Approaches
The lake problem has the ability to represent tipping points, nonlinearity, and deep uncertainties. It has been used to demonstrate new methods and software, including the EMA Workbench and OpenMORDM.
Methods applied include:
- Expected utility maximisation
- Robust decision making and many-objective robust decision making, optimising robustness with robustness metrics
- Known and uncertain model parameters and thresholds
- Representation of decision alternatives through "direct policy search", which optimises a state-aware control rule rather than the pollution releases themselves
Selected case studies
Carpenter SR, Ludwig D, Brock WA (1999) Management of eutrophication of lakes subject to potentially irreversible change. Ecological Applications, 9 (751), p. 771. doi: 10.1890/1051-0761(1999)009[0751:MOEFLS]2.0.CO;2
Peterson GD, Carpenter SR, Brock WA (2003) Uncertainty and the management of multistate ecosystems: an apparently rational route to collapse. Ecology 84:1403-1411. doi:10.1890/0012-9658(2003)084[1403:UATMOM]2.0.CO;2
R.J. Lempert, M. Collins (2007) Managing the risk of uncertain threshold response: comparison of robust, optimum, and precautionary approaches. Risk Anal., 24 (4) (2007), pp. 1009-1026. doi:10.1111/j.1539-6924.2007.00940.x
Singh R, Reed PM, Keller K (2015) Many-objective robust decision making for managing an ecosystem with a deeply uncertain threshold response. Ecology and Society 20(3): 12. doi:10.5751/ES-07687-200312
Kwakkel JH (2017) The Exploratory Modeling Workbench: An open source toolkit for exploratory modeling, scenario discovery, and (multi-objective) robust decision making. Environmental Modelling & Software 96, 239–250. doi:10.1016/j.envsoft.2017.06.054
Hadka D, Herman JD, Reed PM, Keller K (2015) OpenMORDM: an open source framework for many objective robust decision making. Environ. Model. Softw., 74, pp. 114-129. doi:10.1016/j.envsoft.2015.07.014
Ward VL, Singh R, Reed PM, Keller K (2015) Confronting tipping points: can multi-objective evolutionary algorithms discover pollution control tradeoffs given environmental thresholds? Environ. Model. Softw., 73 (1) (2015), pp. 27-43. doi:10.1016/j.envsoft.2015.07.020
Quinn JD, Reed PM, Keller K (2017) Direct policy search for robust multi-objective management of deeply uncertain socio-ecological tipping points. Environmental Modelling & Software. 92: 125–141. doi:10.1016/j.envsoft.2017.02.017