INTEGRATING TOOLS FOR SURFACE WATER QUALITY MANAGEMENT - Integrating GIS, Remote Sensing, and Mathematical Modelling for Surface Water Quality Management - page 72

3.5.6. Water Quality Models in DSS Computational Frameworks
In the design and development process of DSS for integrated water resources management and
planning, water quality issues are a major component that should be taken into account. Water quality
mathematical models are considered essential components of building the computational framework of
such DSS's. Modelling, in the decision making process, provides the answers to decision making
questions associated with environmental problems. Therefore, several studies were accomplished on
either building a standalone DSS for water quality management or on developing the appropriate
computational frameworks of DSS's including water quality modelling tools.
Several studies of integrated environmental information and decision support systems are described in
the literature. As an example of a developed system; in Lotov et al. (1997) describes the Multi-criteria
DSS for River Water Quality Planning which is a computer-based system for supporting the water
quality planning in river basins. It was developed on request of the Russian State Institute for Water
Management 1993-1994. The integrated mathematical model used in the system consisted of two
parts:
1) A collection of wastewater treatment models; models which relate the decrement of pollutants
emission to the cost of wastewater treatment in a industry or a service. The models applied the same
idea of technological description: a decision variable described the fraction of wastewater, which
should be treated by a certain wastewater treatment technology in a given industry or a service placed
in a given reach;
2) A pollution transport model which provided an opportunity to calculate concentrations of pollutants
at monitoring stations for a given discharge.
Another example of a water resource management DSS including a water quality component, is the
system explained by Fedra, (1995) river basin information and management system (WaterWare). It
is an integrated, model-based information and decision support system for water resources
management. Designed for use by water industry and government agencies, it provides the tools to
analyze environmental impacts and constraints of water resources management options. Using a set of
databases, a geographical information system, simulation models, and expert systems, the software
addresses a number of issues such as basic water allocation and use strategies, including the often
conflicting requirements of agriculture, industry, domestic use, and recreational and environmental
requirements; environmental impacts from resource development projects such as reservoirs; river and
reservoir water quality (as a major constraint on the use of water) under numerous land use and point
discharge (waste load allocation) scenarios, eg., from industrial and domestic treatment plants but also
urban storm water runoff; or groundwater contamination from landfills and its potential impact on
drinking water.
Several other examples for DSS's for water resources management and for specific water quality
management were developed, such as: BASINS (Better Assessment Science integrating point and non
point sources) developed by EPA, 1996 as a multipurpose environmental analysis system designed for
use by regional, state, and local agencies in performing watershed and water quality-based studies.
DESERT (Decision Support system for Evaluation of River basin strategies), is another sophisticated
highly integrated tool for decision support in water quality management on a river basin scale,
developed by The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Ivanov et al., (1995),
Austria. It integrates most of the stages, which can be found in usual decision support procedure: data
management, model formulation and implementation, calibration, simulation, optimization and
plotting of results. DESERT has a built-in capability for the evaluation of least-cost strategies through
the selection of optimal upgrading alternatives of wastewater treatment plants.