Needs Assessment for and Conceptual Design of the Nile Basin Decision Support System

Modules for the DSS Awareness/Training Workshops   IWRM/DSS Awareness and Consultation Workshops
The DSS awareness and training workshops are designed for a two days duration, offered in two sub-regional workshops, and 9 national workshops.
The first day of the workshop offers a series of lectures (see below) and structured discussion sessions. The workshops are intended to provide the language and concepts to facilitate the detailed needs assessment; it is also designed to raise awareness of what can be done by using as many examples contributed by the participants that will directly apply to the Nile riparian countries as possible, encouraging active participation with real-world examples of decision problems introduced by the participants.

Workshop Components: the workshops consist of a series of introductory lectures (selected from a set of 12 presentations) on day 1, followed by a set of practical model/DSS demo examples on the second day. The sessions cover basic decision making concepts and termoinology, basic apporaches from simple information systems to stochastic optimization with multiple criteria and mutiple objectives, multi-attribute decision theory, economic valuation methods, group decision making, game theory, uncertainty and risk management. Introduction and overview   Definitions, terminology IWRM problems and data   Criteria, indicators Economic valuation   Rational choice Simulation modeling   Optimization modeling Uncertainty, gaming   DSS methods and tools DSS implementation   DSS success and failure Summary, English part 1   Summary, English part 2 Summary, French part 1   Summary, French part 2 The demo cases discussed are made available on-line to all registered workshop participants with Email based tutor support kurt@ess.co.at for the participants to keep working with. The objective is to introduce the potential of DSS tools, illustrate the scope and benefits of possible applications, but also their limitations, data requirements, and infrastructure and institutional requirements, but in general get the participants interested in active participation, including the exploratory application of the on-line tools for any specific problem or project. All hands-on exercises and demos use web-based interactive models and DSS tools that can be used from any PC with a standard web browser and Internet connection. These tools and all teaching materials are made available to all registered workshop participants also before and after the workshop, for the duration of the consultancy assignment, for all registered participants from the workshops with eMail-based tutor support. Selected on-line resources: Data requirements for case study demonstration examples OPTIMA IWRM project and on-line DSS tools DSS for IWRM  Introductory PowerPoint presentation, on-line. Student self-test, multiple choice