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When it comes to conflicts over the allocation of freshwater supply, who bears the burden, at what cost, and at what scale are important questions. While science can contribute to resolution of certain water allocation disputes, more scientific certainty will not resolve most water allocation controversies. Water stress in Africa and in the Middle East—particularly in the Nile Basin—is likely to lead to a range of conflicts, not because there is not enough scientific information to go around, but for other reasons. Water stress is likely to emerge as an increasingly important concern because population growth, current allocation practices, unchecked demand, and underinvestment in infrastructure are not being appropriately addressed. An effective way to resolve water crisis is to reframe conflicting needs and uses of water as opportunities for joint decision-making about this shared resource. The authors use the Nile Basin to illustrate how such informal problem-solving and decision-making can be initiated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many water governance and management issues are complex. The complexity of these issues is related to crossing of multiple boundaries: political, social and jurisdictional, as well as physical, ecological and biogeochemical. Resolution of these issues usually requires interactions of many parties with conflicting values and interests operating across multiple boundaries and scales to make decisions. The interdependence and feedback among interacting variables, processes, actors and institutions are hard to model and difficult to forecast. Thus, decision-making related to complex water problems needs be contingent and adaptive. This paper draws on a number of ideas from complexity science and negotiation theory that may make it easier to cope with the complexities and difficulties of managing boundary crossing water disputes. It begins with the Water Diplomacy Framework that was developed and tested over the past several years. Then, it uses three key ideas from complexity science (interdependence and interconnectedness; uncertainty and feedback; emergence and adaptation) and three from negotiation theory (stakeholder identification and engagement; joint fact finding; and value creation through option generation) to show how application of these ideas can help enhance effectiveness of water management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's views on economist Howard Raiffa who is known for his contributions to both decision sciences and negotiation analysis. It mentions four concepts that Howard developed and its impact on the author which include post-settlement settlement, collaborative preparation of negotiation templates, full open truthful exchange versus partial open truthful exchange, and approaches to multiparty negotiation.

The article offers several insights from various individuals on the practice stories of planner-architect Laurence Sherman regarding the architects' design complexities and the participation of professional experts and multiple lay stakeholders. They say that the mediation and collaboration of experts and stakeholders are very important to make a consensus design plan of public buildings. Furthermore, people matter most in every participative experience and communications in decision-making.

In this article the author focuses on the significance of complexity science and collaborative decision making in business negotiations. In response to complexity science, it offers information on two books including "Planning With Complexity: An Introduction to Collaborative Rationality for Public Policy," by Judith Innes and David Booher, and "Complexity: A Guided Tour," by Melanie Mitchell.

The article discusses how consensus building approach can help achieve better public decision making in Ohio. It cites three problems to test the possible result of consensus building approach including the Majority Rule Problem, the Representation Problem and the Adversarial Problem. Then, it concludes that the approach has theoretical appeal for the development of democratic system and practical appeal to deal with controversial decision in the public arena.

This article discusses scientifically based decision making and the role of politics in establishing environmental dialogues. The authors argue that scientists must make value laden assumptions and extrapolate when data is uncertain. They suggest that policymaking is never completely rational and that in an adversarial process advocates seek to prevail rather than find solutions. They recommend collaboration and joint fact finding in which all participants have a role in framing the questions, analyzing the alternatives and their impacts, and fashioning solutions given the limits of the resources and levels of scientific uncertainty.