No abstract

In this article, the authors address the challenge of including societal responses, society-environment interactions, discontinuity, and surprise in environmental scenario analysis. They do so through developing and testing a perspective-based simulation game for a typical Dutch river stretch. Concepts deriving from Cultural Theory, the Advocacy Coalition Framework, and Transition Theory provide the input for the game design. Players take on the role of water managers, responding to events and developments in the water-society system under specific realizations of a climate scenario. Responses include the choice for specific river management options, changing coalition perspectives, and changes in advocacy coalition membership. A pilot case study shows that the simulation game is a useful tool to explore possible future river management dynamics. It generates relevant insights in the water management strategies that may be chosen under future conditions, the possible drivers underlying future societal perspective change, and the way advocacy coalitions may interact. As such, the simulation game offers great potential for developing and assessing policy relevant climate adaptation pathways, in which water-society interaction, discontinuity, and surprise is taken explicitly into account. The main challenges for future research Article at GEORGIAN COURT UNIV on March 31, 2015 sag.sagepub.com Downloaded from

ABSTRACT. Pilot projects appear in many forms in policy making and management. In an effort to understand the nature and use of pilot projects and improve their effectiveness, we undertake a practicebased and theoretical study of the pilot project phenomenon. First, we examine the roles assigned to pilot projects in the policy development literature and explore their use in a Dutch water innovation platform. Second, we determine characteristics of pilot projects to deepen insights into the nature of the pilot project phenomenon and the dimensions useful in the design of pilot projects. Third, we identify three pilot types and nine ways to use a pilot project and we develop a Pilot Project Nonagon that can be used to assess pilot projects' uses and to compare stakeholders' perspectives on these uses. Fourth, we identify hurdles to diffusion of the knowledge developed from pilot projects and suggest strategies to overcome these. Lastly, we formulate a research agenda aimed at addressing the identified knowledge gaps.

Pilot projects are policy instruments mainly applied to introduce or test new practices, concepts or technologies. Pilot projects can lead to a broader policy transition. However, the diffusion process associated with the pilot projects is not well understood. In this paper, we investigate the diffusion of pilot projects, focusing on the nature of the diffusion (the innovation itself, cooperation, methodologies or institutional designs), the channels of diffusion (internal and external) and the patterns of diffusion (dissemination, expansion and institutionalisation). The analytical framework developed for pilot project diffusion is applied to the Saldanha Bay project in South Africa, yielding additional insights on the functioning of the pilot, its contribution to the diffusion of the innovation and so to a policy transition in South African coastal zone management. Finally, we identify types of pilot project and the accompanying design choices that are most suitable for transition management.