Phys. Chem. Earth (B). Vol. 26, No. 7-8, pp.

535-539, 2001

Pergamon

0 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved 1464-1909/01/$ - see front matter

PII: Sl464-1909(bl)OOO46-6

The Use of Decision Support Tools in Participatory River Basin Management

M. Welp ZIT - Center for Interdisciplinary 64289 Darmstadt, Germany Studies of Technology, Darmstadt University of Technology, Hochschulstrasse 1,

Received I.5 May 2000; accepted 21 September 2000

Abstract. There are growing demands for effective public participation in river basin management. These are posed among others by the proposed EU Water Framework Directive as well as international conventions and policy documents. The demands will raise a need for guidance on exactly how the public is to be involved. In public participation decision support tools (DST) and integrated modelling can have a role to play. Many computer tools not only can serve as tools for analysis for experts, but also as vehicles for communication, training, forecasting and experimentation. Illustrated by selected examples of software a range of tools and their potential applications are presented. Essential for the added-value of computer tools in stakeholder participation, in comparison to other methods like expert presentations, fact sheets, etc., is the way they are used. Lessons can be drawn from projects where computer tools were used in other policy areas. Within an European research project on energy and climate policy (ULYSSES) integrated models on global climate change were used in integrated assessment (IA) focus groups. A web-based tutorial for the use of computer models was developed. It gives guidelines for the design and setup of participatory arrangements in conjunction with computer models. Besides procedural recommendations lessons can be drawn concerning the kind of output the tools should provide and the early involvement of users is modelling and software development. o 2001 Elsevier Science
Ltd. All rights reserved

governmental organisations, community organisations. and the private sector is getting more and more important. The involvement of stakeholder groups, but also ordinary people can improve the quality and acceptance of plans and management strategies, and eventually the implementation of policies (Priscoli 1999; Coenen et al. 1998; Welp 2000). People should have the choice of selecting appropriate ways to influence public policies. These may include institutional public participation. like voting or notification to a plan, or non-institutional participation, like selforganised citizen activity or NGO campaigning. If plans and programmes are made by public authorities for the benefit of citizens, this should include meaningful and effective ways of public involvement. This is especially the case when the issues at hand are complex and uncertainties are high. Problems of river basin management cannot be solved within the confines of one single sector or discipline, neither only within a small spatial unit. This makes public participation at the watershed level such a challenging effort. Public participation in water management is required in several pieces of legislation, conventions and international policy documents (United Nations 2000). The proposed EU Water Framework Directive explicitly stresses the importance of public participation (Commission of the European Communities 1999). The proposed directive requires besides access to background documents and public information also active involvement and consultation. For example, in preparing the River Basin Management Plans early consultation on the timetable and work programme is required. The plan must eventually include a documentation of the public consultation measures, their results and the changes made to the plan. An important convention in the field of environmental planning and decision-making, including water management, is the Aarhus Convention (Convention on access to information, public participation in decision-

1 Participation

in river basin management

Increasingly citizens expect that they can have a say in issues affecting their lives, including the management of land and water resources. Also, the role of civil society is changing. Close collaboration between governments, nonCorrespondence to: Martin Welp

