INTERA Employee Published on Using Decision Support
David Jordan, P.E., a Senior Hydrogeologist at INTERA, has recently published an article in the July/August 2006 issue of Southwest Hydrology on using decision support systems (DSS) in the area of water resource management to help balance stakeholders' competing demands for limited water supplies. DSS allow considerations, such as minimum river flows for ecosystem sustainability, groundwater availability, and costs of infrastructure for bringing water from a distant source to a growing population, to be weighed against one another to develop water supply portfolios that maximize supply while minimizing adverse impacts to stakeholders and the environment. DSS provides a tool to evaluate these complex systems, perform "what-if" scenario analyses, and aid in choosing an appropriate supply portfolio.