Initiatives for Stakeholder Engaged Risk- Informed ... · Initiatives for Stakeholder Engaged Risk-Informed Decision Making Paul Black –Neptune and Company, Inc. P&RA CoP Annual

Initiatives forStakeholder Engaged Risk-Informed Decision Making

Paul Black – Neptune and Company, Inc.

P&RA CoP Annual Technical Exchange Meeting – October 2017 – Albuquerque

Decision Framework Background

• Stakeholder Engaged, Structured Decision Making (SDM)

• Values-focused thinking (Keeney, 1993)

• Structured Decision Making by Gregory et al. (2012)

• Software development – SDM Framework program (Neptune, current ongoing)• Guided interactive Statistical decision Tools (GiSdT)

• Tailored versions for specific clients (e.g., EPA)

Current Initiatives - International

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

• CIDER II – Constraints to Implementing Decommissioning and Environmental Remediation Strategies – Phase II

• MODARIA II - Modelling and Data for Radiological Impact Assessments

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)

• Potential support for IAEA projects

Current Initiatives – U.S.

• EPA – Decision Analysis for a Sustainable Economy, Environment and Society (DASEES)• Various applications

• EFCOG – Best practice

• DOE – Remediation, Waste Management, Storage, Monitoring

• Other….

“can be applied to any decision problem – and, every problem is a decision problem”

A (VERY) Brief History of Environmental Decision Making

• In the beginning, there was ChaoS….

• Then came the DQO Process (1986)• Great for binary decisions, e.g.:

• Are site concentrations greater than background?

• Is the mean site concentration greater than the threshold of interest?

• Not so good for complicated problems

• Poor decisions are often made• Conservatism* “everywhere” (the proverbial onion)

• * attempts at over-estimation (over-protection)

• Risk perception issues

• Leads to insufficient use of resources• And wasting money (scarce resources) • Negative impact not only on immediate decisions, but

also on “upstream” decisions• Nuclear energy, nuclear medicine, land use (make land

available for re-use), resources available for other decisions, etc.

• Negative effect on energy policy• Consequence is climate changeIssues might be different in other Countries, but the path forwards does not change

What’s the problem?

• Frame risk assessments in terms of the decision problems they support

• Don’t focus only on compliance

• Focus on optimization in a decision context• Remove conservatism everywhere

• Engage stakeholders in the decision process

This will make better use of our resources, and will cut the costs of achieving long-term project goals and objectives.

Is there a better way?

The paradigm shift is that of turning the focus…• From a conservative to a “realistic” analysis

• From starting with the decision-science before the natural science• that is, from putting “Why?” before “What?”

• From an alternatives-focus to a values-focus

The paradigm shift results in solutions that are …• “optimal” – uses resources effectively

• still safe and in compliance

• defensible, transparent, traceable, reproducible

Paradigm Shift

Wikipedia (clearly an authoritative source!)

• Risk is the potential (probability) of gaining or losing something of value.

• Values (such as physical health, social status, emotional well-being or financial wealth) can be gained or lost when taking risk resulting from a given action or inaction, foreseen or unforeseen.

• Uncertainty is about a potential, unpredictable, and uncontrollable outcome.

What is “Risk”?

“Unless we make a conscious choice to separate

utility and probability, the two inevitably become

intertwined in a hopeless melange in which we lose

site of, and confuse, the underlying assumptions that

drive our perceptions of what we want (utility) and

what we’ll get (probability).”

Morgan D. Jones – The Thinker’s Toolkit

Value/Probability Conundrum

Stakeholder EngagedStructured Decision Making (SDM)?

• A framework for better decision making

• SDM helps solve complex problems in an optimal, reproducible, technically defensible, traceable, and transparent manner.

• The role of SDM facilitation is to help individuals and groups solve their own problems - it is not to solve their problems for them.

Analytic Deliberative Process

The SDM process integrates science with stakeholder values in an analytic-deliberative structure.• Deliberative

• supports development of a common understanding, objectives, measures, and identification of options.

• Analytic• supports specification of value functions and preference

weights• supports science: integration of data, information,

knowledge and models (explicitly accounting for uncertainty).

SDM is about balancing preferences and desires with probability of occurrence.

