Computer-based water modelling: no substitute for thinking
Computer-based models do not think, but there’s a risk that they become substitutes for thinking, researchers at IHE Delft and other knowledge institutions argue in a recent blog that questions the trust water scientists place in models and their results.
“We have encountered many instances where models are fetishized and expected to provide clear and unproblematic solutions to complex problems, leading humans to foreclose their thinking faculty,” the authors write in the blog, published on the Water Alternatives Forum journal website. “This obscures imbalanced power relations, erases people and the natural world, and ignores uncertainties. As a result, it is difficult to achieve a deeper understanding of the social and natural world in decision-making.”
The authors – IHE Delft researcher Jonatan Godinez Madrigal, PhD candidate Bich Tran, affiliate researcher Rozemarijn ter Horst and Humboldt University Researcher Rossella Alba – question whether models "genuinely engage with the plurality of meanings and valuations of water” and call for a change in water modelling as a process to force scientists using the models to think of reality beyond pre-established calculations.
"Using (models) as thinking tools can be challenging because practitioners often confuse them with reality when, in fact, they are only simplifications of reality."
“Models are useful for computing complex processes that are difficult for humans to calculate. They can help explore the past, present, and future and consolidate hypotheses about the world,” they write. “However, using them as thinking tools can be challenging because practitioners often confuse them with reality when, in fact, they are only simplifications of reality.”
The authors wrote the blog to spark a debate on the ways models can be used and the restrictions inherent in how they are used. The blog has already attracted several comments, with one commenter warning: “Models hold the potential to make water managers lazy and dumb,” while another notes: “Models can indeed, sometimes, and with the right people, be invaluable to water resources management and to probe all sorts of hypothesis about the inter-connectivity of land and water resources, their use, and possible future scenarios.”
Jonatan Godinez Madrigal
Researcher Water Allocation and Institutions
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