Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 82428254

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Expert Systems with Applications

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An integrated scenario-based multi-criteria decision support system for water

resources management and planning A case study in the Haihe River Basin
S.Q. Weng a,1, G.H. Huang a,b,*, Y.P. Li b,2
a
Environmental Systems Engineering Program, Faculty of Engineering, University of Regina, Regina, Sask, Canada S4S 0A2
b
Research Academy of Energy and Environmental Studies, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Keywords: In this study, an integrated scenario-based multi-criteria decision support system (SMC-DSS) is devel-
Decision making oped for planning water resources management in the Haihe River Basin. The SMC-DSS incorporates
Haihe River Basin techniques of scenario analysis, multiobjective programming (MOP), and multi-criteria decision analysis
Multiobjective (MCDA) within a decision support systems (DSS) framework. The system components include system
MCDM
composition, scenario generation, scenario quantication, multiobjective optimization, and scenario
Policy
Scenario analysis
evaluation. SMC-DSS can solve complex water resources management planning problem which may
Water resources involve several conict objectives, and can deal with uncertainties expressed as possible outcomes.
The SMC-DSS can be used for assessing management policy impacts on socio-economic and environmen-
tal sectors and supporting the formulation of relevant management policies under uncertainty. It is effec-
tive for large-scale problems with thousands of parameters and variables and in association with
uncertain features. The developed SMC-DSS is then applied to planning water resources management
in the Haihe River Basin, China. A number of scenarios based on different water resources management
policies are conducted. The results indicate that different water management policies could lead to varied
patterns for regional economic development and environmental protection. The results obtained are
valuable for identifying desired water resources management policies and planning sustainable regional
development patterns.
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction complexities can help decision makers to manage water resources

Water resources management is a complicated issue, which in-
volves socio-economic and environmental impacts, as well as var-
ious natural and human-disturbing factors (e.g., hydrologic and
hydraulic condition, human activities); moreover, watersheds are
usually characterized by various uncertainties associated with
hydrological exogenous inows and human demand patterns in
the future. When water resources decision-making models are
repeatedly simulated from a long-term perspective, thousands of
constraints and variables are needed to be handled and decision
makers are often overburdened by quantity and complexity of
information generated by models. These complexities could
become further amplied when various uncertainties must be con-
sidered in developing any model (Li, Huang, & Nie, 2006). There-
fore, designing a sound system for better addressing such
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 306 585 4095; fax: +1 306 585 4855.
E-mail addresses: weng_sq@hotmail.com (S.Q. Weng), gordon.huang@uregina.ca
(G.H. Huang), yongping.li@iseis.org (Y.P. Li).
1
Tel.: +1 306 585 4958; fax: +1 306 585 4855.
2
Tel.:/fax: +86 10 5197 1255.
effectively and efciently.
Consequently, in the past decades, many systems analysis
methods were developed in response to these complexities (Bashir,
Tanakamaru, & Tada, 2009; Billionnet, 2009; Chang, Wen, Chen, &
Yong, 1996a, 1996b; Foran & Wardle, 1995; Huang, 1996, 1998; Li
& Huang, 2009; Li, Huang, Nie, & Liu, 2008; Li, Yang, Huang, & Li,
2009; Luo, Maqsood, Huang, Yin, & Han, 2005; Pallottino, Sechi,
& Zuddas, 2005; Qin, Huang, Chakma, Nie, & Lin, 2008; Sakawa &
Yano, 1990; Sei & Hipel, 2001; Song & Li, 2009; Yin, Pierce, & Love,
1995). Among them, multiobjective programming (MOP) methods
can provide valuable trade-off information among the conict
objectives; multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) provides a sys-
tematic procedure to help decision makers choose the most desir-
able and satisfactory alternative through analyzing multiple
criteria by which the strengths and weaknesses of various adapta-
tion options could be evaluated. Since the early 1970s, MCDM
techniques have been developed into many forms and been exten-
sively employed for a wide range of different case studies, such as
river basin planning and groundwater remediation (Moeffaert,
2003). Generally, multi-criteria analysis consists of two major
elds (Nasiri, Maqsood, Huang, & Fuller, 2007): (i) multiple-
objective decision-making (MODM) (Chen et al., 2005; Michnik &

0957-4174/$ - see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.eswa.2010.05.061
 S.Q. Weng et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 82428254 8243

