Development of a decision making theory and a decision support system for river basin water management

In considering of sustainable development, the decision-making of a river basin water management problem is very complicated and challenging. In this study, an effective and practical decision making theory and procedure was developed for river basin water management problems. Based on the theory and procedure, a useful and user friendly river basin water management (RBWM) decision support system was also developed as a decision making tool. The RBWM is composed of an information management, a model management, and a decision making subsystems. It can be used to carry out, simultaneously, the tasks of land use planning, water demand allocation, and water quality management of a river basin system. The decision support system can also be used to assess the carrying capacity of a river basin, which is defined as water environment carrying capacity (WECC) in this study. The Chung-Kang river basin, located in northern Taiwan, is used to illustrate the capability of RBWM. The results indicate that RBWM can be used to generate a set of satisfactory river basin water management strategies. Furthermore, the WECC obtained with RBWM can be used as a resource constraint to ensure that utilization of water and land resources will not affect the sustainable development of a river basin.