Title | Tackling uncertainties in infrastructure sectors through strategic planning : the contribution of discursive approaches in the urban water sector |
Publication Type | Journal Article |
Year of Publication | 2011 |
Authors | Dominguez, D, Truffer, B, Gujer, W |
Pagination | p. 299 - 316; 1 tab.; 5 fig. |
Date Published | 2011-04-01 |
Publisher | International Water Association (IWA) |
Place Published | London, UK |
Keywords | decision making, decision support systems, infrastructure, urban areas |
Abstract | Several strategic planning approaches have been proposed for dealing with future uncertainties in the urban water infrastructure sector. We identify three well established perspectives that address uncertainties in strategic decisions: an adaptive perspective, focusing on an incremental adaptation of existing structures as a reaction to unforeseen developments, a modeling perspective, focusing on an improved characterization of future context conditions and a managerial perspective, focusing on increasing the flexibility of the infrastructure organization. Despite their virtues, these approaches have definite weaknesses in their approach to uncertainty: they often consider a restricted scope of alternatives, they face substantial difficulties in predicting context conditions over time periods of decades and often consider objectives and tradeoffs only implicitly. We elaborate and illustrate with a case study a fourth perspective that may compensate for these specific weaknesses and complement the established strategic planning approaches. This perspective is based on a discursive, qualitative assessment of key elements in the strategic planning process among a selected set of local stakeholders and decision makers. We maintain that this approach leads to a more explicit and reflexive treatment of future uncertainty, conflicting objectives and a broadening of the considered alternatives and therefore to a more robust decision-making process. [authors abstract] |
Notes | With bibliography on p. 314 - 316 |
Custom 1 | 205.40 |