Report
Details a prototype computational model that seeks to explain, as a function of contributing factors, the extent of public support for insurgency and its use of terrorism. The model is believed to be reusable and suitable for composition.
Commentary
The path to climate change preparedness should start at the intersection of resilience and robustness — that is, building resilient communities with the individuals and organizations within those communities making robust decisions, ones designed to work well over a wide range of ever-changing conditions.
Report
This paper describes a new approach and associated search schemes for optimization under uncertainty. Analysts can apply this method to a problem with a significantly larger number of decision variables, uncertain parameters, and uncertain scenarios.
Research Brief
Quantitative analysis is often indispensable to sound planning. But with deep uncertainty, predictions can lead decisionmakers astray. Robust Decision Making supports good decisions without predictions by testing plans against many futures.
Blog
Growing water needs combined with uncertain but possibly deteriorating future hydrologic conditions could stress the Colorado River system in the coming 50 years. Options that could be effective in improving it include urban conservation, agricultural conservation, and groundwater desalination.
Project
Preparing for natural disasters is a long, multi-faceted process that requires years of planning, coordination, and direct action. RAND has developed a new approach for assessing hurricane flood risk in New Orleans under uncertainty and evaluating city-wide approaches for reducing this risk.
Tool
When making complex decisions, researchers and policymakers often seek the input of many stakeholders and individuals with varied perspectives. ExpertLens is an online application developed by research and programming experts at the RAND Corporation to help achieve these goals easily and cost effectively.
Report
This review of two decades of RAND work on uncertainty analysis for national security applications shows the wide range of uncertainties that arise, the variety of analytic techniques needed, and progress made in dealing with deep uncertainty.
Journal Article
Probability-based estimates can have serious limitations when applied to a problem such as climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change should also consider approaches to decision-making under conditions of uncertainty that do not depend on expert consensus on probabilities.
Multimedia
Policy Researcher David Groves describes RAND's role in helping to develop a plan to guide Louisiana's coastal investments, help its coastal citizens plan for the future, and create a sustainable coast.
Project
RAND is working with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to explore the use of Robust Decision Making in the Bureau's long-term planning for the Colorado River.
Project
Climate change presents decisionmakers with a fundamental quandary: how to address a potentially serious, long-term, and uncertain threat. A joint project of RAND Infrastructure, Safety, and Environment and the RAND Pardee Center sought to address this problem through basic research and computer modeling.
Journal Article
Freight transport is a rapidly expanding and changing economic sector.
Report
Applies robust decision methods to evaluate California's transportation policies that considers multiple views of the future, and identifies strategies that consistently reduce emissions at acceptable costs regardless of future conditions.
Journal Article
This study compares two widely used approaches for robustness analysis of decision problems: the info-gap method originally developed by Ben-Haim and the robust decision making (RDM) approach originally developed by Lempert, Popper, and Bankes.
Multimedia
David Groves discusses an innovative approach to dealing with the many challenges that may contribute to sustainable and affordable solutions of long term water supplies in California.
Report
Geoengineering is risky, but could transform the portfolio of options for limiting future climate change. Some geoengineering approaches could prove fast acting and inexpensive and could be deployed by one or a few nations without global cooperation.
Journal Article
This paper examines the impact of a gifted program on retention in an urban school district using a regression discontinuity design.
Commentary
Limiting climate change requires a revolution in the way the global economy generates and consumes energy. It is becoming increasingly clear that the current diplomatic approach should be redesigned to meet this immense political, technical, and social challenge, writes Robert J. Lempert.
Report
Considers proposals to augment the existing flood-damage protection system in New Orleans with ''nonstructural'' risk mitigation programs focused on single-family homes.
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