Participatory selection of indicators for water resources planning and strategic environmental assessment in Portugal

2022 ◽  
Vol 92 ◽  
pp. 106701
Author(s):  
R. Santos Coelho ◽  
Rita Lopes ◽  
Pedro S. Coelho ◽  
Tomás B. Ramos ◽  
Paula Antunes
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (01) ◽  
pp. 1950001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosa Santos Coelho ◽  
Pedro S. Coelho ◽  
Paula Antunes ◽  
Tomás B. Ramos

Water resources planning is currently designed to meet emerging challenges and encompassing a more comprehensive and integrated water management. The main focus of current water resources planning is to promote good water resource conditions through the implementation of innovative water policies. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to characterize and assess the status of water resources, monitor the implementation of planned actions, disseminate information and support the decision-making process. Indicators are often regarded as appropriate tools for supporting these tasks, although their use in this context is not imperative. The present study intends to explore the stakeholder perspective on the role of indicators in the water resources planning and management processes and their strategic environmental assessment process using a Portuguese case study. To achieve this objective, semi-structured interviews with the various stakeholder groups involved were conducted. The treatment of the obtained data using content analysis shows that the interviewees consider indicators to be an essential tool for supporting water resources planning. Some participants express concerns and suggest changes to the selection models and to the communication and decision-support capacity of the sets of indicators used. All stakeholders in the process consider that improvements to the indicators to be used in future processes are possible. In light of the results, it can be concluded that there is a long way to go for indicators to be used to promote better communication with stakeholders and to support decision-making processes; simultaneously, they can form the basis for the review and development of the subsequent cycle of the planning process.


2019 ◽  
Vol 65 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Javad Najafi ◽  
Azita Farashi ◽  
AliAkbar Pasha Zanoosi ◽  
Roya Yadreh

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 317-324

The multiple objectives optimization in water resources planning consists in trading multiple and conflicting objectives, forming a complex and dynamic process. In the last four decades multiobjective decisions based on fuzzy sets have been evolved and considerable research spawned into the application of fuzzy subsets. Multiobjective decisions problems with uncertainty require: a) evaluating how well each alternative or choice satisfies each objective and b) combining the objectives into an overall objective or decision function D for the selection of the best alternative. In particular when one has a) a universe of n alternatives X={X1, X2,...Xn} and a set of p objectives (criteria) A={A1,A2,….Ap} to be satisfied, the overall objective is D=A1 and A2 …….and Ap, given by the intersection of all the objectives, D=A1 ∩ A2......∩ Ap and one is seeking solutions satisfying D, with μD(X*)=max(μD(X)), where μD(X) is the grade of membership that the decision function D has for each alternative. An application of the above theory concerns the decision of selecting the most appropriate from five dams and their corresponding reservoirs in Néstos watershed (Alternatives AB, AD, AR, BA, and MA). The criteria set is A= {A1=cost of the dam, A2=environmental impact, A3=Hydroelectric power production, A4=flood protection) and finally the importance set is: P= {b1, b2, b3, b4}.


1985 ◽  
Vol 17 (6-7) ◽  
pp. 879-890 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edwin E. Herricks

With increased emphasis on environmental quality objectives in water resources planning and management, past practices of simply considering water quality as the only environmental quality objective are inappropriate. Expanded environmental quality objectives include maintenance of high quality aquatic habitat. Water resource systems must provide both physical and chemical conditions appropriate for the propagation and maintenance of healthy diverse aquatic communities. Managing water resources to provide high quality habitat involves planning to meet both water quality and water quantity objectives. Existing technology based water quality controls and stream based water quality criteria can now be supplemented by aquatic habitat management. An approach to aquatic habitat management is illustrated by use of the Incremental Methodology developed by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Incremental Methodology uses measures of aquatic habitat to assess instream flows required for by aquatic life. Thus the range of environmental quality objectives in resources planning and management is expanded by application of these methods to include aquatic habitat as well as water quality management. Methods used to determine instream flow needs for rivers in Illinois are reviewed, and the use of this information in developing regulations limiting water extraction for off stream use are described. Aquatic habitat based management is shown to provide workable methods to meet expanded environmental quality objectives in water resources planning and management.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document