Integrated water resources management: A new strategy for DSS development and implementation

Abstract

AbstractAlthough the recent concept of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) is continuously searching for modern operational approaches to be implemented in practice, the Decision Support Systems (DSSs) have been considered a major effective tool for supporting IWRM. According to the weaknesses and limitations in the current DSSs, this paper presents a new DSS development strategy based on an architecture design including higher levels of competitive advantages in system flexibility, product maintenance, and user acceptance. Instead of producing a DSS as a stand‐alone product limited to real‐time monitoring, the selected approach presents a design for a real‐time DSS service setup with a multilayered user interface and a multimodular modeling system. The methodology has been used and implemented over the Var catchment (2800 km2) and has been validated with an operational application. The designed DSS is currently used by the local management authorities with a high level of user satisfaction with monitoring and forecast services. The obtained result underlines the promising applicability of the proposed approach for other DSSs addressing utilities.