Decision Support System for the Evaluation of Droughts and Drought Mitigation Measures

Successful management of water supply system under drought conditions requires the effective use of advanced tools able to support water managers in the decision process. This paper presents the Decision Support System (DSS) developed within the EC INCO-DC project “A DSS for drought mitigation in Mediterranean regions”. The objective of the DSS is to aid decision makers in managing water systems devoted to irrigation use under drought conditions. This is accomplished through six main computational modules, namely a drought identification model, an irrigation scheduling model, reservoir optimisation and simulation models, a model that allows to derive reservoir operating rules by multiple regressions and/or neural network approach and a multicriteria analysis model, with all modules integrated in an user friendly environment in order to effectively assist in making decision in water supply systems management.