Linking deliberative evaluation with integrated assessment and modelling: A methodological framework and its application to agricultural water management

Abstract Dealing jointly with both systemic and social complexity is a challenge that we face with sustainability issues. However, joining these two aspects of complexity is more a “post-normal science” call than an effective practice. Roughly speaking, analytical-systemic approaches focus on the complex-system side, while deliberative approaches deal with the multi-actor side. Our framework for evaluating different alternative actions, called the S2CE, is intended to reconcile the two approaches. It takes as premises: the recognition of plural values, which makes competing actions only weakly comparable; and the existence of irreducible uncertainties, which gives a heuristic status to the future. The framework hybridises an integrated assessment and modelling exercise, with a deliberative multi-criteria evaluation one, and concludes with a reflexive stage. Application to agricultural water management illustrates the strength of this cross-fertilization. First, the use of computer simulations has been found to enrich collective deliberation by helping stakeholders form and transform their value judgments, and by raising critical questions about options that appeared consensual. Second, the deliberative evaluation informed the integrated assessment and modelling by revealing some model limitations, along with the model’s unequal capacity to reflect the claims of different stakeholders.