Decision Making Under Uncertainty

Abstract

This report introduces concepts, principles, and approaches for addressing uncertainty in decision making. The sources of uncertainty in decision making are discussed, emphasizing the distinction between uncertainty and risk, and the characterization of uncertainty and risk. The report provides a brief overview of decision theory and presents a practical method for modeling decisions under uncertainty and selecting decision alternatives that optimize the decision maker's objectives. The decision modeling methods introduced in this paper are suitable for both data-rich and data-poor decision environments. This report describes how to analyze the sensitivity of a decision model to improve understanding of the decision problem and build confidence in the conclusions of an analysis. Principles of adaptive management and adaptive engineering are discussed from a decision analysis perspective. Examples are provided to demonstrate how these methods could be applied within the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 01, 2010
Accession Number
ADA534878

Entities

People

  • Brian K. Harper
  • Keneth N. Mitchell
  • Martin T. Schultz
  • Todd S. Bridges

Organizations

  • Engineer Research and Development Center

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Engineered Resilient Systems
  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Army Corps Of Engineers
  • Business Administration
  • Decision Theory
  • Delphi Method
  • Engineering
  • Engineers
  • Environment
  • Environmental Protection
  • Flood Control
  • Management Personnel
  • Probability Distributions
  • Psychology
  • Random Variables
  • Risk
  • Risk Analysis
  • Risk Management
  • Sea Level Rise

Readers

  • Distributed Systems and Data Platform Development
  • Life Cycle Cost Analysis
  • Theoretical Analysis.