Nomenclature

t planning year (2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020, 2025 and Pmforest forest output value per unit area
2030) Pmivestk unit livestock price
d district (Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Lubei, Yubei) PPBOD BOD discharge per resident
s sector (Agriculture, Mining, Heavy manufacturing, Light Ppri private consumption coefcient
manufacturing, Electrical machinery, construction, PTBOD residual rate of wastewater treatment rate
Transportation, Services) Pwcrop irrigation water per unit crop area
s1 industrial sector (Mining, Heavy manufacturing, Light Pwsh water use for shery per unit of 10,000 Yuan output va-
manufacturing, Electrical machinery, construction, lue
Transportation) Pwforest irrigation water per unit forest area
s2 service sector Pwgrass water use per unit grassland area
c number of crops (grain, wheat, vegetable, cotton, sum- Pwindu water use per unit of 10,000 Yuan output value of indus-
mer corn, autumn corn) try
f type of forest, including man-made forest and natural Pwlivestk water use per head of livestock
forest Pwor investment coefcient of working capital
p type of grassland, p = 1 irrigation grassland, p = 2 natural Pwpoprur rural water use per capita
grassland Pwpopurb urban water use per capita
A matrix of input coefcients. For a given time period and Pwresource total amount of water resource
district, it is a (8  8) matrix whose elements aij give the Pwsave cost of unit water-save irrigation area
quantity of the output of sector i absorbed by sector j Pwserv water use per unit of 10,000 Yuan output value of ser-
per unit of its total output j vice
aij input coefcient of product of sector i into sector j Pwusecoe water resource utilization coefcient
Bxin matrix of capital coefcients of investment in xed as- Pwwindu industrial wastewater discharge rate
sets Pwwpop resident wastewater discharge rate
Bgov matrix of capital coefcients of government consump- Pwwprice cost of new unit wastewater treatment capacity
tion expenditure Pwwserv service wastewater discharge rate
Bpri matrix of capital coefcients of private consumption Pwwteated wastewater treatment rate
expenditure Pwwteated wastewater treatment rate
Bwor matrix of capital coefcients of working capital Pycrop crop yield per unit area
I an identity matrix X output value of industrial sector s in district d in time
J project, where j = 1, 2 denote east route and middle period t
route water transfer project) Xacrop planting area for each crop
P
invest lower bound of GDP investment rate coefcient Xaforest area of a forest
P
invest upper bound of GDP investment rate coefcient Xagrass grassland area
P
atotal lower bound of total planting area rising rate Xagri water use for agriculture
P
atotal upper bound of total planting area rising rate Xasave area of water-save irrigation
P
im lower bound of import coefcient XBOD amount of BOD discharge
P
im upper bound of import coefcient Xbuild1 cost of south-to-north water transfer project in Haihe
P
acrop lower bound of planting area rising rate for each crop River Basin
P
acrop upper bound of planting area rising rate for each crop Xbuild2 cost of wastewater treatment
P
aforest lower bound of increasing area for each type of forest Xbuild3 cost of save water project
P
aforest upper bound of increasing area for each type of forest Xdeltax xed asset increment in the time period t
P
agrass lower bound of increasing area for each type of grass- Xex exports
land Xxas xed assets
P
agrass upper bound of increasing area for each type of grass- Xxin investment in xed assets
land XFOOD total crop output
P
ex lower bound of export coefcient XGDP gross domestic production
P
ex upper bound of export coefcient Xgov government consumption expenditure
Palpha0 generation coefcient of xed asset value in time period Xim imports
t XIO 01 variable. 0 means the project does not taken while 1
Palpha1 generation coefcient of xed asset value in time period denotes the project will be undertaken
t1 Xlivestk production of livestock
Pamax total available irrigation area Xmcrop crop output value
PBODrate BOD discharge rate per unit of 10 million Yuan output Xmsh output value of shery
value of each sector Xmforest forest output value
Pcita output rate of xed assets Xmpasture output value
Pcost1 cost of each project Xpoprur rural population
Pcropagn duplicate planting coefcient Xpopurb urban population
Pdelta upper bound of (balance of trade/GDP) Xpri private consumption expenditure
Pdisprate xed asset depreciation rate Xsxas xed assets in sector s
Pnalx nal generation coefcient of xed assets Xsxin investment in xed assets in sector s
PGDP added value rate Xtacrop total planting area
Pgov government consumption coefcient Xtaforest total forest area
Plivestk heads of livestock fed by Unit area grassland Xtmcrop total crop value
Pmcrop crop output value per unit yield Xtmforest total forest output value
8244 S.Q. Weng et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 82428254
Xtwcrop total irrigation water needed for corps
Xtwforest total irrigation water needed for forests
Xtwothagri total water use for both animal husband and shery
Xwaterin total investment in water projects
Xwcrop irrigation water needed for a crop
Xwsh total water use for shery
Xwforest irrigation water needed for a type of forest
Xwgrass total water use for grassland
Xwindu water use for industry
Xwlivestk total water use for livestock
Trzaskalik, 2002), which works on continuous decision spaces, pri-
marily on mathematical programming with several objective func-
tions; and (ii) multiple-attribute decision-making (MADM) (Yoon
& Hwang, 1995), which focuses on problems with discrete decision
spaces to choose an optimal alternative from a set of alternatives
with respect to multiple evaluation attributes, and in relation to
attribute weights.
Scenario analysis method is a useful technique for addressing
uncertainties existing in the system components. The typical char-
acteristic of this method is that it can model many real problems
where decisions are based on uncertain information presented as
a set of possible outcomes (i.e. scenarios). A scenario represents a
possible realization of sets of uncertain data in the time horizon
examined (Onnis, Sechi, & Zuddas, 1999). Previously, a number of
scenario analysis methods were developed for a variety of elds,
including land-use planning (Foran & Wardle, 1995; Yin et al.,
1995), climate change (Wolf & Diepen, 1995), air trafc manage-
ment (Glockner, 1996), forest ecology and forest management
(Mohren, 2003), investment planning (Mulvey & Vladimirou,
1989), insurance policy analysis (Hoyland & Wallace, 2001), and
regional planning (Dll, Hauschild, & Fuhr, 2000). However, few
applications to water resources management were reported.
Pallottino et al. (2005) proposed a scenario analysis model for
water resources management under uncertainty; however, in this
method, a single objective function was considered to identify a
complete set of decision variables under uncertainty. Moreover,
most of the previous studies either developed optimization models
for describing interactions among resources, economy and envi-
ronment, or evaluating effects of resources management policy
on environmental and/or economy objectives. There is lacking of
methods integrating these efforts into a general framework based
on decision support systems (DSS). In fact, an integrated DSS that
combines scenario analysis, MOP and MCDA techniques will help
generate more effective and efcient water resources management
plans.
Therefore, the objective of this study aims to develop such an
integrated scenario-based multi-criteria decision support system
(SMC-DSS) for planning water resources management in the Haihe
River Basin. The system components include system composition,
scenario generation, scenario quantication, multiobjective opti-
mization, and scenario evaluation. The SMC-DSS will incorporate
techniques of scenario analysis, multiobjective programming
(MOP), and multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) within a deci-
sion support systems (DSS) framework. In SMC-DSS, scenario anal-
ysis will be used to model the policies for water resources
management, MOP will be used to handle multiple conict objec-
tives, and MCDA will be used to accomplish the scenario evalua-
tion. The robustness of the various policies can thus be examined
through assessing their impacts under different possible outcomes.
The developed SMC-DSS is then applied to planning water re-
sources management in the Haihe River Basin, China. A number
of scenarios based on different water resources management poli-
cies will be conducted. The results obtained will be valuable for
Xwor working capital
Xwpop water use for resident
Xwserv water use for service
Xwtotal total water use
Xwwaste discharge of wastewater
Xwwaste total amount of wastewater discharge
Xwwtreated amount of treated wastewater
Xycrop yield of crop
supporting water resources management and planning regional
economic development.
2. The study system
The Haihe River Basin is located in the northern part of China,
which lies between the Songliao Plain (in the northeast) and the
Yellow River Basin (to the south and west) (as shown in Fig. 1).
The basin has two major rivers: the Haihe River and the Luanhe
River (including their tributaries). The Haihe River Basin covers
two municipalities of Beijing and Tianjin, and more than 20 large
and medium-sized cities in the Hebei, Shandong, Shanxi and
Henan Provinces. The Haihe River Basin is characterized by a
semi-humid climate in the monsoon region of the East Asia Warm
Temperate Zone. It has an extremely uneven rainfall distribution. It
is dry and cold in the winter, while with low rainfall level in the
spring and heavy rainfall in the summer. The average annual pre-
cipitation is 548 mm, with approximately 80% of rainfall occurring
during June to September. The basin area is about 318,800 km2,
where 189,000 km2 is mountainous and the rest is ood plain
(Chao, 1998).
The Haihe River Basin is important for China due to the facts
that (i) it can produce about 10% of Chinas total grain output, (ii)
the people living in this basin occupies 10% of Chinese total popu-
lation, (iii) it is the center of many industrial and human activities,
and (iv) it is nearly close to the nations capital city, Beijing. Cur-
rently, this basin is facing a number of challenging questions such
as (i) since this region is one of the driest regions in China, it faces
serious water scarcity; for example, in 1998, the water availability
per capita was about 430 m3/capita, which is far below the average
level of 1000 m3/capita, an internationally accepted denition for
water scarcity (Hydrosult, 1999); (ii) rapid economic and popula-
tion growth rates lead to rising water demands from urban and
industrial sectors, and thus increasing pressure on water supplies;
(iii) water pollution is very serious in this basin because large vol-
umes of raw sewage are dumped daily into the rivers in the basin,
while most of the industrial wastewaters have not been treated;
(iv) water tables have dropped substantially due to immoderately
using underground water, while the underground water is being
extracted faster than aquifers can be recharged. These issues have
made the regional water resource system degradation. Conse-
quently, a variety of water management policies have been under-
taken. They include:
(1) Saving water policy This policy is implemented through
the application of saving water technologies such as control-
ling leakage, promoting reusing water, taking rational prices
for domestic and industry sectors, improving irrigation ef-
ciency, using spray and drip irrigation system, developing
drought resistant crop varieties (i.e. using bio-technical
technology to breed new crops which need little water),
and reducing evapotranspiration rate through using plastic
lm and mulches in the agriculture sector.
 S.Q. Weng et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 82428254 8245

