Copyright © 2008 by the author(s). Published here under license by the Resilience Alliance. Brugnach, M., A. Dewulf, C. Pahl-Wostl, and T. Taillieu. 2008. Toward a relational concept of uncertainty: about knowing too little, knowing too differently, and accepting not to know. Ecology and Society 13(2): 30. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol13/iss2/art30/ Research Toward a Relational Concept of Uncertainty: about Knowing Too Little, Knowing Too Differently, and Accepting Not to Know Marcela Brugnach 1 , Art Dewulf 2 , Claudia Pahl-Wostl, and Tharsi Taillieu 3 ABSTRACT. Uncertainty of late has become an increasingly important and controversial topic in water resource management, and natural resources management in general. Diverse managing goals, changing environmental conditions, conflicting interests, and lack of predictability are some of the characteristics that decision makers have to face. This has resulted in the application and development of strategies such as adaptive management, which proposes flexibility and capability to adapt to unknown conditions as a way of dealing with uncertainties. However, this shift in ideas about managing has not always been accompanied by a general shift in the way uncertainties are understood and handled. To improve this situation, we believe it is necessary to recontextualize uncertainty in a broader way—relative to its role, meaning, and relationship with participants in decision making—because it is from this understanding that problems and solutions emerge. Under this view, solutions do not exclusively consist of eliminating or reducing uncertainty, but of reframing the problems as such so that they convey a different meaning. To this end, we propose a relational approach to uncertainty analysis. Here, we elaborate on this new conceptualization of uncertainty, and indicate some implications of this view for strategies for dealing with uncertainty in water management. We present an example as an illustration of these concepts. Key Words: adaptive management; ambiguity; frames; framing; knowledge relationship; multiple knowledge frames; natural resource management; negotiation; participation; social learning; uncertainty; water management INTRODUCTION Uncertainty has become highly topical to natural resource management and environmental sciences over the past decade (Pahl-Wostl 2007a, van der Sluijs 2007). This has occurred for two main reasons: one, statistical and computational models can now accommodate more sophisticated approaches to data analysis, and two, the demand for resource management practitioners to address multiple spatial and temporal scales and numerous variables has intensified. As a result, given the levels of precision required for predicting complex system behavior, uncertainty and ways to deal with it have emerged as a subject of analysis in their own right. Furthermore, the perception of the role of uncertainty in resources management has changed. Instead of considering uncertainty as “something to get rid off” or to minimize, it has become accepted as an unavoidable fact of life, and definitional to the problem at hand. This attitudinal shift has spawned the development of new concepts, such as adaptive management. Adaptive management practices intentionally acknowledge and embrace uncertainty by using scenario planning, employing experimental approaches, and developing flexible solutions that are able to adapt to changing conditions and unexpected developments (Walters 1986, Pahl- Wostl 2007b). At the same time, there has been a parallel conceptual rethinking of the role of social processes in natural resources management, both in terms of how and by whom decisions are made, and their influence in system functioning. Management frameworks reflect these concepts in the use of interactive and participatory approaches that aim at developing and sustaining the capacity for collective action (Walters 1986, Gunderson et al. 1995, Lee 1999, Pahl-Wostl 2007a). Although all these changes have pressed for novel approaches of analyses, methods used to model 1 Institute for Environmental Systems Research, University of Osnabrück, 2 Public Administration and Policy Group, Wageningen University, 3 Center for Work, Organizational and Personnel Psychology, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven