Title

Water Resources Decision Making Under Uncertainty

Authors

Dejan Vucetic, The University of Western OntarioFollow
Slobodan P. Simonovic, The University of Western OntarioFollow

Files

Summary

Uncertainty is in part about variability in relation to the physical characteristics of water resources systems. But uncertainty is also about ambiguity (Simonovic, 2009). Both variability and ambiguity are associated with a lack of clarity because of the behaviour of all system components, a lack of data, a lack of detail, a lack of structure to consider water resources management problems, working and framing assumptions being used to consider the problems, known and unknown sources of bias, and ignorance about how much effort it is worth expending to clarify the management situation. Climate change, addressed in this research project (CFCAS, 2008), is another important source of uncertainty that contributes to the variability in the input variables for water resources management.

This report presents a set of examples that illustrate (a) probabilistic and (b) fuzzy set approaches for solving various water resources management problems. The main goal of this report is to demonstrate how information provided to water resources decision makers can be improved by using the tools that incorporate risk and uncertainty. The uncertainty associated with water resources decision making problems is quantified using probabilistic and fuzzy set approaches. A set of selected examples are presented to illustrate the application of probabilistic and fuzzy simulation, optimization, and multi-objective analysis to water resources design, planning and operations. Selected examples include dike design, sewer pipe design, optimal operations of a single purpose reservoir, and planning of a multi-purpose reservoir system. Demonstrated probabilistic and fuzzy tools can be easily adapted to many other water resources decision making problems.

ISBN (Online)

978-0-7714-2901-9

ISBN (Print)

978-0-7714-2894-4

Publication Date

4-2011

Publisher

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of Western Ontario

City

London, Ontario, Canada

Disciplines

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Notes

Report no.: 073

Recommended Citation

Vucetic, Dejan and Simonovic, Slobodan P., "Water Resources Decision Making Under Uncertainty" (2011). Water Resources Research Report. 37.
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/wrrr/37