ASSESSMENT OF SOCIAL WELFARE IMPACTS IN WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

Decision making in water resources is faced with
uncertainties associated with environmental and
social variables. Decision makers have
precious finite resources and a wide range of
variables that can be considered to improve
watershed management.
Therefore, characterizing the feasibility of
investment in improving management of related
variables is desirable yet complicated.
A new practical framework is developed to assess the
socioeconomic value of decisions to reduce
uncertainty in system variables or to improve social
equity in water resources management.
The developed framework employs advanced social
welfare concepts to elicit the population
willingness-to-pay to obtain benefits of considered
decisions. The framework robustness is established
using common water resources problems including
groundwater contamination, NPS pollution prediction,
and social equity in allocation of remediation cost.

Autorentext

Dr.Shaqadan graduated from Utah State University, His research focus is on the assessment of social economic impacts in water resources problems. Prof. Kalualrachchi is Associate Dean and Professor in the College of Engineering at Utah State University,He is leading several local and international water research projects.

Klappentext

Decision making in water resources is faced with uncertainties associated with environmental and social variables. Decision makers have precious finite resources and a wide range of variables that can be considered to improve watershed management. Therefore, characterizing the feasibility ofinvestment in improving management of related variables is desirable yet complicated.A new practical framework is developed to assess the socioeconomic value of decisions to reduce uncertainty in system variables or to improve social equity in water resources management. The developed framework employs advanced social welfare concepts to elicit the population willingness-to-pay to obtain benefits of considered decisions. The framework robustness is established using common water resources problems including groundwater contamination, NPS pollution prediction, and social equity in allocation of remediation cost.