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M. Welp

: Decision Support Tools in Participatory River Basin Management problems. But integrated models are often cryptic and of little direct value for policy-makers. Efforts have been undertaken to increase the relevance of integrated modelling to policy issues for example by the early interaction of model developers with policy makers (Alcamo et al. 1996). Embedded in an applicable DST, integrated models can serve as a tool for jointly finding an agreement about the main problems and strategies for solving them. According to van de Ven et al. (1998) decision support systems (DSS) are a particular kind of DST with emphasis on simulation and prediction by means of models. In the following the more general category of DST is used. Decision support tools not only can serve as tools for analysis, but also as vehicles for communication, training, forecasting and experimentation. DST can also have the potential to inject ordinary knowledge into modelling efforts. Often this knowledge is rather qualitative than quantitative, which poses a further challenge to modelling. A number of decision support tools have been developed in recent years for purposes of river basin management (Loucks and Gladwell 1999). They can be divided into several categories, including: scenario simulation & modelling systems (most commonly understood as DSS). expert systems, GIS applications & databases. visualisation, role plays & gaming. Examples of simulation and modelling systems include for example Water Ware. SimCoast is a rule based fuzzy logic expert system for coastal management (McGlade 1999). The interesting feature of this system is that it can combine expert knowledge and local knowledge with a set of reasoning tools. GIS applications and databases have so far been mainly used in terrestrial environments, which is an intrinsic part of river basin management, but not so much in managing adjoined coastal and marine environments. However, this is changing rapidly. Visualisation can include virtual reality, for deciding e.g. the location of water reservoirs or for water landscaping. Visualisation also refers to the output of models. Up to now. most models have relied mainly on graphs and maps as visual output of model scenarios. While such an output is well suited for scientific audiences, additional visual aids may be important for stakeholder audiences, especially if these audiences should not only include policy makers but also wider stakeholder groups, including citizens (Kasemir et al. 1999). Two examples of role plays & gaming are Storm or Corona which have been developed by Resource Analysis in Delft. Some recently developed tools combine different types of DST. Some software applications combine GIS and modelling, like Streamdelta, or simulation tools which are combined with a role play. In recent years group decision support systems (GDDS) and network distributed decision support systems (NDDSS) (Jonoski 1999), which support collaborative work and decision-making, have received growing interest. The geographic area to which a DST is tailored plays an important role too. There is growing acceptance that water

making and access to justice in environmental matters), which was signed in 1998 by 35 countries and the European Union. The process of translating it into national legislation is still going on and it has not yet been ratified by most of the countries. There is also a number of widely recognised international policy documents, which emphasise public participation in water management (United Nations 2000). One of the most recent is the report of the World Commission on Water, which was presented at the World Water Forum in the Hague in March 2000. The report notes that in water policy and management the old model of: This is governments business must be replaced by a model in which stakeholders participate at all levels (World Water Commission 2000). Local participation is required, but on more aggregate level (watershed level) also such new institutional arrangements as user parliaments. The examples above indicate that there are growing policy demands for effective public participation in river basin management in the coming years. These new requirements will raise a need for guidance on exactly how the public is to be involved (cf. Heathcote 1998). So far there are few guidelines and handbooks for public participation in river basin management published in Europe. In public consultation decision support tools (DST) and integrated modelling can have a role to play. In this paper DST are defined broadly as computer-based tools designed to assist decision-makers, managers and other stakeholders in creating and assessing management alternatives. They can communicate scientific knowledge to broader audiences and can support the communication between involved stakeholders. This will be discussed in the following Section and illustrated by selected examples of software. Instead of focusing on the technical aspects of DST and modelling efforts, the paper discusses their potential use in conjunction with public participation. Any tool that is used should be consistent with the planning and management style of the administration or company. Thus new requirements for more collaborative plarining will bring along new requirements for supporting tools. In Section 3 a tutorial for the use of computer models in public participation is presented. The tutorial was developed in a recent EU project ULYSSES and it gives guidance on how computer models can be used in conjunction with participation of ordinary citizens in policy making. Section 4 presents lessons that can be drawn from this experience and prospects for future research.

