This chapter presents and explains Engineering Options Analysis (EOA) in two ways. • First, we present it for what it is: an approach to quantitative analysis for planning, design, and management of engineering systems over time, in the context of uncertainty. We offer a brief introduction to the approach, and then go through each of the broad methodological steps. • Second, we underline important differences between EOA and Real Options Analysis (ROA), and contrast EOA briefly with other methods presented in this book. While the chapter synthesizing the DMDU approaches covers this topic in a general way (Chap. 15), it is useful for clarity to cover it briefly here. Since EOA and ROA sound so similar, readers might easily assume they are really very close if not identical-but they are not! In a nutshell, ROA assumes that we can estimate future uncertainties sufficiently accurately, is generally limited to analyzing a single option at a time, and aims to develop single monetary values for options. EOA deals with deeper uncertainties, handles multiple options simultaneously, and allows for all sorts of measures of benefits and values.

This chapter illustrates the use and value of Engineering Options Analysis (EOA) using two case studies. Each describes the analysis in detail. Each entails the need for plans to monitor projects so that managers know when to exercise options and adapt projects to the future as it develops. The Liquid Natural Gas case (Case Study 1) concerns the development of a liquid natural gas plant in Australia. It:

This paper discusses the historic and contemporary challenges in the management of the lower Mississippi River Basin, and describes the evolving role of the federal government in addressing these challenges. In the early eighteenth century, the federal government was responsible for maintaining a navigable channel. After repeated calls by states for federal assistance with flood control and a devastating flood in 1927, the federal gov ernment additionally became the primary body responsible for protecting the Delta from floods. Although the resulting flood control system provided greater protection, it also brought new challenges, such as an increasingly large hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico, land subsidence in southern Louisiana and water quality issues. The confluence of these environmental concerns and changing national values have once again broadened the scope of federal responsibility to include environmental management and ecosystem restoration, along with its original involvement in navigation and flood control. This triad of responsibility carries with it often-competing objectives that must be balanced within legal and institutional constraints, most notably a deficit of available funding for inland waterway projects and what appears to be a lack of political will for continued investment in the mainten ance of existing and development of new projects.

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