DMUU: Household Decision Making Under Uncertainty

这个项目的中心论题是，不确定性下的家庭决策在一个复杂的人与环境相互作用的系统中发挥作用，许多社会经济、政策和制度力量也在发挥作用。将举办两个研讨会，将一些社会科学家、生态学家、建模师和其他从事气候预测和遥感工作的人聚集在一起，以更好地了解全球几个地点关于不确定情况下决策的已知情况。这些讲习班将成为同行评议出版物中一篇或多篇综合论文的基础。这些讲习班的结果还将作为制定在环境和社会经济因素范围内分析决策的一般方法的基础。项目负责人将制定一项综合研究计划，以1)综合北美、亚马逊、非洲和中亚等世界各地与气候多变性有关的家庭模式和决策过程的已知情况；2)收集综合所需的数据；3)开发或调整基于社会经济主体的家庭模型，并将其与生态系统模型联系起来，以测试将气候多变性和气候变化与决策及其对人和生态系统的影响和后果联系起来的假设；4)为学生、研究人员和决策者举办一系列讲习班、研讨会和培训课程。关注家庭和社区行为的研究很重要，因为正是在这一层面上，才能对气候变异性做出根本决定。它也是气候变化和变化感受最直接和最严重的地方，也是人们最容易受到气候扰动影响的地方。该项目将提炼当前关于家庭决策、不确定性和变化的知识。综合计划将概述将这些知识转化为改进决策所需的手段和方法。以该计划为基础的未来工作将推进方法学前沿，将基于主体的建模、生态模型、地理信息系统和遥感结合起来，以开发气候多变和变化下的决策情景。将开发工具和手段，向国家和国际各级的许多利益攸关方传播信息。研究结果将对家庭和各级社会组织和机构的决策者加强各地人类社区的可持续性具有重要意义。这一发展奖作为2003财政年度人类和社会动力优先领域不确定性决策特别竞赛的一部分得到支持。

The central thesis to this project is that household decision making under uncertainty functions within a complex system of human-environment interactions with many socio-economic, policy, and institutional forces also playing roles. Two workshops will be conducted that will bring together a number of social scientists, ecologists, modelers, and others working with climate forecasts and remote sensing to better understand what is known across several sites globally about decision making under uncertainty. These workshops will form the basis for one or more synthesis papers in peer-reviewed publications. The results of these workshops also will serve as the basis for the development of a general approach for analyzing decision making within the context of environmental and socio-economic factors. Project leaders will develop an integrative research plan to 1) synthesize what is known about household patterns and processes of decision making associated with climate variability from sites around the world including North America, Amazonia, Africa, and Central Asia; 2) collect data where needed for the synthesis; 3) develop or adapt and link socio-economic agent-based household models to ecosystem models to test hypotheses that relate climate variability and climate change to decision making and the impacts and consequences they have on people and ecosystems, and; 4) develop a series of workshops, seminars, and training sessions for students, researchers, and decision makers. Research that focuses on household and community behavior is important because it is at that level where fundamental decisions are made regarding climate variability. It is also the place where climate variability and change is felt most directly and severely and where people are most vulnerable to climate perturbations. The project will refine current knowledge about household decision making, uncertainty, and change. The integrative plans will outline the means and methods necessary to translate this knowledge into improved decision making. Future work building on this plan will advance methodological frontiers by coupling agent-based modeling, ecological models, GIS, and remote sensing to develop scenarios of decision-making under climate variability and change. Tools will be developed and means to disseminate the information to the many stakeholders at many levels, both nationally and internationally. The results will be valuable for both households and decision makers at many levels of social organization and institutions to enhance the sustainability of human communities everywhere. This developmental award was supported as part of the Fiscal Year 2003 Human and Social Dynamics priority area special competition on Decision Making Under Uncertainty (DMUU).