Decision Support Systems in Water Resources and Environmental Management

摘要

The fields of water resources and environmental management span the societal realm in which people interact, as well as the physical world, which underlies all human activities. Consider, for example, the complex problems that arise when contamination-apparently caused by the operations of a local chemical factory-is discovered in an aquifer that is a community's sole source of water. On the societal level, this water pollution problem includes intense conflict among stakeholders over who should pay for the cleanup, how the aquifer should be purified, how to prevent further problems, and which alternative sources of water should be tapped while the polluted aquifer is under remediation.