Fig. 1. The study system.

(2) Protecting water resources policy This policy focuses on putoutput analysis is a useful tool for systematically quantifying
protection of underground water resources including build- the interrelationships among various sectors in a complex eco-
ing up wastewater treatment infrastructure to reduce nomic system, which is rst proposed by Leontief Professor who
wastewater discharge and charging more economic fees for was awarded the 1973 Nobel Prize in Economic Science (Leontief,
excess wastewater discharges; besides, the underground 1986). Consequently, the MEMO model can be formulated as
water supplies are limited such as requiring permits for dril- follows:
ling new wells and extracting more water from wells, and Objectives:
establishing control measures to avoid underground aquifer ( )
pollution. XX
(3) SouthNorth water transfer project This project can trans- Z GDP max X GDP t; d 1
t d
fer water from the water-rich region (southern part of ( )
China) to the water-decit region (northern part of China), XX
Z BOD min X BOD t; d 2
while three water diversion routes are building (namely
t d
the east route, middle route, and west route); the estimated ( )
construction cost for east and middle route is about 22 bil- XX
Z FOOD max X FOOD t; d 3
lion US dollars. t d

Although the above policies have been conducted to facilitate Constraints:

the regional water resources management, the competitions for
water among municipal, industrial and agricultural users have (1) Microeconomic constraints
been intensifying with the rapidly increasing economic and popu- (a) InputOutput equation
lation growth rates. The available water resources are becoming
over utilized and there is an urgent need to develop sound I  A  Xt; d; s Bpri t; s  X pri t; d Bgov t; s
management plans. The users are of increasing concerns on the  X gov t; d Bfixin t; s  X fixin t; d
quantity and quality of water supply. When faced with disadvan-
Bwor t; s  X wor t; d X ex t; d; s
tageous climate and river-ow conditions, water-shortage prob-
lems would arise particularly under poorly planned allocation  X im t; d; s 4
schemes. Consequently, effectively planning for water sources
(b) Production and GDP
management in the study river basin is desired. An integrated sce-
nario-based multi-criteria decision support system (SMC-DSS) will Xt; d; s 6 Pcita t; s  X fixas t; d; s 5
thus be developed for planning water resources in the study X
8
Basin. X GDP t; d PGDP t; d; s  Xt; d; s 6
s1

(c) Private consumption expenditure and government con-

3. Microeconomic multiobjective water management model sumption expenditure

A microeconomic multiobjective water management (MEMO) X pri t; d P pri t  X GDP t; d 7

model is developed for the study system, where inputoutput
X gov t; d Pgov t  X GDP t; d 8
analysis method is used to describe the microeconomic system. In-
8246 S.Q. Weng et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 82428254

(d) Import and export (c) Irrigation water

Pim t; s  Xt; d; s P X im t; d; s P P im t; s  Xt; d; s 9 X wforest t; d; f P wforest t; d; f  X aforest t; d; f 35
X
Pex t; s  Xt; d; s P X ex t; d; s P Pex t; s  Xt; d; s 10 X twforest t; d X wforest t; d; f 36
X X f
Pdelta t; d  Xt; d P X ex t; d; s  X im t; d; s
s s
(4) Animal husbandry and shery constraints
P Pdelta t; d  Xt; d 11 (a) Grass area
(e) Fixed assets and working capital X agrass t; d; p P Pagrass t  1; d; p  X agrass t  1; d; p 37
Pinvest t  X GDP t; d X agrass t; d; p 6 Pagrass t  1; d; p  X agrass t  1; d; p 38
P X fixin t; d X wor t; d P P invest t  X GDP t; d 12 (b) Production of livestock
X wor t; d P wor t  X fixin t; d 13 X
X livestk t; d Plivestk t; d; p  X agrass t; d; p 39
X deltafix t; d; s Pfinalfix t; s  Palpha0 t; s  X sfixin t; d; s p
Palpha1 t; s  X sfixin t  1; d; s 14 X mpasture t; d Pmlivestk  X livestk t; d 40
X sfixas t; d; s 1  Pdisprate t; s  X sfixas t  1; d; s
(c) Water needed in animal husbandry and shery
X deltafix t; d; s 15
X
X fixin t; d X sfixin t; d; s X waterin t; d 16 X wgrass t; d; p Pwgrass t; d; p  X agrass t; d; p 41
s X wlivestk t; d Pwlivestk t; d  X livestk t; d 42
(f) Investment for water project X wfish t; d Pwfish t; d  X mfish t; d 43
X X
X build1 t; d Pcost1 d; jX IO t; j X twothagri t; d X wgrass t; d; p
p
j
X X wlivestk t; d X wfish t; d 44
 Pcost1 d; j  X IO t  1; j 17
j (5) Water resources constraints
X build2 t; d Pwwprice t  Pwwteated t  X wwaste t; d (a) Water use pattern
 Pwwteated t  1  X wwaste t  1; d 18 X wpop t; d Pwpopurb t; d  X popurb t; d
X build3 t; d Pwsave t  X asave t; d  X asave t  1; d 19 P wpoprur t; d  X poprur t; d 45
X waterin t; d X build1 t; d X build2 t; d X build3 t; d 20 X agri t; d X twcrop t; d X twforest t; d X twothagri t; d 46
X
(2) Agricultural sector constraints X windu t; d Xt; d; s1  Pwindu t; s1 47
s1
(a) Crop area X
X wserv t; d Xt; d; s2  Pwserv t; s2 48
X acrop t; d; c P Pacrop t  1; d; c  X acrop t  1; d; c 21 s2

