Improving Understanding and Management of Uncertainty in Science-Informed Collaborative Policy Processes

Decision making in natural resource management must deal with uncertainty. This can be very challenging when there is high uncertainty in the system being managed, particularly when participatory processes are used that potentially involve a wide range of stakeholders with competing interests and values, and where technical resources are limited. In the first phase of the research, a formal review of how uncertainty was managed in a collaborative and community-centred policy process to set water quality and water quantity limits in the Selwyn Waihora catchment in New Zealand. Three recommendations for improvement were identified: (i) increase the transparency of the nature and level of uncertainty considered, (ii) expand the types or sources of uncertainty considered, and (iii) apply a systemic and systematic approach to identifying and prioritising uncertainties. In the second phase, this led to the development of a five-stage conceptual framework incorporating a number of steps and tools designed to facilitate understanding, communicating, and managing uncertainty. The framework was tested and refined using the data from the original Selwyn Waihora policy process. This paper describes our framework, which was found to support understanding, managing, and communicating uncertainty in collaborative processes tasked with developing new environmental policy, despite time and resource constraints.