Collaborative planning in integrated water resources management: the use of decisions support tools

The introduction of collaborative planning in integrated water resources management (IWRM) requires new decision support tools (DST) to support the integration of scientific technical knowledge in to the process, together with the dialogue between stakeholders. Decision support systems are used frequently, but there are other (less well known) tools available. To decide whether or not a certain DST is suitable for a collaborative planning process, guidelines for the choice of tools should be provided. Criteria for the use of DST and general conclusions on the suitability of three groups of DST are described.