2 The use of DST and integrated models in a participatory way Besides close collaboration with various stakeholder groups, expert knowledge is required more than ever to address todays complex river management problems. What role can decision support tools play in creating a link between science and policy making? Computer models, which were developed mainly for scientific purposes, help to organise knowledge and gain insights into complex

M. Welp : Decision Support Tools in Participatory River Basin Management

537

and land use problems can only be solved in an integrated way. Integrated river basin management (IRBM) (Mostert et al. 1999) and integrated coastal management (ICM) (Sorensen 1997; Welp 1999) are management approaches which share this notion. One step further is integrated coasf2LIwea and riveT basin mmagemenl {IQ&M), which explicitly addresses the integration needs of both management areas (UNEP 1999). Existing information and data is more often than not organised by political or map boundaries, instead by watersheds, including coastal waters. Thus DST should be capable to be used in different kinds of natural environments, including terrestrial, coastal and marine. Depending on the issue at hand the problems are solved on different scales. If the geographic area is larger, issues tend to become more complex and subsequently the number of affected stakeholder groups increases. Thus the size of management area poses further requirements to DST development. It is &2.&X& @ &X&P &.55&n mpp* s&ul~~+ in a participatory way. A challenge in modelling and in DST development is the early involvement of users (stakeholders including decision-makers), in order to know their information requirements and expectations. For example in developing the SimCoust expert system, a series of workshops was organised together with end-users from public authorities and the research community from the Europe and ASEAn countries. Models, which are used in conjunction with management should provide information on the issues which are considered important. Subjectoriented software development (SOS-D) is a recently developed approach, which applies ordinary language (understandable also for lay persons) and a facilitator between the software developer and the organisation or customer who eventia11y needs tie Gnat application (Wen&anh 1%%. XX coherence between tie rechr;lc& (functional) model of the system and the users requirements is produced on the basis of the shared ,,Lebenswelt of the participating people. A &&her &aXeczge for seiecztis&s and DST develqoers is how to cope with the differences between integrated modelling and the conceptual approaches used in DST. The lattter usuaX7 require a somewhat iirnp%%eb physic& representation of the natural and social system. Even though DST development and scientific modelling so far have been quite disjointed, the difference between DST and scien6fic models seem5 not to be as sharp as it used to be. Advancements in graphical interfaces, programming etc. has made embedding scientific models in DST and developing user shells for model results more easy (Jolma 1999). River basin management is increasingly political and valuelad&. Dsi ana integratea models can De a source 0%ipu~ give insights, but they are no truth machines. They can be used jointly with stakeholder groups and ordinary citizens, but even the most easy-to-use DST often require outside facilitation: a so called ,,model moderator (Kasemir et al.

2000). The user may be able to use the system, but equally important is to understand uncertainties and underlying assumptions. The following Section presents how this can be done in discussing complex issues related to climate change. Equally well the method can be applied in other poticy weas too, surh as Tiver basin management.

3 ULYSSES Web Tutorial In a recent EU project ULYSSES (Urban Lijkgyfes, Sustainability and Integrated Environmental Assessment) opinion formation of citizens on climate policy was studied by means of group discussions (Kasemir et al. 2000). Randomly selected lay persons were provided with the latest scientific knowledge and integrated computer models on global climate change. Approximately 600 citizens, from seven h~Dpf3~1 chks, ZODk pm in tie exexhe, wtic), cm be characterised as an exploratory project. The groups were c+X& X?Z..g?&& Af~&??&?~Z (?lQ Fucff~ Gf0ffPS and rhe computer models used in the project included: IMAGE (Alcamo 1994), TARGETS (Rotmans and de Vries 1997). Polestar (Raskin et al. 1996) and a Personal CO2 Calculator (Schlumpf et al. 1998). The results of the project including an analysis of citizen recommendations to climate policy have been presented by Kasemir et al. (1999; Kasemir et al. 2000). This paper focuses on the implications for the use of computer tools in participatory processes. Equally well the IA Focus Group method can be applied in other policy areas such as river basin management. using for example some of the DST mentioned in Section 2. In the Ulysses project a web-based tutorial for the use of computer models in participatory integrated assessment was developed @mp:~iwww.zit.tu-darmstadtdelulyssesltutorial. bun), 11&es 13etajsed g~.~&%n~s 3~7 fin dpSj,g, and XJap 01 participatory arrangements in conjunction with integrated modelling. The tutorial gives guidance in the recruitment of participants: How to set up a heterogenous group which is diverse with respect to age, gender. income, education level and _a_ticud!! .towa.& cn!&nnnXr&? _X..~%ti~ .ir _s&+$ groups tend to contain richer material on interactions between different viewpoints, than is the case with more homogenous groq~s &mwir e) A, 2DDD> T)IP .&J.!&zJ~ alscz gives guidance for group moderation and model moderation. The group moderator is in charge of guiding the focus group discussions, while the model moderator presents the computer model including tie possibilities. limitations, underlying assumptions and uncertainties involved in the model. The model moderator also guides the specific discussions during the computer interaction period. The separation of the two roles enables the group moderator to maintain the requirement of the focus group technique of avoiding that the group moderator has an expert r&g. %JaXy, tie bJkkJ_a~@ws 20 m..Jikw 49 Lb.e training and documentation needs involved in such an effort. Manuals and work packages were developed for model moderators and training was organised for model

