**7. Conclusions**

While there is a long heritage of participatory process design in the water resources planning and managemen<sup>t</sup> space as well as other public policy arenas [45–47], the experiences reported upon from Bolivia and California sugges<sup>t</sup> that the RDS practice should be considered to be a particularly effective approach. One potential explanation for its effectiveness might be found by looking again at the Allegory of the Cave referenced in the hypothetical dialogue between Plato and Aristotle. Plato actually concludes the allegory by posing the following question.

*Now if once again, along with those who had remained shackled there, the freed person had to engage in the business of asserting and maintaining opinions about the shadows* ... *would he not be exposed to ridicule down there?*

It is almost as if Plato recognized the impossible task of his Philosopher-King in a democratic context where decisions cannot easily be imposed by fiat. Even if the expert believed that these opinions about the shadows held by the enchained, Aristotle's desires and sensations, were wrong, he or she would have no way to change them. Slovic discovered this too when even after explaining the axioms of rational choice theory to the participants in his study, he could not ge<sup>t</sup> them to uniformly apply them. The grea<sup>t</sup> insight of Aristotle was to recognize the importance of practical wisdom associated with deliberation within a particular decision-making or policy-setting context. The RDS practice attempts to capitalize on this insight, not by allowing the shadows alone to dictate, but by bringing the monumental contributions of the early pioneers in the field of water modeling to bear in an attempt to reduce the fuzziness of the flickering shadows. While many other factors beyond good models and effective negotiations determine success, some problems are indeed wicked, thanks to the early water modeling pioneers, and the countless contributions of the water managemen<sup>t</sup> community over the decades; these tools allow us to do more when confronting a drought or any other water managemen<sup>t</sup> challenge than simply pray for rain.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, D.R.P., D.N.Y. and W.N.S.; Formal analysis, L.F. and N.J.D.; Funding acquisition, D.R.P.; Methodology, M.I.E.A. and V.K.M.; Project administration, M.I.E.A. and V.K.M.; Software, N.J.D.; Visualization, L.F.; Writing-original draft, D.R.P.; Writing-review & editing, M.I.E.A., V.K.M., D.N.Y. and W.N.S.

**Acknowledgments:** The work carried out in Bolivia was supported first by the Challenge on Water and Food of the CGIAR system and later by the Pilot Program on Climate Resistance within the Inter-American Development Bank. The work carried out in the Yuba Basin was supported by the California Water Foundation, with a small matching gran<sup>t</sup> from the California Department of Water Resources. Other RDS work carried out in California, Latin America, Africa, and Asia, but nor reported upon in this paper, was supported by the NASA ROSES program, the United States Agency for International Development, the International Development Research Council, the World Bank and the Swedish International Development Agency. While the work reported on here reflect the views of the authors alone, the support of all of these organizations is deeply appreciated. In addition, three anonymous reviewers provided very helpful feedback on the initial version of this article. Particular thanks to one reviewer for helping to construct a more appropriate title and to another for reminding the authors that pre-Enlightenment thinkers had much to do with the emergence of reason as the standard for governance. His or her suggestion that the more holistic view of the balance between reason and faith adopted by these 17th century thinkers might actually be more appropriate for modern times merits consideration. Finally, the authors would like to thank the participants in all of the RDS processes organized over these past six years. Their enthusiastic engagemen<sup>t</sup> helped make the case that RDS could be an effective approach to water managemen<sup>t</sup> decision-making and their helpful suggestions and critiques contributed mightily to its improvement over time. Our deepest thanks. Readers interested in obtaining the data associated with this paper can contact David Purkey at david.purkey@sei.org or at #57 3142826360.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare not conflicts of interest.
