A Dutch Perspective to Bridge Scientific DMDU Knowledge and Drinking Water Practice

Title: A Dutch Perspective to Bridge Scientific DMDU Knowledge and Drinking Water Practice

author(s): Joeri Willet¹, Peter van Thienen¹

affiliation(s): ¹KWR Water Research Institute, Nieuwegein, Netherlands

There is an emerging realization of the value of methods for decision making under deep uncertainty (DMDU) in the Dutch drinking water industry. However, we ascertain that there is a disconnect between science and practice which hinders effective adoption of DMDU methods, at least in the Dutch drinking water context. We identify that scientific research tends to focus on large scale/global sources of deep uncertainty (such as climate change and shifts human populations) and their potential impacts. Practitioners acknowledge the existence of these global uncertainties but tend to characterize small scale/local processes (such as stakeholder preferences) as deeply uncertainty. This disconnect between science and practice poses a challenge for effective adaptive planning, especially in a sector where historically the flexibility of solutions (infrastructure) has been low, and reveals the need for more efforts to disseminate DMDU as an approach for the uncertain future.

In the Netherlands DMDU approaches can be valuable to deal with the decreasing availability of water sources and reductions in water quality, both of which are subject to deep uncertainty. The interactions between multiple sectors and multiple sources of uncertainty should be considered, as confirmed by experts at drinking water companies. We therefore see DAPP-MR (Schlumberger et al., 2022) as a promising DMDU method in this context, which we are preparing to pilot. In addition we identify the need for effective collaboration processes which facilitate ‘joint fact finding’, ‘joint exploration’ and ‘joint decision making’ between stakeholders to move from traditional approaches towards DMDU approaches. In this contribution we will discuss the learning process we envision for this.       

Schlumberger, J., Haasnoot, M., de Ruiter, M., & Aerts, J. C. J. H. (2022). Towards a Disaster Risk Management Pathways Framework for Complex and Dynamic Multi-Risk: DAPP-MR. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4164233