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Bender, M J (1996) A framework for collaborative planning and investigations of decision support tools for hydro development, Unpublished PhD Thesis, , University of Manitoba (Canada).
- Type: Thesis
- Keywords: decision support; sustainability; uncertainty; grounded theory; collaboration; conflicts; feedback; licensing; programming; experiment; economic analysis; fuzzy set; water resource; expert system; stakeholder
- ISBN/ISSN:
- URL: https://www.proquest.com/docview/89215686
- Abstract:
Management of water resources can be a contentious issue. International conflicts can be ignited from controversy concerning the use of water. On the local and regional scale, though, there is opportunity to work with people who would be affected by management of water resources. The planning of water development projects has evolved from the state of partial economic analysis, to more holistic mitigation of externalities. Environmental licensing processes have expanded the number of participants for the selection of alternatives. This may not be the most efficient framework for internalizing those issues which are outside the domain of the project proponent. A collaborative planning process involves stakeholders in the conceptual design stage of a project. It is conceived as a potentially efficient prelude to an environmental licensing process. If participants in the collaboration are able to work toward consensus before an adversarial licensing process, this framework may resolve many issues which inhibit water resource development. As an approach to achieving sustainability, collaborative planning focuses on the concept of consensus, and attempts to achieve that goal by moving away from the reference point of conflicting opinions. This dissertation attempts to define a suitable collaborative planning framework for hydroelectric development, and apply it within 3 decision support system modules: selection of evaluation criteria, generation of alternatives, and evaluation of alternatives. The criteria selection module incorporates the concept of grounded theory to base the interaction of decision markers on measurable facts about the problem domain. These grounded facts form the basis of linking the value systems of participants to the technical management issues of planning a project. The alternative generation module embeds GIS capabilities within a decision support system that supports feedback using expert systems. It allows participants to interactively experiment with different technical alternatives, and automatically generate the consequences of selecting different technical options based on available expertise. The process of evaluating alternatives is supported by a fuzzy compromise approach which attempts to preserve the transparency and intuitiveness of the compromise programming technique for multicriteria decision-making, while incorporating various sources of uncertainty. The approach is based on arithmetic operations on fuzzy sets using the extension principle. Feedback to decision makers is either in a visual form representing the range of possible performance of an alternative, or in the form of rankings. Rankings are made with one of two fuzzy ranking measures, both of which employ parametric control to show the impact of different outlooks on the part of decision makers.