HR: 13:45h
AN: U43C-01    [Abstracts]
TI: Communicating Uncertainty as Multiple Competing Hypotheses
AU: * Beven, K J
EM: k.beven@lancaster.ac.uk
AF: Lancaster University, Environmental Science/Lancaster Environment Centre , Lancaster, LA1 4YQ United Kingdom
AU: Pappenberger, F
EM: f.pappenberger@lancaster.ac.uk
AF: Lancaster University, Environmental Science/Lancaster Environment Centre , Lancaster, LA1 4YQ United Kingdom
AU: Freer, J
EM: j.freer@lancaster.ac.uk
AF: Lancaster University, Environmental Science/Lancaster Environment Centre , Lancaster, LA1 4YQ United Kingdom
AB: Public policy and decision making requires predictions about what will happen to the environment at a variety of time and space scales under different scenarios. For many reasons reductionist science fails in environmental prediction at the scales of interest. For many reasons, statistical estimates of uncertainty fail in environmental prediction at the scales of interest. One result of this is evident in the literature: for many environmental prediction problems there are many competing models, which we know are not correct (there is model structural error), but many of which are declared successful by their parent modellers after some form of calibration process. It is often difficult to differentiate between these models as a result of uncertainties in inputs, boundary conditions, parameter values and errors and commensurability issues in calibration data, as well as the model structural error. This makes communicating the results of model predictions difficult, especially competing model results. An approach to model evaluation and uncertainty communication based on the acceptance of multiple competing models as hypotheses of how the system of interest works will be described, with examples from hydrology and hydraulics.
DE: 1873 Uncertainty assessment (3275)
DE: 6309 Decision making under uncertainty
SC: Union [U]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005