Collaborative governance: a tool to manage scientific, administrative, and strategic uncertainties in environmental management?

Abstract

Although uncertainty is a fundamental feature and challenge of environmental governance, the literature on how policy makers and resource managers can act effectively under that uncertainty is scarce. The focus is on managing scientific uncertainty, a lack of knowledge about the causes or consequences of an environmental problem or decision, when many other types of uncertainty can have drastic effects on decision makers' ability to make timely, rational, or even satisficing decisions. Moreover, although suggestions on how to manage these uncertainties often revolve around collaborative governance, i.e., engaging scientists, decision makers, communities, and other stakeholders in joint decision making, collaboration is often framed as a one-size-fits-all approach. I aimed to broaden the conversation about collaboration as a tool for managing uncertainty, using a 4-year ethnographic study of a collaborative process to develop the operating license for a hydropower dam in California. Numerous types of uncertainties arose during the 4 years of negotiation, and these uncertainties often interacted in messy and hard-to-predict ways. Collaboration, especially creating the process and structure to openly discuss uncertainty, was an important tool for stakeholders to handle the uncertainties that arose, but it was insufficient to address all uncertainties. By exploring the many types of uncertainty that arose during negotiations, whether and how collaboration served to address these varieties of uncertainty, and how uncertainty affected the collaborative process, I aimed to add nuance to our understanding of when and where collaboration is a helpful tool for environmental decision makers.

Participatory planning for local sustainability guided by the Sustainable Development Goals

“…We had already engaged with the community using these types of methods but there appears to be less research investigating the results of engagements, for example what happens once the information has been compiled into a plan. Evaluation does take place but it is more often a type of "metaevaluation," where the participants are asked to evaluate the process rather than the results (e.g., Kok et al 2011, Cradock-Henry et al 2017, Ulibarri 2019. Our method effectively repurposed the scientific peer review process by casting the community and external stakeholders as the expert reviewers.…”

The Effect of Risk and Uncertainty Factors on Managerial Decision Making

“…Uncertainty: Uncertainty is a difficult term; it is the subject of study across various controls and, thusly, needs normal binding together qualities (Ulibarri, 2019). The Oxford English Dictionary characterizes uncertainty, fairly repetitiously, as "the nature of being dubious in regard of span, continuation, event, and so on; risk to the possibility or mishap … the nature of being vague as to greatness or worth.…”

“…The condition of not being unquestionably known or clear; suspiciousness or ambiguity." At its generally fundamental, uncertainty is accordingly a nonappearance of information about a subject (Ulibarri, 2019). Much consideration goes toward lessening logical uncertainty, into attempting to more readily show or foresee the connection between pertinent segments in a framework: If we increment stream streams, will this expansion salmon territory?…”

“…Much consideration goes toward lessening logical uncertainty, into attempting to more readily show or foresee the connection between pertinent segments in a framework: If we increment stream streams, will this expansion salmon territory? An absence of information may likewise emerge about the principles and guidelines that shape what chiefs can do, known as managerial or institutional uncertainty (Ulibarri, 2019).…”

“…This is a focal issue for New Keynesian business analysts (Mankiw and Romer, 1991a;Mankiw and Romer, 1991b). Also stochastic, genuinely unusual uncertainty for example sudden changes of government, enormous scope natural aggravations, or war, can influence the setting wherein dynamic happens (Ulibarri, 2019) and uncover a set-up of new unanswered inquiries (Ulibarri, 2019). These uncertainties can influence the quality and results of dynamic uncertainty lead individuals to settle on unreasonable choices (Holanda et al, 2018), and support narrow-minded conduct (Barrett and Dannenberg 2014).…”