Chapter 3 Decision Support Model (IUWS-DSM) - Tubdok

6 New Conception and Decision Support Model for IUWS
Figure 3: Basic architecture for decision support systems (Holsapple 2008)
1.2.2 Application to urban water systems
In the last two decades, DSS have been applied to the urban water systems more and
more. Poch et al. (2003) reported that more than 600 references related to environmental
DSS are found in scientific literature since the 1990s, where 25% is about water management,
11% is connected to risk assessment.
Initially, the focus lay on different branches, such as water demand prediction (e.g. An et
al. 1996, Lertpalangsunti et al. 1999, Froukh 2001), water supply systems (e.g. Shepherd
1998, Davis 2000, Tillman et al. 2001), wastewater systems (e.g. Nemetz and Margolick
1984, Fenner and Sweeting 1999, Roda et al. 2000), and rainwater management (e.g. Kluck
et al. 2005, Mbilinyi et al. 2005, Barraud et al. 1999). Later on, the water reuse was
intensively in the focus, e.g. Ahmed et al. 2003, Dinesh and Dandy 2003, Sipala et al. 2003,
Zhang 2004, and Joksimovic et al. 2006, etc.
Recently, the total urban water systems as a whole are paid attention to and the corresponding
DSS are investigated and developed. Cheng et al. (2003) developed an expert
system with the purpose of improving the urban water quality and enhancing urban
environment management. Starkl and Brunner (2004) scrutinized the decision making
procedures in urban water management considering both water supply and wastewater
disposal systems. Focusing on the hazardous substances, Malmqvist and Palmquist (2005)
created one decision support tool for urban water and wastewater systems. By comparison,
the DSS for the total urban water systems are still rare, which further promotes this research
work.