Author(s): Haowen Xu, Haider Hameed, Mary Windsor, Marian Muste, Ibrahim Demir, Jason Smith, Toby Hunemuller, Marybeth Stevenson
Linked Author(s): Marian Muste
Keywords: Natural hazards, integrated water resources management, flood mitigation, decision support systems, web-based
Abstract: The increased stress on the natural landscape due to human impacts and climate change has triggered an increase in water-related hazards (e. g. , floods, river pollution), which in turn, impose direct and immediate implications for the sustainability, resilience, and security of our watersheds. Because of their complexity, hazards are typically studied in isolation, as stand-alone processes. Moreover, the interconnections between different types of hazards are vast and not fully known. In most of the cases, however, the primary difficulty to simultaneously address hazards stems from our limited capabilities to integrate and handle the vast amount of data needed for solving the problem at the appropriate scale, i. e. , the full size of the drainage area converging to the point of interest. The lack of the technological capability precludes not only the thorough the understanding of the feedback dynamics between the multiple hazards, but also accounts for the synergies and tradeoffs among the possible solutions used to address them. Overcoming the status-quo requires the development of evidence-based decision support systems (DSS) that are focused on the end-user interests. A DSS typically provides users with interfaces that are easy to understand and use by all stakeholders using the DSS tools for problem-solving and decision-making. This paper presents a prototype DSS used for a Multi-Hazard Tournament (MHT) organized by the US Army Corps of Engineers� Institute for Water Resources in the state of Iowa (U. S. A. ). The computational environment, referred to as IoWaDSS, provides data insights for problem solving and supports decision-making for the mitigation of multiple hazards. The platform was developed using single-page application while implementing serious gaming concepts in order to enhance social learning. The platform was built with open source technologies that make the system light-weight, low-cost, and flexible. The objective of this paper is to present the IoWaDSS software architecture and its components while illustrating the interfaces used for collaborative planning in the game-like environment
Year: 2017