Development and Application of a Decision Support System for River Basin Management in the Netherlands

River Basin Management requires balancing of the different functions of water in the basin. The effect of various changes in water management practices is often hard to determine and choosing between different options is therefore very difficult. Decision makers can be served by software systems that calculate the outcome of measures and compare the value of the options available. This paper is concerned with the development process and the application of the instrument the Water Framework Directive Explorer (WFDE) in the Netherlands. The WFDE is a decision support system (DSS) that has been specifically developed to support the implementation of the Water Framework Directive by exploring the effects of different measures to improve water quality and ecology. Many parties were involved in the development process as the envisaged users were both national and regional water managers. During the development it became apparent that tensions existed between the expectations and needs of the different stakeholders and also between what they wanted and the available expertise. A number of these tensions appear to correspond with tensions in River Basin Management in general. A main issue in the development process proved to be the rules describing the relation between changes in the physical environment and the targeted changes in ecology and water quality. As these relations were not established at the time of the development of the DSS, a parallel process of developing these rules was started. This has stimulated a great deal of discussion between members of different disciplines as well as within communities.