A Decision Support Tool for Wastewater Catchment Management

2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
S.E. Walters ◽  
D. Savic ◽  
R.J. Hocking
Keyword(s):  
Decision Support ◽  
Asset Management ◽  
Capital Investment ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Sewage Treatment ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Catchment Management ◽  
Clean Water ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
South West

The water industry over the years has primarily focussed on upgrading and investing in clean water provision. However, as research into the science and management of clean water services has progressed rapidly, wastewater provision and services has been slower. Focus, though, is now shifting within Industry and Research into wastewater services. The water regulator, Ofwat, for England and Wales demands the Sewerage Undertakers demonstrate efficient management of wastewater systems in order to obtain funding for Capital Investment projects. South West Water, a Water Service Provider and Sewerage Undertaker located in the South West of England, identified a need gap in their asset management strategies for wastewater catchments. This paper will introduce the production of a Decision Support Tool, DST, to help SWW proactively manage their Wastewater Catchments, examining Sewage Treatment Works, Pumping Stations and Networks. The paper will discuss some concepts within the DST, its production, testing and a brief case study. The DST provides a framework for prioritising catchments to optimise investment choices and actions. The Tool ranks catchments utilising Compromise Programming, CP, as well as AHP Pair-wise comparisons for preference weights. The DST incorporates Asset models, a Whole life Costing Module, as well as a Decay and Intervention Module.

Manager-based valuations of alternative fire management regimes on Cape York Peninsula, Australia

2008 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 660 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam G. Drucker ◽  
Stephen T. Garnett ◽  
Marty K. Luckert ◽  
Gabriel M. Crowley ◽  
Niilo Gobius
Keyword(s):  
Decision Support ◽  
Fire Management ◽  
Climatic Variability ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Wet Season ◽  
Gross Margin ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Management Regimes ◽  
Cape York

Decisions about fire management on pastoral properties are often made with little empirical knowledge. Proper accounting of the interactions between land, pasture, trees and livestock within the context of climatic variability and market conditions is required in order to assess financial implications of alternative fire management regimes. The present paper aims to facilitate such accounting through the development of a manager-driven decision-support tool. This approach is needed to account for variable property conditions and to provide direction towards considering optimal practices among a vast array of potential activities. The tool is an interactive model, developed for a hypothetical property, which analyses the costs and benefits of a baseline (no fires) against a historically based probability of wildfire overlaid by four alternative fire management regimes, representing cumulatively increasing levels of fire management intensity. These are: Regime 1, no action taken to prevent or stop wildfires; Regime 2, fire suppression (reactive fighting of wildfire); Regime 3, Regime 2 plus prevention (early dry-season burning); and Regime 4, Regime 3 combined with storm-burning (burning soon after the first wet-season storm). The model, which shows that fire and fire management have significant influences on the gross margin of Cape York Peninsula cattle properties, can be used as a decision-support tool in developing fire management strategies for individual properties. Specific fire management recommendations follow, together with the identification of potential areas of future work needed to facilitate use of the tool by clients.

scholarly journals Towards a hydroinformatics framework to aid decision-making for catchment management

2009 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. J. M. Hewett ◽  
A. Doyle ◽  
P. F. Quinn
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Decision Support ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
River Basin Management ◽  
Catchment Management ◽  
Western Balkans ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Rural Landscapes ◽  
Land And Water Management

What is the role of hydroinformatics in improving the balance between profitable rural landscapes and environmental quality? Growing recognition of the need for integrated approaches to land and water management, taking account of socio-economic development and environmental considerations, has given rise to concepts such as sustainable development and Integrated River Basin Management. Models and information systems have a place in integrated land–water management, but only if researchers and practitioners engage with wider concerns and work across disciplines. Thus a balanced approach to decision-making is proposed involving partnerships between stakeholders and researchers in the natural and social sciences, using quantitative and qualitative tools. Involvement of stakeholders tied to all scales is essential to building successful partnerships and thus the importance of public engagement is emphasized. A multi-scale land and water management framework is proposed that attempts to capitalize on current expertise. The place of hydroinformatics tools such as models, GIS and flow visualization software is discussed and a number of specific tools are presented including a novel decision support tool: the Decision Support Matrix. The use of conceptual models to aid communication is discussed and two attempts to apply the framework from projects in the UK and the Western Balkans are presented.

A decision-support tool for autumn management in a spring-calving pasture-based dairy system

2017 ◽  
Vol 57 (7) ◽  
pp. 1343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Neal ◽  
Jane Kay ◽  
Sally Peel ◽  
Sean McCarthy
Keyword(s):  
Decision Support ◽  
Body Condition ◽  
Body Condition Score ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Current Season ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Milking Frequency ◽  
The Impact

Success in a pasture-based dairy system relies on matching feed supply and feed demand in a profitable manner. Autumn is an important period for decision making to maximise current-season profitability, while ensuring key targets such as cow body condition score and the level of average pasture cover are met for the upcoming season. There are many tactical management strategies for farmers to consider during autumn to ensure that profitability is maximised in the current and next season (e.g. feeding crops, purchasing or using available supplementary feeds, reducing milking frequency, grazing off young stock, culling, or drying off cows). The complexity of trade-offs among these factors from January to calving, and the need to assess the impact of each of these on seasonal profitability led to the development of the ‘DairyNZ Autumn Management Resource’. This resource is an energy-based model that calculates the profit from different management strategies in pasture-based spring-calving systems. Feed demand is initially set to ensure that target body condition is achieved for the next season, and can then be altered using variables such as milking frequency, number of cows in milk and stock grazing on-farm. The assumption is made that energy supply comes from grazed pasture and crop first, followed by conserved forages, with the opportunity to fill remaining gaps with purchased feed. The model is a decision-support resource for farmers during the autumn that compares the economics of different management strategies in the current season, while ensuring that the performance in the next season is not compromised.

Analysis of the “Zero Waste” Management Option Using the Municipal Solid Waste Decision Support Tool

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan A. Thorneloe ◽  
Keith A. Weitz ◽  
Jesse Miller
Keyword(s):  
Decision Support ◽  
Waste Management ◽  
Municipal Solid Waste ◽  
Solid Waste ◽  
Solid Waste Management ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Integrated Solid Waste Management ◽  
The U.S

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development (US EPA ORD) has developed a “Municipal Solid Waste Decision Support Tool”, or MSW-DST, for local government solid waste managers to use for the life cycle evaluation of integrated solid waste management options. The MSW-DST was developed over a five year period (1994–1999) with the assistance of numerous outside contractors and organizations, including the Research Triangle Institute, North Carolina State University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Environmental Research and Education Foundation, Franklin Associates and Roy F. Weston. The MSW-DST can be used to quantify and evaluate the following impacts for each integrated solid waste management alternative: • Energy consumption, • Air emissions, • Water pollutant discharges, • Solid Waste disposal impacts. Recently, the MSW-DST was used by the U.S. EPA to identify solid waste management strategies that would help to meet the goal of the EPA’s “Resource Conservation Challenge.” In this effort, ten solid waste management strategies were evaluated for a hypothetical, medium-sized U.S. community, with a population of 750,000 and a waste generation rate of approximately 3.5 pounds per person per day. (Table 1). The assumed waste composition was based on national averages. A peer-reviewed paper on this research was published in 2008 by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

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