Executive summary:
This work presents the first systematic literature review and assessment of uncertainty quantification in Socio-Ecological System (SES) models for water resources management. We review whether and how SES modeling of water resources assess and quantify different sources of uncertainty, including input uncertainty, parameter uncertainty, structural uncertainty, and contextual uncertainty. We note that while most studies consider and to some extent quantify uncertainty (156 out of 198 studies in our sample), the depth and detail of this assessment is far from comprehensive and largely focuses on partial analyses of input uncertainties.
Next, we build on this review to design pathways towards more systematically integrating uncertainty into SES modeling of water resources. We make seven recommendations to mainstream uncertainty quantification into SES modeling of water resources, and potentially into decision-making processes informed by Decision Support Systems, so as to help decision makers identify robust policies with a satisfactory performance under most plausible futures. We also acknowledge the potential limitations of uncertainty quantification and propose strategies to account for them. Finally, we illustrate how a SES model of water resources that accounts for our seven recommendations may look like. We call for hydrologists, economists, agronomists, stakeholders, and other scientists with interest in SES modeling of water resources to join the discussion on how to quantify and assess modeling uncertainties, as well as how to better communicate them to decision makers so that future policies account for unfavorable contingencies and plan strategies to address them.