The ambiguities of uncertainty: A review of uncertainty frameworks relevant to the assessment of environmental change
Luke D. Bevan
Abstract
As awareness of deep uncertainties in many disciplines has grown over the last half-century, researchers have developed many frameworks, typologies, and taxonomies to understand, analyse, and communicate them. Uncertainty analysis is critically important in fields of study that deal with large, complex, societally-coupled problems, such as those dealing with environmental change. However, as of yet, no wide-ranging review exists that systematically compares the features of these frameworks. This paper surveys a very large number of uncertainty frameworks (N = 156) relevant to the assessment of environmental change, identifying their key features and highlighting the conceptual foundations of these frameworks. It shows that although many authors have employed very similar methods of classification, significant ambiguities may exist because of overlapping concepts or polysemous terminology. Further to this, philosophical inconsistencies are pervasive in the frameworks. This paper argues that the synthesis of these frameworks into one with general applicability is likely unachievable, and given the ambiguity of the meaning of much of the uncertainty lexicon, a more fruitful approach would be to start by examining the conceptual understandings of practitioners themselves.