Topics on System Analysis and Integrated Water Resources Management

The Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) paradigm has been worldwide recognized as the only feasible way currently available to ensure a sustainable perspective in planning and managing water resource systems. It is the inspiring principle of the Water Framework Directive, adopted by the European Union in 2000, as well as the main reference for all the water related activity of UNESCO in the third world countries. However, very often, real world attempts of implementing IWRM fail for the lack of a systematic approach and the inadequacy of tools and techniques adopted to address the intrinsically complex nature of water systems. This book explores recent and important contributions of System Analysis and Control Theory to the technical application of such paradigm and to the improvement of its theoretical basis. Its prior aim is to demonstrate how the modelling and computational difficulties posed by this paradigm might be significantly reduced by strengthening the efficiency of the solution techniques, instead of weakening the integration requirements. The first introductory chapter provides the reader with a logical map of the book, by formalizing the IWRM paradigm in a nine-step decisional procedure and by identifying the points where the contribution of System Analysis and Control Theory is more useful. The book is then organized in three sections whose chapters analyze some theoretical and mathematical aspects of these contributions or presents design applications. The outstanding research issues on the border between System Analysis and IWRM is depicted in the last chapter, where a pull of scientists and experts, coordinated by Prof. Tony Jakeman describe the foreseeable scenario.

The book is based on the most outstanding contributions to the IFAC workshop on Modelling and Control for Participatory Planning and Managing Water Systems held in Venice, September 28- October 1, 2004. That workshop has been conceived and organized with the explicit purpose of producing this book: the maximum length of the papers was unusually long (of the size of a book chapter) and only five long oral presentations were planned each day, thus allowing for a very useful and constructive discussion.

• Contributions from the leading world specialists of the field
• Integration of technical modelling aspects and participatory decision-making
• Good compromise between theory and application

Andrea Castelletti received a MS degree in Environmental Engineering and a PhD in Information Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, Italy, in 1999 and 2005. He is Assistant Professor of Modelling and Control of Environmental Systems in the same university. His main research interests focus on modelling and control of water resource systems and Decision Support System design.

Rodolfo Soncini-Sessa received his PhD on System Analysis at Politecnico di Milano, Italy in 1972; he was with the Water Group of the International Institute for System Analysis (IIASA) several times since 1975 and thought Water Management in some Italian Universities before being full professor of Natural Resources Management at the Politecnico di Milano. He is chair of the IFAC TC on Modelling & Control of Environmental Systems, and in the Editorial Boards of Water International and Journal of Environmental Modelling and Software. His main research interests are in the design of DSS for participatory decision making in the area of water resources.