USE OF THE DELPHI METHOD IN RESOLVING COMPLEX WATER RESOURCES ISSUES¹

Abstract

The tri‐state river basins, shared by Georgia, Alabama, and Florida, are being modeled by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to help facilitate agreement in an acrimonious water dispute among these different state governments. Modeling of such basin reservoir operations requires parallel understanding of several river system components: hydropower production, flood control, municipal and industrial water use, navigation, and reservoir fisheries requirements. The Delphi method, using repetitive surveying of experts, was applied to determine fisheries' water and lake‐level requirements on 25 reservoirs in these interstate basins. The Delphi technique allowed the needs and requirements of fish populations to be brought into the modeling effort on equal footing with other water supply and demand components. When the subject matter is concisely defined and limited, this technique can rapidly assess expert opinion on any natural resource issue, and even move expert opinion toward greater agreement.

Governance of Aquatic Systems: What Attributes and Practices Promote Resilience?

“…Delphi methods are prevalent in many subject areas, including studies of natural resources and the environment. Within this subject area, the Delphi method has been utilized to explore complex policy questions (e.g., Needham & de Loë, 1990;de Loë, 1995;Taylor & Ryder, 2003;Frewer et al, 2011), scan future scenarios (e.g., Piecyk & McKinnon, 2010;Al-Saleh, Vidican, Natarajan, & Theeyattuparampil 2012), and gain insights about emerging issues/phenomena (e.g., De Urioste-Stone, McLaughlin, & Sanyal, 2006;Plummer & Armitage, 2007;Moore et al, 2009;Wentholt, Fischer, Gene, Marvin, & Frewer, 2010). It is the value of the tool to gain insights about phenomena that prompts its use here.…”

An Objective Means of Species Status Assessment: Adapting the Delphi Technique

“…By structuring the group communication process, the Delphi Technique helps the group reach a consensus of opinion by incorporating all available data and disseminating those data among all participants. This technique has been used to reach consensus decisions in natural resource management (Zuboy 1981, Applegate 1982, Nichols and Applegate 1987, wildlife habitat criteria for habitat suitability indices (Crance 1987, Jirka and Homa 1990, Uhmann et al 2001, and for establishing water requirements for fish (Taylor and Ryder 2003). The technique also was used by Hess and King (2002) to choose focal wildlife species and important habitats for use in conservation planning in a suburban region of North Carolina.…”

Vulnerability Resilience in the Major Watersheds of the Korean Peninsula

“…The advantage of using a Delphi survey is the ability to obtain a consensus of expert opinions through a discussion process in an iterative opinion-sharing manner with a given problem. A Delphi survey was previously adopted to resolve water resource conflicts (Taylor and Ryder 2003) and to set up criteria for flood damage data collection (Elmer et al 2010) and other research fields, such as education (Wicklein 1993;Okoli and Pawlowski 2004) and medicine (Kennedy 2004). Previously, Jung and Choi (2012) adopted a Delphi survey for climate issues and proposed that this could be outstanding means to develop more effective preparations to respond to climate change.…”