Supporting complex decisions for sustainable river management in England and Wales

Abstract

ABSTRACT1. Sustainable river management demands a strategic approach that renders even routine decisions highly complex if they are to be consistent, transparent and accountable. Under these circumstances, there is an increasing need for decision-support systems, although carefully structured guidelines and statements of best practice will continue to play a major supporting role.2. This support is likely to be particularly important in wide-ranging contexts, from routine decisions in determining land drainage consents, to complex decisions involving significant uncertainty. Sustainable Upland River Corridor Management Evaluation System (SURCoMES) has been developed as a prototype system to demonstrate the potential scope and problems for providing decision support in complex and uncertain scenarios.3. In its present form it focuses on the selection of management responses to problems of river bank erosion. It caters for uncertainty by providing guidance as to whether a particular decision is more or less sustainable than alternative options. It does not determine whether actions are absolutely sustainable or not.4. Because of the judgemental nature of the questions, underlying criteria and standards have been built into the system. These evaluations, are, in part, subjective, even when based on existing best practice and experience, so a Delphi technique approach has been used to capture professional opinion from the research sector and the Environment Agency which is responsible for river management in England and Wales.5. Decision support will undoubtedly have an important future in sustainable environmental management. The SURCoMES approach indicates potential applications, but the system requires further development and validation before it is implemented more widely.

Integrating ecology with hydromorphology: a priority for river science and management

“…The need for decision making and communication tools is a consequence of: (i) the diversity of stakeholders involved in river management; (ii) acknowledging the complexity and inherent uncertainty in managing river systems; and (iii) the concomitant capacity for conflicts of interest (Clark and Richards, 2002). Potential conflicts occur frequently, such as the desire to increase water abstraction for drinking and agriculture, compared with the desire to minimize human impacts.…”

A method for applying fluvial geomorphology in support of catchment‐scale river restoration planning

“…This might in the future include information from other scientific disciplines, the results of new research, and the views of stakeholders (for example, fishing clubs might score and weight attributes such as pool-riffle sequences more highly than might flood risk managers). Clark and Richards (2002) argue that inevitably MCA-based decision support systems cannot make decisions but exist to help inform them. Central to this is to ensure that the information is presented in a format that is not overly-technical.…”

“…These are given a score according to their significance to the definition of reference condition. These values could be crisp boundaries, but might equally be represented by fuzzy boundaries where there is uncertainty over the precise score (Klir and Yuan, 1995;Clark and Richards, 2002). As an example, in defining an upstream barrier to sediment transport, a small weir which controls coarse but not fine sediment movement might receive a lower score than a dam, which traps all sediment in a large upstream reservoir.…”

The Scope of Uncertainties in River Restoration

“…, which can be traded for gains in the other essential characteristics of models.' Others have suggested that recognising that not all uncertainty is bad will be increasingly important to decision makers who are forced to make decisions in the face of uncertainty (Clark and Richards, 2002;Pollack, 2003). Especially in long term policy analysis (the next 20-100 years) decision makers are faced with what Lempert et al (2003) referred to as 'deep uncertainty'.…”