A decision support system for the implementation of the Water Framework Directive in the Netherlands: Process, validity and useful information
Introduction
This paper discusses the development and use of a decision support system for the implementation of the European Union's Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC; WFD). This directive requires the Member States of the EU to reach a “good water status” by 2015. For surface waters, this includes a good chemical status and a good ecological status. If it is technically not feasible or disproportionately expensive to reach a good status by 2015, deadlines may be extended to ultimately 2027 and objectives may be lowered. The objectives for individual water bodies have to be specified in river basin management plans (RBMPs), which have to be developed involving all interested parties. Moreover, programmes of measures have to be developed to reach the objectives.
The WFD posed new challenges for river basin management and made existing ones more pronounced. They include both institutional challenges, such as the interplay between the different authorities involved (e.g. Junier et al., 2011, Moss, 2004), and technical challenges, such as the definition of ‘good status’ of a water body, how to measure and monitor the status, and what measures can lead to achieving this status (e.g. Mostert, 2003). When the WFD was being developed, technical experts involved were well aware that the knowledge required to implement it was not yet available (Lagacé et al., 2008). In the Netherlands, for instance, a lack of expertise existed concerning ecological quality elements and the impact of measures (Raadgever et al., 2011). Moreover, existing expertise was not always accessible. The scientific knowledge could not be directly applied in policy while policy makers may not have the time or the expertise to perform the required translation (Quevauviller et al., 2005, Willems and Lange, 2007).
The implementation of the WFD requires what McNie (2007) calls ‘useful information’, that is information that would “improve environmental decision-making by expanding alternatives, clarifying choice and enabling decision-makers to achieve desired outcomes” (McNie, 2007, p. 1). Decision support systems (DSSs) and other modelling instruments can assist in providing such information. Gorry and Morton (1971, quoted in Turban and Aronson, 2001, p. 13) define DSSs as “interactive, computer-based systems, which help decision-makers use data and models to solve unstructured problems.” They can support the analysis of the present status, provide predictions for the future (Gourbesville, 2008), or both. Moreover, they can support discussions, stimulate learning, contribute to institutional capacity building, and store data and models (De Kok et al., 2009, pp. 1784, 1785). They are also viewed as valuable for participation processes (Bots et al., 2011, Horlitz, 2007, Welp, 2001).
This paper aims to increase our understanding of the development process of DSSs and how this impacts the validity and usefulness of the information the DSS provides. Validity can be defined quite broadly, overlapping with McNie's (2007) definition of useful information (e.g. Van Daalen et al., 2002). We, however, view validity as the ability of a model to represent reality correctly. To be used, information should be seen as useful (fit for purpose, accessible and user-friendly). This in turn requires that the information is perceived as valid. We aim to show in this paper that validity, just like usefulness, is not just determined by technical parameters. In the end, the perceptions of those who work with a model or DSS, both developers and users, determine whether it is seen as valid or not.
The case discussed in this paper is the development and use of the WFD Explorer (WFDE) in the period 2005–2008. The WFDE was specifically designed to support the WFD planning process in the Netherlands at (sub) basin level. It was meant to support discussion among policy-makers and their political superiors by enabling an exploration of the effects of possible measures and presenting the results in a visually attractive way. The versions of the instrument discussed here are no longer available, due to shortcomings that will be elaborated later. A completely new release is available as of March 2013.
The research conducted for this paper focussed on the development process and the way this shaped the actors’ perceptions of the validity and usefulness of the instrument. It consisted of an analysis of policy documents and scientific papers on the implementation of the WFD in the Netherlands, and of documents on the development of the WFDE, such as project plans, newsletters, minutes of user groups and steering group and project presentations. The first author also attended two public meetings concerning the development of the instrument. Furthermore, 14 people were interviewed: five developers, four users, four funders of the WFDE, and three civil servants involved in the implementation of the WFD; some interviewees belong to more than one category. The interviewees were sent the minutes of the interview and were asked to comment on both the minutes and the draft case study report. The full case study report is available online (Junier, 2010).
This paper will first give a brief literature review on the use and usefulness of DSSs. Next, it describes the development process of the WFDE, the parties involved, their objectives and the output. Subsequently, it describes how the WFDE was used in developing RBMPs. In the following section a more detailed analysis of the tensions that arose in the development of the WFDE is presented. The final section offers some reflections on the case and the literature.
Section snippets
The use and usefulness of DSSs
Many authors discuss how DSSs and other modelling tools can contribute to environmental policy (Fassio et al., 2005, Gourbesville, 2008, Jakeman et al., 2006, Mysiak et al., 2005, Rekolainen et al., 2004, Van Daalen et al., 2002, Volk et al., 2010). Environmental decision making is described as complicated; “involving multiple decision-makers, a myriad of stakeholders, a web of constraints, and competing objectives” (Pyke et al., 2007, p. 612). Because of the inherent complexity of the system
Development of the WFDE
The development of the WFDE can be described in five phases (Table 1). In May 2004, RIZA, a research department of the State Water Management Agency of the Netherlands, and Delft Hydraulics, an applied research institute, filed a research proposal to develop the WFDE at ‘Leven met Water’, a Dutch national funding programme to stimulate knowledge development on water management issues. Funding to develop and test a prototype was granted early 2005. Two further partners in the consortium were a
Use of the WFDE
Early 2007 a full version of WFD was released for use. The developers had started with the idea to support WFD planning at the sub-basin level, but the specific water system analysis and the development of programmes of measures did not take place at that level, but at the level of the individual water management organisations. At the sub-basin level they did coordinate with other stakeholders, but without the use of modelling instruments. For the Meuse sub-basin a WFDE application was set up,
Tensions in the development of the WFDE
The limited use of the WFDE reflects a number of related tensions in the development process. Although they are related and partly overlapping, we distinguish them here for reasons of clarity.
Discussion and conclusion
The aim of this paper was to increase our understanding of how the development process of a DSS can impact the perception of the validity and usefulness of the DSS, using the WFDE as an example. The WFDE was hardly used, although the project team was clearly aware of the common pitfalls and applied the recommendations in the literature to avoid them. They did involve users, tried to provide useful and valid information, and considered user-friendliness, at least for the originally intended
Acknowledgements
The research was funded within the framework of the IWRM-NET Funding Initiative, funding for this case being provided by the research department Waterdienst of the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment (then Ministry of Transport, Public Works, and Water management) (Grant no. 31009818). Furthermore, the authors would like to thank all the interviewees for sharing their experiences and providing documents and the two anonymous reviewers that provided us with useful comments.
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