X acrop t; d; c 6 Pacrop t  1; d; c  X acrop t  1; d; c 22 (b) Wastewater discharge

X
X tacrop t; d X acrop t; d; c=1 Pcropagn d 23 X wwaste t; d X windu t; d  P wwindu t
c
X wserv t; d  P wwserv t X wpop t; d  Pwwpop t
(b) Crop output
49
X ycrop t; d; c Pycrop t; d; c  X acrop t; d; c 24
X wwtreated t; d X wwaste t; d  P wwteated t 50
X mcrop t; d; c Pmcrop t; d; c  X ycrop t; d; c 25
X (d) Total water use constraint
X tmcrop t; d X mcrop t; d; c 26
X
c X wtotal t; d X wpop t; d X wserv t; d X windu t; d
X food X ycrop t; d; c 27 X wagri t; d 51
c
(e) Water balance constraint
(c) Irrigation water
X wcrop t; d; c Pwcrop t; d; c  X acrop t; d; c 28 X wtotal t; d 6 Pwresource t; d  Pwusecoe t; d
X X wwtreated t; d 52
X twcrop t; d X wcrop t; d; c 29
c
(6) Planting area constraints
(3) Forestry constraints (a) Increased planting area
(a) Forest area
X atotal t; d P P atotal t; d  X atotal t  1; d 53
X aforest t; d; f P Paforest t  1; d; f  X aforest t  1; d; f 30 X atotal t; d 6 Patotal t; d  X atotal t  1; d 54
X aforest t; d; f 6 P aforest t  1; d; f  X aforest t  1; d; f 31
X (b) Irrigation area
X taforest t; d X aforest t; d; f 32
f X atotal t; d 6 Pamax 55

