Dr Salmah Zakaria FASc., Chair of ASM Climate Change and Water ...

Wicked problems (Cont’d)• The persistent challenges caused by current practices andapproaches thus constitute a complex problem with economicsocial-environmentalissues that had been termed “wickedproblems” (Rittel and Webber 1973 ).• Scientific solutions alone are unlikely to succeed in solvingsuch “wicked problems” because of the nature of the problemas much as the economic, societal and policy complexity inwhich it has to be resolved.• Scientific solutions can be developed for “tame” well definedproblems that can be solved in isolation, can be broken downinto parts which can be solved independently by differentgroups of people. Solutions to different parts of a largerproblem can then be integrated into an overall solution. Thesame does not hold true for “wicked” policy problems.22