CIDER II – An IAEA Initiative

• Constraints to Implementing Decommissioning and Environmental Remediation Strategies – Phase II

• Addressing Member States with legacy nuclear/radioactive contamination issues

• Aim of CIDER – Improve current levels of performance on D&ER across the Member States (MS)

• CIDER II goals – action oriented to:• Improve stakeholder communication and engagement

• Help MS establish and implement strategies for D&ER

• Support capacity building in the MS

CIDER II – Working Groups

1. D&ER Strategy development and implementation

2. Development and implementation of effective stakeholder engagement plans

3. Site/facility inventory development

4. Capacity building

Note considerable potential for overlap or mutual benefit between the Working Groups

Approach

Two basic components1. Stakeholder Engagement2. Support for Decision Making

That is, engage, and use the engagement effectively to actively support decision making

Assets:Technically defensible; transparent; traceable; reproducible; leads to adaptive management as more information is collected

Confirmation?January OECD-NEA meeting

• “STAKEHOLDER SUPPORT AND INVOLVEMENT IS ESSENTIAL TO FUTURE OF NUCLEAR ENERGY DECISION MAKING”

• http://www.oecd-nea.org/news/2017/2017-01.html

• Recognition of the same issues regarding the importance of SE in the decision making process

Organisation for Economic Co-operation Development – Nuclear Energy Agency

January OECD-NEA meeting

Mr Magwood (NEA Director-General) recalled that• "As we have learned through hard experience in many

countries, experts cannot act alone to solve difficult problems.

• For the greatest challenges facing society today, they must, as a central component of their activities, ensure the broad and deep support of public stakeholders.

• This is important in all long-term, complex undertakings, but for decisions concerning nuclear energy that employ large tracts of land, use significant quantities of resources, and sometimes generate public questions about safety, achieving a durable public consensus has become an absolute requirement.”

CIDER II Stakeholder Engagement Advisory Programme

• CIDER II SEAP can make available through a community of practice:• Case studies

• Tools

• Training and support

• Goal – use SE to improve the D&ER decision making process

• Move towards “Stakeholder engaged structured decision making”

SE Tools – England Environment Agency

7 steps to Working With Others:

1. Preparation – how much engagement is needed?

2. What do you want to do? (objectives)

3. Why do you need to engage others? (engagement objectives)

4. Who do you need to work with?(stakeholder analysis)

5. How will you work with them? (engagement plan)

6. Do it!

7. How did it go and what did you learn? (evaluation)

structured decision making is an interactive process that, by design, is

transparent, reproducible, and adaptive

Structured decision making

Structured decision making (SDM)provides a transparent framework todevelop optimal solutions to complexproblems. The process is reproducibleand technically defensible, integratingscience and values in an analytic-deliberative structure. Using thisstructure, we can achieve a commonunderstanding of objectives, developa rich set of options, conduct science-based consequence modeling, andexplicitly acknowledge sources ofuncertainty. Neptune continues todevelop SDM methods and tools thatimprove the quality and transparencyof decisions.

Understand Context

Define Objectives & Measures

Develop OptionsEvaluate Consequences,

Uncertainties, and Tradeoffs

Take Action, Monitor, Adapt

SDM tools – US EPA and Neptune

SEAP – training and capacity building

• Start Community of Practice

• Develop training materials

• Create/provide platform for more open discussions on SE• MS Programs currently run by engineers, so SE is still on the

fringe despite “intent”

• Training new SE-SDM experts with focus on local needs• Address culture, language, politics, etc.

• Train trainers program to expand capacity quicker

Next Steps

• Identify new players that can meaningfully engage in tool development, development of training programs, questionnaires, etc.

• Identify a few potential projects that the CIDER II SEAP could consider to develop an IAEA mission proposal• Interest from several Member States

MODARIA II• MODARIA II - Modelling and Data for Radiological

Impact Assessments

• Not clearly decision related – however….

• Working Group 1 - Assessment and Decision Making of Existing Exposure Situations for NORM and Nuclear Legacy Sites

• Potential interaction between CIDER and MODARIA

• CIDER focus on SDM from stakeholder engagement

• MODARIA focus SDM from modeling

• GiSdT application of SDM helps organize stakeholder engagement (values) and modeling in a decision analysis framework

US – EFCOG

Energy Facility Contractors Group

• Best Practice on SDM

• Example in the Best Practice that is built around a fictitious uranium mill tailings problem

Objectives

Maximize Uranium Mill Tailings Management SustainabilityProtect human health

Minimize health impacts on workersMinimize health impacts on residentsMinimize health impacts on intruders

Minimize costMinimize cleanup costsMinimize containment / migration costsMinimize access control costs (fencing, signs,

etc.)Minimize fines

Maximize efficiencyEnsure financing

Objective Preference: Ranking

Objective Preference: Weighting

Evaluate Consequences ProbabilisticallyProbabilistically evaluate the consequences of the Alternatives through their impact on Measures and thus the impact on achieving Objectives.Conduct Sensitivity Analysis and Value of Information Analysis.

Results

2017 DOE National Cleanup Workshop

Acting Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management – James Owendoff

Paraphrasing….

• Involve stakeholders in the decision making process

• Use stakeholder engagement to identify a more broad set of alternatives

Basic idea is to find ways to be more efficient and cost-effective in decision making