(b) Forest output value (c) Total planting area

X X X
X mforest t; d; f Pmforest t; d; f  X aforest t; d; f 33 X agrass t; d; p X aforest t; d; f X acrop t; d; c
X p f c
X tmforest t; d X mforest t; d; f 34
f 6 X atotal t; d 56
 S.Q. Weng et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 82428254
(7) BOD discharge
X lyze the purpose of scenario characterization. If this is wrong, you
X BOD t; d PBODrate t; s  Xt; d; s PPBOD t; d
s
 is important for decision makers make appropriate purposes of
 X popurb t; d  PTBOD t
The detailed nomenclatures for the variables and parameters are
provided in the Appendix. The MEMO model based on input-out-
put analysis can effective help quantify scenarios that are associ-
ated with different water resources management policies.
4. Integrated scenario-based multi-criteria decision support
system
In this study, an integrated scenario-based multi-criteria deci-
sion support system (SMC-DSS) will developed for planning water
resources management in the Haihe River Basin, where scenario
analysis and (MEMO) model will be incorporated with a multi-cri-
teria decision analysis (MCDA) framework. Fig. 2 shows a owchart
of this SMC-DSS. In the SMC-DSS, scenario analysis is used to mod-
el the real water resources management policies, such that the
robustness of the policies can be tested by assessing their impacts
under different possible outcomes. Scenarios will be quantied by
the MEMO model which describes two dimensions. One dimension
addresses to the tread offs among the different objectives while an-
other one reects the uncertainties in the time horizon examined.
4.1. Scenario characterization
Scenarios are stories or snapshots of what might be. Decision
makers often use scenarios to evaluate what to do under different
Start
Purpose of scenario analysis
Definition of the system under consideration
Generate qualitative scenarios
Quantify scenarios by the MEMO model
Solve the MEMO model through
the SGOC method for each scenario
Scenario evaluation and ranking
scenarios through MCDA
N Decision
Is the decision maker
satisfied?
Stop
Fig. 2. Flowchart of SMC-DDS.
8247
possible outcomes. The rst step of the scenario analysis is to ana-
could provide a wrong analysis for the study problem. Therefore, it
57 scenarios. Three main factors should be taken into account in the
process of scenario characterization. They are:
(1) Consider whether the purposes of scenarios are suitable for
decision making context. The context should be dened in
terms of issues that require a decision and include the rel-
evant time frame, location and actors associated with the
issue. Normally, stakeholders have identied an issue as
benet from scenario analysis. For example, in the SMC-
DSS, the issue is focused on regional water resources
planning, in which regional development needs to be
sustainable in satisfying ecological, social and economic
objectives.
(2) Consider whether the scenarios will be used to identify or
assess decision options. Stakeholders may use scenarios to
identify feasible options in light of possible major changes,
such as shifts in economic conditions or population move-
ments (Kahane, 1992). Besides, they may use the same sce-
narios to examine the viability of an existing practice policy
such as the economic impact of saving water policy. The
choice depends on the concerned problem. In practice, the
two purposes are often combined through iterative scenario
generation method (Wollenberg, Edmunds, & Buck, 2000).
(3) Consider which stakeholders will participate in scenario
evaluation and how they represent different interests. This
is because (a) stakeholders can be a source of information
about the criteria in evaluating scenarios (Stewart & Scott,
1995), (b) they can screen or assign preferences to scenarios
and their impacts (Van Huylenbroeck & Coppens, 1995), and
(c) under given sufcient technical support, they can work
with scenarios interactively through providing the specica-
tions (e.g., for GIS and DSS) (Malafant et al., 1997; Veldkamp
& Fresco, 1997).
4.2. System composition
The second step is to dene the critical system components and
processes under consideration.
They include: (i) identication of components which can be
covered in detailed by the research group due to reasons of re-
search capacity; (ii) identication of the driving forces of the sys-
tem such as the structure of resources, actors, institutions, events
and relations, slow changing and predictable trends, and key
uncertainties and potential major drivers of change; (iii) identica-
tion of the base year and the temporal resolution and extent for the
sustainable development purpose; and (iv) identication of the
spatial resolution and extent of scenarios.
The Haihe River Basin system can be dened as follows: (1) the
system components include economic variability (for a regional
planning, microeconomic variability is more important), environ-
mental variability (including water availability, water consump-
tion, and wastewater treatment), and social variability (i.e.
keeping the social stability); (2) driving forces are population and
socioeconomic conditions, soil and hydro-geological conditions,
water availability, and food security; (3) the spatial extent is the
Haihe River Basin; (4) the Haihe River Basin is further divided into
ve districts: Beijing, Tianjing, Hebei, Lubei, Yubei (i.e. the spatial
resolution); (5) eight sectors are agriculture, mining, heavy manu-
facturing, light manufacturing, electrical machinery, construction,
transportation, and services; (6) temporal extent is up to 2030,
and the base year is 2000.
8248 S.Q. Weng et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 82428254
4.3. Scenario generation
In the third step, a number of qualitative scenarios are gener-
ated based on an understanding of the system, which are described
in a narrative form. In the procedure of generating qualitative sce-
narios, the following steps should be considered:
(1) The reference scenarios or the baseline scenarios must be
decided. The reference scenarios describe plausible future
without any specic policy intervention. They serve as the
baselines to assess the impact of policy interventions on
the future state of the system.
(2) Policy scenarios are dened in order to assess the impact of a
certain policy intervention in the future. Generally, policy
scenarios are constructed based on the uncertainties exist-
ing in the system. For example, saving water is an important
policy for the arid region, while uncertainties may exist in
level of saving water. Then, the scenarios could be built
as medium level saving water scenario and/or high level
saving water scenario.
(3) When examining the existing practical policies, identica-
tion of the relationships among multiple uncertainties in
multiple policies is required. Then, the scenario based on
the combinations of these uncertainties should be consid-
ered (e.g., scenario under medium level of saving water
and medium level of supplying water).
The scenarios are constructed based on the combination of the
level of the three policies, where each scenario is described by a
three-digital code: the rst digit stands for water saving policy,
the second digit denotes the level of protection of water resource
environment, and the third digit shows whether or not the
SouthNorth water transfer project is put into effect. Table 1 shows
the details of the coding rule. For example, the 000 scenario
stands for medium saving water, stopping deterioration gradually,
and no water supply from transfer project, which serves as the
baseline scenario or reference scenario. Table 2 provides several
scenarios based on the purpose described before.
4.4. Scenario quantication
In this study, scenario analysis and multiobjective program-
ming approaches are integrated into a general framework. The
Table 1
Coding rule for scenarios.
Policies Level
Saving water policy Medium
High
Protection of environment Stop deterioration gradually
Stop deterioration immediately
SouthNorth water transfer project No
East and Middle Route
Table 2
The list of scenarios.
Scenario Scenario description
code
000 Baseline scenario, medium level saving water, stopping deterioration gradually, and no water transfer project under consideration
100 High level saving water, stopping deterioration gradually, and no water transfer project under consideration
010 Medium level saving water, stopping deterioration immediately, and no water transfer project under consideration
001 Medium level saving water, stopping deterioration gradually, and considering water transfer from two routes (i.e. east and middle routes)
111 Integrated scenario, high level saving water, stopping deterioration immediately, and considering water transfer from two routes (i.e. east and middle
routes)
quantication of the scenarios is an important step to fulll such
a combination. Firstly, indicators of the system state need to be de-
ned. Indicators are measurable and used to evaluate the outcome
of scenario analysis. A suite of indicators must provide enough
information to allow decision makers to choose suitable scenario
among scenario options. In addition, indicators should be cost-
effective to monitor and feasible to forecast condently. Therefore,
denition of indicators is very important in quantitative scenario
analysis. In SMC-DSS, a number of environmental, economic and
social indicators are considered. These indicators could be simple
variables that are computed by one model or a combination of
the output of various models. Furthermore, it is desired to dene
the indicators not only with respect to the included variables but
also to their temporal and spatial resolution. Secondly, various
driving forces need to be quantied. The driving forces dened
here are modeling inputs. In order to make quantitative assump-
tions about the future development of certain driving forces, their
historical data is rstly analyzed. Then, numerical values of the
driving forces that reect the respective qualitative scenario are
dened for future times. Once all inputs necessary for the various
models is quantied, the models can be used to compute the sys-
tem indicators under the different reference and intervention
scenarios.
In this study, 10 indicators are selected which cover the three
dimensions of sustainability. They are described as follows:
 GDP per capita (GDP) Gross Domestic Product, the most
important economic indicator. It represents a broad measure
of economic activity and signals the direction of overall aggre-
gate economic activity. GDP per capita is a more appropriate
indicator of the growth in living standards. Unit is Yuan/capita.
 GDP growth rate (%) (GDPRT) It measures percent rate of GDP
increase year over year.
 Per capita personal consumption expenditures (PCE) PCE is a
measure of price changes in consumer goods and services. It
consists of the actual and imputed expenditures of households,
and includes data pertaining to durables, non-durables, and ser-
vices. Unit is Yuan/capita.
 Per capita crop production (CP) it is an indicator of food secu-
rity and social stability. Unit is kg/capita.
 Per capita industrial GDP (IGDP) it is an indicator of industrial
modernization. Unit is Yuan/capita.
 Per cubic meter water GDP (WGDP) it is an indicator of water
consumption efciency. It is the ratio between total GDP and
Total water use.
 Per cubic meter water crop product (WCP) it is an indicator of
regional agriculture water consumption efciency. It is the ratio
Code
between crop output value and Total irrigation water needed
0
for corps.
1
 Solid waste discharge (SWD) it is an empirical value got from
0
industrial output value and statistics book. Unit is 10 thousand
1
ton.
0
 Regional total BOD discharge (BOD) Biological Oxygen
1
Demand is a water-quality indicator. Unit is ton/year.
 S.Q. Weng et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 82428254 8249

 Wastewater discharge (WWD) it comes from water use mul-
tiplied by wastewater discharge rate.
According to the scenarios dened in this case, the policy
parameters (i.e. policy scenarios) are introduced as follows:
(1) Water saving intensity
Water saving intensity (WSI) is a policy parameter to indicate
the level of water saving policy, which can be dened as:
Water use intensity in each planning year
WSI
Water use intensity at present
The value of WSI is between 0 and 1 (see Table 3).
(2) Excessive volumes of underground water extraction
The volume of underground water extraction should be
smaller than the rell or renewable volume of the aquifers.
If underground water is being extracted faster than aquifers
can be recharged, it will cause water table dropping at well
locations, dry wells, seawater intrusions in groundwater
areas adjacent to the ocean, and land subsidence. Therefore,
excessive volumes of extraction should be stopped. Accord-
ing to the scenario denition, two levels have been dened.
One is stop immediately and the other is stop gradually (as
shown in Tables 4 and 5).
(3) Volume of using untreated wastewater
Using untreated wastewater will cause many problems, such
as human disease, wetlands, groundwater contamination,
and the effects on plant biomass. So in a sustainable way,
wastewater should be reused after treated. To stop
untreated wastewater using is one of the policies to protect
water resource environment. The value of this parameter is
also listed in Tables 4 and 5.
(4) The binary parameter of Transfer project
Whether or not the transfer project will put into effect is
identied by a binary parameter. This parameter is pre-
sented in Table 6.
(5) The amount of water supplied from Transfer project.