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M. Welp

: Decision Support Tools in ParticipatoryRiver Basin Management was also hydrology and land use change. Early collaboration between stakeholders, modellers and tool developers seems to be essential in order to know the expectations of endusers. This will help to address open questions concerning public participation in river basin management in Europe and provide support for the sound implementation of the proposed EU Water Framework Directive.

moderators. Support material for the participants to be developed.

Since IA Focus Groups were carried out in seven European cities, ULYSSES emphasised the explicit consideration of different cultural contexts in European climate policy. A Focus Group design as developed by ULYSSES, helps to understand cultural. and social differences which are of great importance for an effective implementation of environmental and resource use policies in Europe. Policies, such as the EU Water Framework Directive, must recognise the great diversity in regional practices and different traditions of water management. These need to be taken into account, when applying both participation and decision support tools.

References Alcamo, J. (Ed.) 1994. I~UAGE 2.0: hltegruted Climate Change. London, Kluwer.
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Alcamo,J., Kreileman,E. & Leemans,R. 1996.G/oba/ mode/s meet globalpolicy. Global Environmental Change 6(4): 255-259.
Coenen, F. H. J. M., Huitema, D. & OToole. L. J. Jr. (Eds.) 1998. Participation and the Quality qf Envrronmental Policy llakrng, Environment & Policy. Dordrecht. Kluwer Academic Publishers. 33 I p. Commission of the for a European framework for COM( 1999) 27 I European Communities 1999. Amendmend proposal Parliament and Council Directive establishing a Community action in the field of water policy. final. 69 p.

4 Lessons learned and future prospects The experiences gained in ULYSSES show that most computer models used in the project currently are far from being so easy to use that they can be applied with stakeholders without proper preparations, including training and the production of support materials. In ULYSSES some of the used models were designed for lay users (e.g. CLEAR), but most models needed the facilitation of a model moderator (e.g. TARGETS) (Dahinden et al. 1999). The participants called for greater transparency and online documentation providing additional information on questions that might arise during the model use. Also better visualisation and graphic outputs were required. The findings also suggest that the computer modelsused in ULYSSES were successful in giving insights into the complex climate system, but were less successful for the exploration of policy options (Dahinden, Querol et al. 1999). With some models however (Polestar) the participants were able to develop own scenarios, rather than being confronted with predefined expert runs. A further suggestions for computer model design, based on the ULYSSES experience, was to include the aspect of uncertainty in model development (Dahinden et al. 1999; Kasemir et al. 2000). The lessons above should be taken into account when designing new research projects using computer tools in participatory management. In a future research project coordinated at ZIT different decision support tools are assessed and tested for their potential to translate qualitative expert-knowledge (developed by stakeholders in scenario workshops) for modelling purposes - and vice versa - to demonstrate results of model runs in an understandable and visualised way to these groups. The project will look into different methods which can be used to solve this problem, such as the use of metadata and object-oriented or otherwise more advanced data structures. The requirements for developing DST for integrated river basin management will be analysed comprehensively, taking into account ecological, water quality, and other issues in addition to

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