Participatory Modelling for Planning and Decision-making: Report from Case Study Review

Participatory modelling (PM) has far-reaching potential to support the governance of complex socio-environmental systems. Although many PM case studies have been published, there is a lack of classification and characterization of the studies in their ensemble. To progress the systematic and theory-based development of PM and its applications with respect to participatory planning and decision-making, we have reviewed the field with a focus on planning and procedural issues. To do this, a random sample (n=60) of PM case articles is drawn from a larger pool of compiled PM articles that itself represented a nearly complete set of peer reviewed PM studies. A novel, theory-based, PM process evaluation instrument was used for compiling case data and for analysis against a comprehensive set of planning process criteria. When it comes to issues of knowledge integration and learning, the PM field can already make important contributions to participatory planning and decision-making, especially for its approaches and tools that integrate knowledge. Questions of values and democracy however have been given too little attention, and so far, most PM processes do not employ best practices set out for value-based and democratic participatory processes. Most urgently, the idea that participatory processes need to be understood by, and connected to, their surrounding governance systems is not well-established in the field. This is a fundamental question for the possibility of implementing PM in practice and for upscaling its utilization. Based on our findings, we formulate a research program aimed at developing PM into a more useful approach including an efficient set of tools for real-world participatory planning and decision-making – an area that urgently calls for innovative, efficient and knowledge-based process support. Examples from cases will be discussed.