Table 3
WSI parameter during each planning year.

District Base year level High level water saving Medium level water saving
Sector 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2030 2005 2010 2015 2020 2030
Beijing Agriculture 1.00 0.95 0.92 0.88 0.84 0.8 0.98 0.96 0.94 0.92 0.90
Industry 1.00 0.92 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.94 0.88 0.80 0.72 0.64
Domestic 1.00 0.94 0.91 0.89 0.87 0.85 0.98 0.96 0.94 0.92 0.90
Tianjing Agriculture 1.00 0.95 0.92 0.88 0.84 0.8 0.98 0.96 0.94 0.92 0.90
Industry 1.00 0.95 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.94 0.88 0.80 0.72 0.64
Domestic 1.00 0.94 0.91 0.89 0.87 0.85 0.98 0.96 0.94 0.92 0.90
Hebei Agriculture 1.00 0.95 0.92 0.88 0.84 0.8 0.98 0.96 0.94 0.92 0.90
Industry 1.00 0.91 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.94 0.88 0.80 0.72 0.64
Domestic 1.00 0.94 0.91 0.89 0.87 0.85 0.98 0.96 0.94 0.92 0.90
Yubei Agriculture 1.00 0.95 0.92 0.88 0.84 0.8 0.98 0.96 0.94 0.92 0.90
industry 1.00 0.91 0.75 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.94 0.88 0.80 0.72 0.64
Domestic 1.00 0.94 0.91 0.89 0.87 0.85 0.98 0.96 0.94 0.92 0.90
Lubei Agriculture 1.00 0.95 0.92 0.88 0.84 0.8 0.98 0.96 0.94 0.92 0.90
Industry 1.00 0.91 0.75 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.94 0.88 0.80 0.72 0.64
Domestic 1.00 0.94 0.91 0.89 0.87 0.85 0.98 0.96 0.94 0.92 0.90

Table 4
Gradually stopping environmental deterioration parameter value.

District Maximum of excessive volumes of extraction (100 million m3) Maximum of using untreated wastewater(100 million m3)
2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2030 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2030
Beijing 2.2 1.8 1.5 0 0 0 3.6 2.9 2.5 0 0 0
Tianjing 1.6 1.3 1.2 0 0 0 3.9 3.1 2.6 0 0 0
Hebei 42.8 34.3 10.1 0 0 0 7.9 6.3 3.7 0 0 0
Yubei 6.9 5.5 5.0 0 0 0 1.4 1.1 0.9 0 0 0
Lubei 1.7 1.4 1.3 0 0 0 6.3 5.0 3 0 0 0
Total 55.2 44.3 19.1 0 0 0 23.1 18.4 12.7 0 0 0

Table 5
Immediately stopping environmental deterioration parameter value.

District Maximum of excessive volumes of extraction (100 million m3) Maximum of using untreated wastewater(100 million m3)
2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2030 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2030
Beijing 2.2 0 0 0 0 0 3.6 0 0 0 0 0
Tianjing 1.6 0 0 0 0 0 3.9 0 0 0 0 0
Hebei 42.8 0 0 0 0 0 7.9 0 0 0 0 0
Yubei 6.9 0 0 0 0 0 1.4 0 0 0 0 0
Lubei 1.7 0 0 0 0 0 6.3 0 0 0 0 0
Total 55.2 0 0 0 0 0 23.1 0 0 0 0 0
8250 S.Q. Weng et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 82428254
Table 6
Binary parameter of South-North transfer project.
Name of project 2000 2005
No transfer project East route 0 0
Middle route 0 0
East and middle route East route 0 0
Middle route 0 0
Table 7
The amount of water supplied from transfer project.
Name of Beijing Tianjing Hebei Yubei Lubei
project
Amount of water East 0 0 22 0 10
supplied route
(100 million m3) Middle 12.20 12.39 40.65 6 0
route
According to the analysis of SouthNorth transfer project, the
amount of water supplied from project is shown in Table 7.
4.5. Mutiobjective optimization
Decision makers are often hard to make decisions by lost their
orientations among so many solutions from which they have to
choose. They need a powerful tool to help them make a fast in
these problems. In SCM-DSS, Stochastic generating-oriented
choosing (SGOC) method is developed for quickly identifying a de-
sired decision. The approach rst generates a large number of
objective weight vectors from uniform distribution stochastically,
and then the model is solved for each of these weight sets individ-
ually, thus a lot of Pareto-optimal solutions are generated. This
process serves as stochastic generating part. Moreover, a fuzzy
MCDA evaluation model, which is based on fuzzy theory and
MCDA technique, is developed to choose the most preferred solu-
tion at each iteration and shows the direction for next iteration
searching. That is oriented choosing part. SGOC could help decision
makers make fast decision by presenting only one solution to
them, and could be extended to an interactive approach by pre-
senting multiple solutions and let decision makers choose a direc-
tion by themselves. In SMC-DSS, SGOC is used to solve the ME-MO
model to get the system indicators under the different scenarios.
The nal solution of SGOC algorithm in each scenario will be saved
for the purpose of further evaluation.
Fig. 3 presents the user interfaces of the developed decision
support system, named as HWRDS (an integrated scenario-based
multi-criteria decision support system (SMC-DSS) for water re-
sources planning in the Haihe River Basin), which is used for help-
ing decision makers easily nd their satised solutions.
4.6. Scenario evaluation
This step is to evaluate the scenarios to identify an optimal pol-
icy. An optimal policy for the regional planning is chosen according
to the three criteria: efciency, equity and ecological sustainability
(Van Pelt, 1993). To fulll these criteria, MCDA is an effective
choice method for the evaluation of intervention scenarios. MCDA
is a divide and conquer strategy in the sense, such that a complex
issue can be subdivided into several parts that are easier to deal
with separately. The key feature of MCDA is a performance matrix,
or consequence table, in which each row describes an indicator,
and each column describes the performance of the options against
each indicator. A number of approaches are available to help han-
dle the multi-criteria decision making problems, such as analytical
2010 2015 2020 2025 2030
0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0
1 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1
Fig. 3. Interface of HWRDS.
hierarchy process (AHP), multi-objective programming (MOP), and
fuzzy MCDM techniques. For example, AHP uses procedures for
deriving the weights and the scores achieved by alternatives which
are based on pairwise comparisons between indicators and be-
tween options. Fuzzy MCDA is another type to address the impre-
cision that surrounds much of the data on which decision making
is based. The strength of the fuzzy approach is that it provides an
explicit way of representing vagueness in the decision makers
mind. Fuzzy sets rstly attempt to capture the idea that our natural
language in discussing issues is not precise, and then tries to cap-
ture these qualied assessments using the idea of a membership
function, through which an option would belong to the set of be-
tween 0 and 1.
In the SMC-DSS, a fuzzy MCDA evaluation model has been
developed for SGOC in order to choose the most preference solu-
tion for each scenario. In fuzzy MCDA evaluation model, the perfor-
mance matrix is constructed by the membership function of a
fuzzy set (i.e. the most preference set). Then, the ideal-point
method which directly performs over the performance matrix by
measuring options distances from ideal and negative ideal points
is applied to extract ordinal preference information. The fuzzy
membership function could be available by pressing the EVALUA-
TION button in Fig. 3. The results of all calculated scenarios have
been saved in the computer and could be found (Fig. 4). Scenarios
could be compared by marking them and pressing OK. Then, the
ranking information is shown in Fig. 5.
4.7. Interactive decision process
Effective decision making requires a continuous reassessment
of choices made in the past, the decision makers may learn from
the results of scenarios and nd their own problems. Interactive
process in a decision system offers decision makers a chance to
redo the choices when they nd that they are still difcult to make
decision based on the results or they realize their problems in the
 S.Q. Weng et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 82428254 8251

