Decision Support Systems in Water Resources Planning and Management: Stakeholder Participation and the Sustainable Path to Science-Based Decision Making

Abstract. This study develops a social-economic-engineering combined framework for decision making in water resources planning. This framework consists of four parts which are to spatially identify the grades on hydrological vulnerability (potential streamflow depletion and potential water quality deterioration), to evaluate the monetary values of improvements on hydrological vulnerability grades using the choice experiment method, to derive an alternative evaluation index (AEI) to quantify the effectiveness of all alternatives, and to combine the derived willingness-to-pays (WTPs) with the AEI and do the cost-benefit analysis of feasible alternatives. This framework includes the stakeholder participation in order to quantify the preferences with regard to management objectives (water quantity and quality) and WTPs of alternatives. Finally, the economic values of each alternative can be estimated by this study which combines the WTPs for improvements on hydrologic vulnerability grades with the AEI. The proposed procedure is applied in the Anyangcheon watershed which has been highly urbanized for past thirty years. As a result, WTPs are $0.24~$10.08/month-household for water quantity and $0.80~$8.60/month-household for water quality and residents of the five regions among six have higher WTPs for water quality improvement. Finally, since three of ten alternatives have BC>0, they can be proposed to the decision makers. This systematic screening procedure will provide decision makers with the flexibility to obtain stakeholders' consensus for water resources planning.

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River Forecast Application for Water Management: Oil and Water?

Weather Climate and Society ◽

10.1175/wcas-d-12-00044.1 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 5 (3) ◽

pp. 244-253 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Kevin Werner ◽

Kristen Averyt ◽

Gigi Owen

Keyword(s):

Water Management ◽

Decision Making ◽

Decision Support ◽

Water Resources ◽

Decision Support Systems ◽

Support Systems ◽

Reservoir Operations ◽

Observed Information ◽

Probabilistic Forecasts ◽

Study Participants

Abstract Managing water resources generally and managing reservoir operations specifically have been touted as opportunities for applying forecasts to improve decision making. Previous studies have shown that the application of forecasts into water management is not pervasive. This study uses a scenario-based approach to explore whether and how people implement forecast information into reservoir operations decisions in a workshop setting. Although it was found that participants do utilize both forecast and observed information, they generally do not utilize probabilistic forecast information in a manner to appropriately minimize risks associated with the tail end of the forecast distribution. This study found strong tendencies for participants to wait for observed information, as opposed to forecast information, before making decisions. In addition, study participants tended to make decisions based on median forecast values instead of considering forecast probability. These findings support the development of quantitative decision support systems to optimally utilize probabilistic forecasts as well as for forecast agencies such as NOAA/NWS to continue investments in work to better understand contexts and environments where forecasts are used or have the potential for use in supporting water management decisions.

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A review of 20-year applications of multi-attribute decision-making in environmental and water resources planning and management

Environment Development and Sustainability ◽

10.1007/s10668-021-01278-3 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Babak Zolghadr-Asli ◽

Omid Bozorg-Haddad ◽

Maedeh Enayati ◽

Xuefeng Chu

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Water Resources ◽

Water Resources Planning ◽

Planning And Management ◽

Multi Attribute Decision Making ◽

Resources Planning

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