Demand for Water-Resources Information: A Conceptual Framework and Empirical Investigation

摘要

The continued effectiveness of the Federal water-data-collection effort is an area of special concern to many, because more than 30 Federal agencies collect some form of data. With less funding available, agencies are exploring methods to increase the efficiency of their data-collection programs and the value of the information produced. A framework based on a literature review of organizational decision processes has been developed to consider the nature of the demand and the value for decisionmakers in public water management organizations. The paper reports the results of an empirical model that relates decisionmaker's use of the Water Resource Council's Second National Water Assessment and hypothetical expenditures on 'national assessment information' to agency characteristics in two water basin management situations: instream versus offstream water-use competition in the Missouri River basin, and low freshwater inflows to Chesapeake Bay.