The future of human life in the world's river deltas depends on the success of water management. To deal with uncertainties about the future, policymakers in the Netherlands have used scenarios to develop water management strategies for the coastal zone of the Rhine-Meuse delta. In this paper we reflect on six decades of scenario use in the Netherlands, and provide recommendations for future studies. Based on two criteria, 'Decision robustness' and 'Learning success', we conclude that (1) the possibilities for robust decisionmaking increased through a paradigm shift from predicting to exploring futures, but the scenario method is not yet fully exploited for decisionmaking under uncertainty; and (2) the scenarios enabled learning about possible impacts of developments and effectiveness of policy options. New scenario approaches are emerging to deal with the deep uncertainties water managers are currently facing.

中文翻译：

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未来的历史：荷兰水政策研究中的情景使用回顾。

世界河流三角洲人类生活的未来取决于水资源管理的成功与否。为了应对未来的不确定性，荷兰的政策制定者已经使用情景来制定莱茵-默兹河三角洲沿海地区的水资源管理战略。在本文中，我们回顾了荷兰六个十年的情景使用情况，并为未来的研究提供建议。基于“决策稳健性”和“学习成功”两个标准，我们得出结论：（1）通过从预测到探索未来的范式转变，稳健决策的可能性增加，但情景方法尚未完全用于不确定性下的决策; (2) 这些情景有助于了解政策选择的发展和有效性可能产生的影响。