools and models are pre-eminent - the role of consolidative modelling and exploratory modelling. The inertia of modelling approaches: why it is so hard to break modelling paradigms? 6. What decision science informs us about how decisions are actually made - the importance of process, the role of transparency and deliberation with analysis. 7. Processes that address the biases identified in decision science and impact of identity politics on deliberative decision making. 8. Why decision making under deep uncertainty requires competency-based training, deep subject matter expertise and systemic knowledge. 9. Ministerial and policy making and the decision support requirements: US, EU, UK & China 10. The role of narratives and how uncertainty can be communicated to societal audiences. Storylines and other narrative approaches 11. How to develop participatory approaches allow multiple values, diversity of stakeholders in which climate communication and decision making exists in an iterative exchange with policy. We have started the journey e.g. the role of climate assemblies… what next? 12. Decision making under deep (climate) uncertainty by the financial sector We acknowledge the funding of the manuscripts published in this Research Topic by the Clean Air Task Force. We hereby state publicly that the Clean Air Task Force has had no editorial input in articles included in this Research Topic, thus ensuring that all aspects of this Research Topic are evaluated objectively, unbiased by any specific policy or opinion of the Clean Air Task Force.

Download or read book Sponge Cities Emerging Approaches Challenges and Opportunities written by Chris Zevenbergen and published by MDPI. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Sponge Cities: Emerging Approaches, Challenges and Opportunities" that was published in Water

Download or read book Climate Action written by Walter Leal Filho and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-11-10 with total page 900 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The problems related to the process of industrialisation such as biodiversity depletion, climate change and a worsening of health and living conditions, especially but not only in developing countries, intensify. Therefore, there is an increasing need to search for integrated solutions to make development more sustainable. The United Nations has acknowledged the problem and approved the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”. On 1st January 2016, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the Agenda officially came into force. These goals cover the three dimensions of sustainable development: economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection. The Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals comprehensively addresses the SDGs in an integrated way. It encompasses 17 volumes, each one devoted to one of the 17 SDGs. This volume addresses SDG 13, "Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts", and contains the description of a range of terms, which allows a better understanding and fosters knowledge. Climate change is a threat to development with unprecedented impacts. Urgent action to combat climate change and development of integrated strategies on climate change mitigation and adaptation and sustainable development are critical for a sustainable future. Concretely, the defined targets are: Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies and planning Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning Implement the commitment undertaken by developed-country parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to a goal of mobilizing jointly $100 billion annually from all sources to address the needs of developing countries in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation and fully operationalize the Green Climate Fund through its capitalization as soon as possible Promote mechanisms for raising capacity for effective climate change-related planning and management in least developed countries and small island developing states, including focusing on women, youth and local and marginalized communities Editorial Board Anabela Marisa AzulDragan NonicFederica DoniJeff BirchallLuis R. VieiraSilvia Serrao NeumannUlisses Azeiteiro/div

Download or read book Climate Change Adaptation in Practice written by Philipp Schmidt-Thome and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-04-17 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate change adaptation is increasingly recognized as complementary part to climate change mitigation. Climate change affects sea level, the extent of flood prone areas and precipitation patterns among many others. To adapt to these changes, the tasks of municipalities and cities are to implement policies and strategies for changes in land use and coastal management as part of their future development. It is of vital importance to address the uncertainties of climate change scenarios when proposing adaptation measures that are socially viable and economically reasonable. The decision making process, promoted here, is based on scientific excellence as well on an integrated communication process. This book provides a comprehensive overview of key elements required for effective analysis and assessment of climate change impacts, economic cost-benefit analysis, communication processes and creation and transfer of knowledge, governance issues and implementation of related policies. It describes the results achieved by the BaltCICA (www.baltcica.org) project whose contributors come from the scientific and public administration communities. The regional cooperation has led to the implementation of climate change adaptation in several case studies. The BaltCICA project developed concepts, methodologies and tools for climate change adaptation that can be translated across other global regions. Scientists and students working on the development of climate change and adaptation strategies; public administrators in the related fields on local, regional and state level including environment, water management, civil defense; as well as professionals working with adaptation technologies, including engineering, technological solutions, urban planning agencies and construction, will value this innovative book.

Download or read book The Singapore Water Story written by Cecilia Tortajada and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book describes the journey of Singapore ́s development and the fundamental role that water has had in shaping it. What makes this case so unique is that the quest for self-sufficiency in terms of water availability in a fast-changing urban context has been crucial to the way development policies and agendas have been planned throughout the years.

Download or read book Shock Waves written by Stephane Hallegatte and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2015-11-23 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ending poverty and stabilizing climate change will be two unprecedented global achievements and two major steps toward sustainable development. But the two objectives cannot be considered in isolation: they need to be jointly tackled through an integrated strategy. This report brings together those two objectives and explores how they can more easily be achieved if considered together. It examines the potential impact of climate change and climate policies on poverty reduction. It also provides guidance on how to create a “win-win†? situation so that climate change policies contribute to poverty reduction and poverty-reduction policies contribute to climate change mitigation and resilience building. The key finding of the report is that climate change represents a significant obstacle to the sustained eradication of poverty, but future impacts on poverty are determined by policy choices: rapid, inclusive, and climate-informed development can prevent most short-term impacts whereas immediate pro-poor, emissions-reduction policies can drastically limit long-term ones.

