Spatial Decision Support System for River Basin Management

Labadie, John W.; Salem, Tarek H.; Larson, Roger K.; ,

Spatial Decision Support System for River Basin Management

by John W. Labadie,
Tarek H. Salem,
Roger K. Larson,

Document Type: Proceeding Paper

Part of: Watershed Management and Operations Management 2000

Abstract:

MODSIM is a generalized river basin network flow model designed to simultaneously assure that water resources are allocated according to physical, hydrogeological, and institutional/administrative requirements in a river basin. MODSIM is capable of distinguishing between natural flow and various storage contract arrangements for water entitlement accounting, including storage ownership, water service contracts, and rent pool/water banking. MODSIM also includes capabilities for stream-aquifer system management and conjunctive use of surface water and groundwater resources. The extensive spatial data requirements of the model have prompted development of a MODSIM Extension in ArcView GIS that allows: (i) automatic generation of river basin network objects (i.e., nodes and links) and topology from vector map coverages of the river basin; (ii) efficient preprocessing of all spatial and nonspatial data requirements in a graphical user interface; (iv) execution of the GIS developed network flow model; and (iv) postprocessing of spatially distributed model results in convenient map displays suitable for decision makers in evaluating river basin management strategies. The ArcView MODSIM Extension is applied to the Upper Snake River basin for evaluating various proposed storage reallocation and stream-aquifer conjunctive use strategies for satisfying instream flow requirements for endangered species, while minimizing adverse impacts on traditional water uses.

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