A systems approach to water resource allocation in international river basin development

A methodology is presented to assist the water resource systems analyst in providing and interpreting technical information to promote coordinated water resource use in international river basin development. The international river basin planning environment is examined to identify the analytical information which can address and satisfy comprehensive decision-making requirements. This information is organized within a multilevel decomposition framework that permits an analysis of the implications of alternative resource development patterns in terms of nations both achieving their objectives and pursuing development strategies that will lead to feasible basin-wide resource use. The proposed methodology is applied to an example of international river basin planning with the generation of resource transformation curves, and results are examined for their appropriateness as bases for coordinated development.