Download or read book Pathways to Urban Sustainability written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2016-11-11 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cities have experienced an unprecedented rate of growth in the last decade. More than half the world's population lives in urban areas, with the U.S. percentage at 80 percent. Cities have captured more than 80 percent of the globe's economic activity and offered social mobility and economic prosperity to millions by clustering creative, innovative, and educated individuals and organizations. Clustering populations, however, can compound both positive and negative conditions, with many modern urban areas experiencing growing inequality, debility, and environmental degradation. The spread and continued growth of urban areas presents a number of concerns for a sustainable future, particularly if cities cannot adequately address the rise of poverty, hunger, resource consumption, and biodiversity loss in their borders. Intended as a comparative illustration of the types of urban sustainability pathways and subsequent lessons learned existing in urban areas, this study examines specific examples that cut across geographies and scales and that feature a range of urban sustainability challenges and opportunities for collaborative learning across metropolitan regions. It focuses on nine cities across the United States and Canada (Los Angeles, CA, New York City, NY, Philadelphia, PA, Pittsburgh, PA, Grand Rapids, MI, Flint, MI, Cedar Rapids, IA, Chattanooga, TN, and Vancouver, Canada), chosen to represent a variety of metropolitan regions, with consideration given to city size, proximity to coastal and other waterways, susceptibility to hazards, primary industry, and several other factors.

Download or read book Climate Change and Cities written by Cynthia Rosenzweig and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-04-28 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Urban areas are home to over half the world's people and are at the forefront of the climate change issue. The need for a global research effort to establish the current understanding of climate change adaptation and mitigation at the city level is urgent. To meet this goal a coalition of international researchers - the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN) - was formed at the time of the C40 Large Cities Climate Summit in New York in 2007. This book is the First UCCRN Assessment Report on Climate Change and Cities. The authors are all international experts from a diverse range of cities with varying socio-economic conditions, from both the developing and developed world. It is invaluable for mayors, city officials and policymakers; urban sustainability officers and urban planners; and researchers, professors and advanced students.

Download or read book Climate Risk in Africa written by Declan Conway and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-01-19 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book highlights the complexities around making adaptation decisions and building resilience in the face of climate risk. It is based on experiences in sub-Saharan Africa through the Future Climate For Africa (FCFA) applied research programme. It begins by dealing with underlying principles and structures designed to facilitate effective engagement about climate risk, including the robustness of information and the construction of knowledge through co-production. Chapters then move on to explore examples of using climate information to inform adaptation and resilience through early warning, river basin development, urban planning and rural livelihoods based in a variety of contexts. These insights inform new ways to promote action in policy and praxis through the blending of knowledge from multiple disciplines, including climate science that provides understanding of future climate risk and the social science of response through adaptation. The book will be of interest to advanced undergraduate students and postgraduate students, researchers, policy makers and practitioners in geography, environment, international development and related disciplines.

Download or read book Resilient Urban Futures written by Zoé A. Hamstead and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book addresses the way in which urban and urbanizing regions profoundly impact and are impacted by climate change. The editors and authors show why cities must wage simultaneous battles to curb global climate change trends while adapting and transforming to address local climate impacts. This book addresses how cities develop anticipatory and long-range planning capacities for more resilient futures, earnest collaboration across disciplines, and radical reconfigurations of the power regimes that have institutionalized the disenfranchisement of minority groups. Although planning processes consider visions for the future, the editors highlight a more ambitious long-term positive visioning approach that accounts for unpredictability, system dynamics and equity in decision-making. This volume brings the science of urban transformation together with practices of professionals who govern and manage our social, ecological and technological systems to design processes by which cities may achieve resilient urban futures in the face of climate change.

Download or read book Drawdown written by Paul Hawken and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-04-18 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: • New York Times bestseller • The 100 most substantive solutions to reverse global warming, based on meticulous research by leading scientists and policymakers around the world “At this point in time, the Drawdown book is exactly what is needed; a credible, conservative solution-by-solution narrative that we can do it. Reading it is an effective inoculation against the widespread perception of doom that humanity cannot and will not solve the climate crisis. Reported by-effects include increased determination and a sense of grounded hope.” —Per Espen Stoknes, Author, What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming “There’s been no real way for ordinary people to get an understanding of what they can do and what impact it can have. There remains no single, comprehensive, reliable compendium of carbon-reduction solutions across sectors. At least until now. . . . The public is hungry for this kind of practical wisdom.” —David Roberts, Vox “This is the ideal environmental sciences textbook—only it is too interesting and inspiring to be called a textbook.” —Peter Kareiva, Director of the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, UCLA In the face of widespread fear and apathy, an international coalition of researchers, professionals, and scientists have come together to offer a set of realistic and bold solutions to climate change. One hundred techniques and practices are described here—some are well known; some you may have never heard of. They range from clean energy to educating girls in lower-income countries to land use practices that pull carbon out of the air. The solutions exist, are economically viable, and communities throughout the world are currently enacting them with skill and determination. If deployed collectively on a global scale over the next thirty years, they represent a credible path forward, not just to slow the earth’s warming but to reach drawdown, that point in time when greenhouse gases in the atmosphere peak and begin to decline. These measures promise cascading benefits to human health, security, prosperity, and well-being—giving us every reason to see this planetary crisis as an opportunity to create a just and livable world.