Are you an aspiring researcher in the field of water management? Can you disentangle the complex interaction of science, politics and practice? And thus open the black box of modelling processes, performances and politics around the water sector? Then we are looking for you!
Simulation models are often-used tools for informing water management decisions, often involving multiple actors and stakeholders, on the one hand, and performance indicators and scenarios for possible futures, on the other. Such models are often presented as 'objective' knowledge upon which crucial decisions on water management are based. Presented as objective, "truth-making" tools, models are thereby "black boxed", meaning, the expert knowledges in building them are not adequately examined for the underlying assumptions, suppositions and even politics.
While model inputs are often restricted to particular indicators privileging certain perspectives better than others. Also, modelling outcomes are strategically used to legitimize political choices, while models and scenarios themselves are already the result of political processes involving conscious and unconscious choices. In these respects models are inherently political.
In this call, we invite applications to conduct a study on "opening the black box" of modelling processes, performances, and politics on any aspect of the water sector. The PhD project will broadly engage with the main research question: How are different forms of simulation modeling for supporting water management developed? What information/knowledge do they provide and to whom? How and why these models are based on certain assumptions and theoretical and empirical choices? How these models are deployed to support certain political choices? How do their results influence water governance, and its effect on equitable distribution of benefits and impacts (e.g. in terms of water and food securities)?
Examples of possible cases are:
- Water productivity assessment in Africa, amongst others on basis of remote sensing
- Irrigation modernization in Spain
- Predictions of climate change effects on water stress
- Large water transfers in Latin America and Asia
- Drought management in Northeast Brazil