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Peer-reviewed

A philosophical basis for hydrological uncertainty

Grey Nearing, Yudong Tian, Hoshin V. Gupta, Martyn Clark, Kenneth W. Harrison, Steven Weijs

Hydrological Sciences Journal · 2016

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Summary

Uncertainty is an epistemological concept in the sense that any meaningful understanding of uncertainty requires a theory of knowledge. Therefore, uncertainty resulting from scientific endeavors can only be properly understood in the context of a well-defined philosophy of science. Our main message here is that much of the discussion about uncertainty in hydrology has lacked grounding in these foundational concepts, and has resulted in a controversy that is largely the product of logical errors rather than true (axiomatic) disagreement. As an example, we explore the current debate about the appropriate role of probability theory for hydrological uncertainty quantification. Our main messages are: (1) apparent (and/or claimed) limitations of probability theory are not actually consequences o

Source type
Peer-reviewed study
DOI
10.1080/02626667.2016.1183009
Catalogue ID
BFmoef2us1-uv03u3
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