122-Decision Support Tools for Water Resources Planning and Management.

Abstract

Water Resources Planning and Management focuses on an integration and consideration of key water management issues that are important on watershed and sub-basin scale. The methodology is facilitated by active use of advanced and state of the art Decision Support Systems (DSS). The DSS adds tremendous value and can greatly improve efficiency and accuracy of decision making for public and private water managers. The DSS provides the ideal platform to consider a baseline (e.g. the "natural system") and evaluate impacts from various projects and alternate operations strategies. Equally important for water resources management projects is the integration of the human system involving a comprehensive institutional approach considering the economy of water, integration with national and riparian policy development, national security and active stakeholder involvement. Integrated management of land and water use, water storage including hydropower, water quality, environment and flood protection constitutes major challenges around the world. Increasing populations with increasing demands for water necessitates active and comprehensive management leading to development of water action plans that deal with short term needs as well as long term planning (considering eg impacts of climate change). DSS supports business processes and provides tools for communicating often complex issues to decision makers and stakeholders. A DSS is typically developed around a Water Information Management System that integrates comprehensive databases with GIS and WEB technologies for data management, analysis and presentation of data and decisions. DSS functionality in form of analysis tools, alternatives analysis, business process modeling, decision logic, dissemination can subsequently be incorporated with the information system to form the complete DSS.