Table 8
Result for 000 scenario.

Year Population GDP (billion GDP growth GDP per capita

(million) Yuan) rate (%) (Yuan/capita)
2000 115.902 910.8415 0 9571.073
2005 123.1249 1322.736 7.48 13348.27
2010 129.953 1866.652 6.82 18127.44
2015 136.2625 2304.727 3.98 21488.02
2020 141.9336 2949.963 5.26 27023.76
2025 144.3725 3763.867 4.84 34335.19
2030 146.2336 4697.961 4.66 41880.03

Table 9
Result for 100 scenario.

Year Population GDP (billion GDP growth GDP per capita

(million) Yuan) rate (%) (Yuan/capita)
2000 115.902 910.8415 0 9571.073
Fig. 4. Interface of scenario evaluation. 2005 123.1249 1334.683 7.74 13488.02
2010 129.953 1911.69 7.16 18607.2
2015 136.2625 2408.065 4.56 22575.7
2020 141.9336 3103.459 5.04 28789.65
2025 144.3725 3969.31 5.02 36539.47
2030 146.2336 4964.494 4.7 44674.71

Table 10
Result for 010 scenario.

Year Population GDP (billion GDP growth GDP per capita

(million) Yuan) rate (%) (Yuan/capita)
2000 115.902 910.8415 0 9571.073
2005 123.1249 1310.031 7.06 13154.6
2010 129.953 1642.088 4.46 15602.37
2015 136.2625 2306.943 6.96 21427.65
2020 141.9336 2960.873 5.06 27163.82
2025 144.3725 3760.312 4.76 34222.37
2030 146.2336 4700.054 4.68 41838.3

Fig. 5. Interface of evaluation result. compared with the condition under the baseline scenario. The re-
sults for environment protection scenario (i.e. 010 scenario) are
listed in Table 10, in which ground water overdraft and untreated
last iteration. In SMC-DSS, the last step is to give the decision mak-
wastewater discharged were stopped after 2005. Table 11 presents
ers a chance to express their feedback. If they are satised with the
the results for water supply scenario (i.e. 001 scenario shows the
results, the whole decision procedure will terminate. However, if
effect of SouthNorth Water transfer project). The results indicate
they think that the results are insufcient to make decision, the
that, after 2010, the water transfer project would be put into effect
process will go back to the section of scenario construction to rear-
and could mitigate water shortage for this basin. Table 12 provides
range the scenarios. In this case, it is assumed that only single deci-
the result under integration scenario (i.e. 111 scenario which in-
sion maker makes decision.
cludes three water policies implementation).
Fig. 6 shows the GDP growth curve obtained from the ve sce-
5. Result analysis and discussion narios. The economic development under the baseline scenario
would not be sustainable due to water shortage problem. Com-
In this study, a number of scenarios based on different water re- pared with 111 scenario, its GDP would be decreased 16.8% by
sources management policies were considered. The results indicate 2030; although the annual GDP growth rate would be about 7%
that different water management policies could generate varied re-
sults of economic development. Table 8 provides the results under
the baseline scenario (i.e. 000 scenario), which includes a future Table 11
development in the line of the current situation in the Haihe River Result for 001 scenario.
Basin. Currently, although the saving water policy and water pro-
Year Population GDP (billion GDP growth GDP per capita
tection rules were implemented in this region, the intensity of (million) Yuan) rate (%) (Yuan/capita)
these policies would still need to be improved. In addition, the east
2000 115.902 910.8415 0 9571.073
route of SouthNorth water transfer project (under construction) 2005 123.1249 1342.975 7.94 13582.2
would be put into effect in 2008. Therefore, the baseline scenario 2010 129.953 1995.96 7.96 19555.55
corresponds to medium level saving water, gradually stopping 2015 136.2625 2754.999 6.18 26281.76
environmental deterioration, and no supplying from transfer pro- 2020 141.9336 3549.496 5.1 33802.97
2025 144.3725 4451.91 4.56 41585.89
ject. Table 9 shows the results under saving water scenario (i.e.
2030 146.2336 5486.248 4.44 50328.65
100 scenario); in this scenario, only the WSI has been changed,
8252 S.Q. Weng et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 82428254

Table 12 Table 13
Result for 111 scenario. Total crop product (million ton).

