Keywords
Decision Support Tool, Integrated Transboundary Water Quality Planning and Management, Collaborative Binational Decision-making, Lower Rio Grande/Río Bravo, Qualitative Social Science Research, Institutional Analysis, Texas-Mexico Border Region, Geospatial Analysis, Data Visualization, Surface Water Quality Modeling
Start Date
26-6-2018 3:40 PM
End Date
26-6-2018 5:00 PM
Abstract
Development of a Decision Support Tool to Improve Binational Water Quality Planning in the Lower Rio Grande/Río Bravo
Roger M. Miranda1 and Alexander Sun2
Hidden text: The abstract may be included at the discretion of the supervisor.
We describe the development of a decision support tool designed to facilitate and enhance collaborative binational decision-making efforts associated with integrated transboundary water quality planning and management in the Lower Rio Grande/Río Bravo. The Lower Rio Grande Water Quality Initiative Decision Support System (LRGWQIDSS) is the result of a multidisciplinary effort to integrate qualitative social science research, geospatial analysis methods water quality modeling, and the visualization of natural resources data. The LRGWQIDSS incorporates information currently used by urban planning and natural resource management organizations working along the Texas-Mexico border area and provides a means to analyze and display the information in a way that is useful to institutional actors involved in jurisdictional and transboundary water quality planning efforts. While stakeholder analyses methods, such as Agent-based modeling have contributed greatly to decision support system development efforts, factors that affect institutional change, such as path dependency and jurisdictional disputes have remained largely underemphasized in these efforts. The analysis of the institutional arrangements currently in place to protect water quality in the Lower Rio Grande/Río Bravo played an important role in the design and development of the LRGWQIDSS and its successful application. The development of the LRGWQIDSS represents a case study in the importance of the role of institutional analysis in the successful development of decision support systems for transboundary water quality management.
1Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, The university of Texas at Austin
2Bureau of Economic Geology, The University of Texas at Austin
Development of a Decision Support Tool to Improve Binational Water Quality Planning in the Lower Rio Grande/Río Bravo
Development of a Decision Support Tool to Improve Binational Water Quality Planning in the Lower Rio Grande/Río Bravo
Roger M. Miranda1 and Alexander Sun2
Hidden text: The abstract may be included at the discretion of the supervisor.
We describe the development of a decision support tool designed to facilitate and enhance collaborative binational decision-making efforts associated with integrated transboundary water quality planning and management in the Lower Rio Grande/Río Bravo. The Lower Rio Grande Water Quality Initiative Decision Support System (LRGWQIDSS) is the result of a multidisciplinary effort to integrate qualitative social science research, geospatial analysis methods water quality modeling, and the visualization of natural resources data. The LRGWQIDSS incorporates information currently used by urban planning and natural resource management organizations working along the Texas-Mexico border area and provides a means to analyze and display the information in a way that is useful to institutional actors involved in jurisdictional and transboundary water quality planning efforts. While stakeholder analyses methods, such as Agent-based modeling have contributed greatly to decision support system development efforts, factors that affect institutional change, such as path dependency and jurisdictional disputes have remained largely underemphasized in these efforts. The analysis of the institutional arrangements currently in place to protect water quality in the Lower Rio Grande/Río Bravo played an important role in the design and development of the LRGWQIDSS and its successful application. The development of the LRGWQIDSS represents a case study in the importance of the role of institutional analysis in the successful development of decision support systems for transboundary water quality management.
1Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, The university of Texas at Austin
2Bureau of Economic Geology, The University of Texas at Austin
Stream and Session
E4: Methods and Approaches to Modelling Socio-Economic Dynamics in the Rio Grande/Bravo Basin