Stakeholders' perception, co-benefits definition and trade-off assessment

Description

Co-benefits are usually described in the literature as secondary effects of an intervention. The work done with stakeholders in NAIAD found something different: in many cases the people affected by a measure regarded its co-benefits as being as important as the primary risk reduction. If that is so, co-benefits cannot be left to the end of the process as an additional line in an appraisal; they have to be part of the design from the start.

This tool is the method that follows from that finding. It elicits how individual stakeholders perceive the water-related risks, structures those perceptions into a model of the system, identifies the co-benefits that each group expects a measure to produce, and then looks for the points at which the expectations conflict.

Trade-offs identified early can be addressed by design — by adjusting the measures, by compensating the parties who lose, or by improving communication — rather than being discovered as opposition at the point of implementation. The method was validated at the Glinščica, Lower Danube and Medina del Campo demonstration sites.

Applications to decision making in the insurance sector

Conflicts over a measure are a performance risk: a contested intervention is delayed, modified or abandoned, and the risk reduction that was counted on does not arrive. Assessing the trade-offs before implementation is a way of establishing whether the measure will actually be there, which is a precondition for any risk carrier treating it as a reduction in exposure.

Added value of this modelling approach

It captures the diversity of understanding rather than seeking consensus. The aim is a model that contains the different points of view, not one that averages them away — which is why the resulting assessment is more honest about where agreement does and does not exist.

What decision can be improved with this modelling approach

How to configure a measure so that the co-benefits people value are actually delivered; where compensating or mitigating action is needed; and whether a strategy has enough support to survive its implementation.