Shared Vision Planning
Home: What Is Shared Vision Planning?
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Current Initiatives in Shared Vision Planning at IWR
Shared Vision Planning Tools and Techniques
Shared Vision Planning Methods
Shared Vision Planning Models
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Historical and Current Case Studies Illustrating the Shared Vision Planning Approach
References about Shared Vision Planning
Training in Shared Vision Planning Methods and Models
Computer Aided Dispute Resolution (CADRe) Partners
Institute for Water Resources, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Institute for Water Resources U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Resources

Risks and Uncertainties

Risk is the possibility of something bad happening.  Water resources planning and management is the art of designing solutions now that are expected to produce the best outcomes from water systems in the future, even though we cannot know what the future will be like.  We estimate those future effects by modeling the current system and extrapolating from what has happened in the past.

The simplest water resources studies project one future and accept all historic data as true and representative of the future.  But study recommendations can change if the future is different from our projections, or the true historic data were used in place of erroneously measured or recorded data, or if the historic data is not characteristic of future data.  All shared vision studies must assess the risks inherent in study recommendations, including considering how sensitive study recommendations are to study data, assumptions, and projections.

In some cases, this assessment can be simple and inexpensive.  In other cases, only sophisticated techniques will demonstrate how risky a proposed plan is.  As risk assessment techniques get more complicated, they also tend to get harder to explain and understand. 

 

Reviewed 13 Feb 2009
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