Year Population GDP (billion GDP growth GDP per capita Year 000 100 010 001 111
(million) Yuan) rate (%) (Yuan/capita) scenario scenario scenario scenario scenario
2000 115.902 910.8415 0 9571.073 2000 9.880462 9.880462 9.880462 9.880462 9.880462
2005 123.1249 1346.089 8.08 13627.97 2005 10.57196 11.17643 10.80803 13.45286 12.70046
2010 129.953 2007.835 8.2 19715.35 2010 11.20206 11.8992 11.16188 14.8146 14.13692
2015 136.2625 2869.762 7.06 27458.43 2015 11.53812 12.25617 12.18046 15.54437 15.35344
2020 141.9336 3712.739 5.08 34831.99 2020 12.04782 13.02769 13.01568 16.97262 16.60823
2025 144.3725 4668.158 4.36 42430.71 2025 12.8049 14.16231 14.10623 18.32839 18.12234
2030 146.2336 5781.139 4.52 51562.29 2030 13.42796 14.79236 14.88933 19.4513 18.96022

25
6000

Total Crop Product (10 ton)

5000 20
GDP (billion Yuan)

6
4000
15
S-111
3000
S-001
S-100 10
2000
S-010
1000 S-000 5 S-000 S-010 S-111
S-100 S-001
0
2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 0
2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 2030
Year
Year
Fig. 6. GDP growth rate under different scenarios.
Fig. 7. Crop yield growth rate under different scenarios.

by 2010, this high economic growth rate is based on the situation ME-MO model. The results of total crop yield for different scenarios
of water resource system degradation and not a sustainable devel- are listed in Table 13 and the crop yield growth rates are presented
opment way. Therefore, water management policies are desired in Fig. 7.
and the implement force should be enhanced. All of the scenarios are ranked by HWRDS, based on the results
The best performance scenario would be 111 scenario which of performance indicators. The resulting rank is listed in Table 14.
improves the water saving intensity and obtains water from trans- The rank result shows that 111 scenario, which integrates the
fer project after 2010. Under this scenario, the annual GDP growth three water management measures, is the desired policy. This im-
rate remains high level in a long term. In addition, underground plies that an integrated water management policy has more posi-
water use was limited and untreated wastewater use was also tive effect on regional development. This is because (a) the Haihe
stopped. Thus, the quality of river would keep in a good condition. River Basin is one of the most water-decient economical regions
Therefore, this scenario could be recommended as a sustainable in China, where water scarcity is a major threat to its long-term
development manner in study basin. In addition, when three poli- economic development; (b) a desired water management policy
cies work individually, water supply scenario (i.e. 001 scenario) can facilitate to relieve such a threat and keep regional sustainable
is better than other two scenarios. The results indicate that this development. Fig. 8 presents the result for scenario evaluation.
scenario would rank in the rst place. This is because water trans- Water supply scenario (i.e. 001 scenario) ranks the highest
fer project plans to draw water from the main stem of Yangtze among the three policy scenarios. This means that water transfer
River, China, which has plenty of water resources. This water diver- project is an effective approach to solve the water resources scar-
sion project could effectively eradicate the water shortage in the city problem in the basin. This also implies that saving water policy
Haihe River Basin. In addition, it also plays an important role in is not enough to solve the water scarcity problem individually, and
the alleviation of water restoration and environment protection. thus water resources from other sources are needed. In addition,
Although saving water policy is a main water policy for this basin, after water transfer project goes into effect, the use of underground
it could merely mitigate water-supply pressure temporarily. water and untreated wastewater could be controlled more effec-
Environment protection scenario (i.e. 010 scenario) ranks the tively. Therefore, the SouthNorth water transfer project should
last and it even drop behind the baseline scenario at beginning. be started as early as possible. Although saving water policy ranks
This is because underground water and untreated wastewater lower than water transfer scenario, it is also an important measure
are important for agriculture irrigation in this region. When water for water shortage problem, especially in the arid region. Although
from the two sources is limited, the effects on agriculture product
and economical development are signicant. However, water re-
source protection is a fundamental policy to support the sustain- Table 14
Result for scenario rank.
able development and should be carried out conrmedly in the
basin. If ecological protection is ignored, the economical growth Scenario Social environment Environment Distance to
would be limited in the coming decades. In many regions of the index resource index ideal point
world, water scarcity is viewed as a major threat to long-term food 111 scenario 0.495 0.728 0.3896
security. If no enough food is supplied in a region, it might cause 001 scenario 0.66 0.564 0.3898
100 scenario 0.518 0.683 0.3914
social turbulence, especially in a region like the Haihe River Basin
000 scenario 0.669 0.565 0.3967
that has signicance for economy of the whole nation. This is why 010 scenario 0.568 0.583 0.4231
maximum crop production is selected as the social objective of
 S.Q. Weng et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 82428254
Fig. 8. Scenario evaluation chart.
010 scenario ranks the last and even fall behind baseline sce-
nario; it would affect regional development when the water pro-
tection policy was used individually. Generally, from the above
analyses, several recommendations could be obtained. They are:
(1) water management policies are crucial to solve water-shortage
issue and to support regional sustainable development; (2) water
transfer project from South to North is essential and should be
undertaken as soon as possible; (3) saving water policy should
be enforced from a long-term perspective; (4) environmental pro-
tection is important for regional sustainable development, but it
should be implemented with the other water management
policies.
6. Conclusions
In this study, an integrated scenario-based multi-criteria deci-
sion support system (SMC-DSS) has been developed for planning
water resources management in the Haihe River Basin. The system
components include system composition, scenario generation, sce-
nario quantication, multiobjective optimization, and scenario
evaluation. The developed SMC-DSS incorporates techniques of
scenario analysis, multiobjective programming (MOP), and multi-
criteria decision analysis (MCDA) within a decision support
systems (DSS) framework. SMC-DSS can solve complex water
resources management planning problem which may involve
multiple conict objectives and need to concern uncertainty in a
long-term period. In SMC-DSS, scenario analysis is used to deal
with the uncertainty, MOP is used to handle multiple conict
objectives, and MCDA is used to accomplish the scenario evalua-
tion. The SMC-DSS has two special characteristics that make it
unique compared with the other DSS techniques that deal with
decision making problems. Firstly, it can facilitate making
decisions with the support of computer technology because it
can generate optimal solution based on a great deal of calculations
done by computer. Secondly, it is effective for large-scale compli-
cated problems with thousands of parameters and variables under
uncertainty.
The developed SMC-DSS has been applied to planning water re-
sources management in the Haihe River Basin, China. A number of
scenarios based on different water resources management policies
have been conducted. The results indicate that different water
management policies can lead to varied results for regional
economic development. The results obtained are valuable for
supporting (i) water management policies are crucial to solve
water-shortage issue and to support regional sustainable develop-
8253
ment; (ii) water transfer project from South to North is essential
and should be undertaken as soon as possible; (iii) saving water
policy should be enforced from a long-term perspective; (iv) envi-
ronment protection is very important for regional sustainable
development, but it should be combined with the other water
management policies.
Although this study is the rst attempt for planning water re-
sources management through development such an integrated
decision support system, the results suggest that the developed
SMC-DSS could also be applied to other watersheds to facilitate
assessment of management policy impacts on socio-economic
and environmental sectors, as well as formulation of relevant man-
agement policies under uncertainty.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the Major State Basic Research
Development Program of MOST (2005CB724200, 2006CB403307,
and 2007CB714105), the Canadian Water Network under the Net-
works of Centers of Excellence (NCE), and the Natural Sciences and
Engineering Research Council of Canada.
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