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Decision Support Systems in Water
Resources Planning and Management:
Stakeholder Participation and
the Sustainable Path to Science-
Based Decision Making
Aleix Serrat-Capdevila, Juan B. Valdes and Hoshin V. Gupta
International Center for Integrated Water Resources
Management ICIWaRM-UNESCO
Department of Hydrology and Water Resources
The University of Arizona
USA
1. Introduction
This chapter will focus on decision support systems (DSS) as they relate to water resources
management and planning. Water is a resource that touches and is interwoven with
numerous human activities as well as the environment we live in. Its availability and
beneficial use depend on the timing and manner of its arrival (rainfall intensity, rain or
snow, duration, frequency), the physical setting of the region (climate and weather,
topography, geology), the engineering structures in place, the environmental constraints
(existing ecosystems), the legal regulatory context and institutional policies. In most
contexts, cultural values and preferences are also very important. To make good decisions, it
is clear that a detailed understanding of how the system works and behaves is necessary. It
is equally important to understand the implications of these decisions - what consequences
are likely to ripple through the interwoven system, and what parties will be affected as a
result of a particular set of actions? Understanding the coupled human and physical system
is essential.
In addition to looking at the evolution of decision support tools and methods for water
resources management (Section 2), this chapter focuses on how integrative science and
multi-resolution models provide the basis for a decision support system (Section 3), on the
overall setting of the decision making process and ways in which a DSS for water resources
should be developed (Section 4). We make the argument that for a DSS to be successful and
informative, the process by which it is developed will be as important, or even more so, than
the finished decision support tool itself. A description of successful participatory planning
approaches and collaborative modeling methods is presented, as well as a comparison of
several case studies. Section 5 presents an overview on how to deal with uncertainty. We
present our vision to merge adaptive management, integrative modeling and stakeholder
participation to face the water management challenges of the arriving future. A synthesis
and future challenges are presented in the last section.
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