Decision support system for water resource infrastructure investment planning and policy making under budget uncertainty | |
| Author | Robak, Anna |
| Call Number | AIT Thesis no.TE-02-04 |
| Subject(s) | Decision support systems Infrastructure (Economics) Water-supply--Planning |
| Note | A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | Water resources management at the federal government level in Thailand is currently undergoing major institutional reforms with the aim of providing a more integrated, sustainable system for maximum public benefit and accountability. Part of the challenge in implementing these reforms effectively lies in deciding the level of investment to put into the various water users and water use types. To this end, it is essential to use some means of measuring the benefits arising out of investments into the different water use sectors and evaluating the budget use efficiency. Funding for water resources projects in Thailand is provided by a number of sources (national, non-government organizations, international bank loans, etc.). The amount that they are able to provide changes from year to year, making long-term planning a challenging task; as it stands, water resources planning in Thailand has until recently been carried out at the projec.t level to achieve the goals of one geographical region and/or one water use sector without considering other planned or existing water resources infrastructures and their potentials. In effect, agencies have avoided preparing long-term master plans that integrate all major types of water use. This research develops a water infrastructure investment decision support system (WIDSS) for water infrastructure investment planning under budget uncertainty. WIDSS helps decision makers determine for which budget level to plan in the Jong term, based on the projects that can be implemented with the given funding and their contribution towards agency goals. Specifically, the final output is the budget planning policy having the highest expected returns for each possible state of the system, where the state of the system is defined in terms of level of development and the level of the previous funding that contributed to it. Budget uncertainty was considered by developing probability matrices based on both historic al data and expert opinions. Integer goal programming (IGP) and stochastic programming (SP) were used to meet water agency goals and recommend the budget level under which to plan. This thesis is an extension of the research by Sutardi et al. (1994), which provides an approach for considering budget uncertainty, focusing on the irrigation sector. In that study, level of development was based on irrigated area; the work discussed in this thesis provides a solution to considering various types of water resource infrastructure simultaneously by setting the level of development relative to goal achievement. The goals analyzed in the current work include water supply, flood reduction, irrigation efficiency, crop yield, employment, and net benefits. WIDSS was validated using both a multi-purpose project and irrigation projects from the Province of Chiang Mai, Thailand. |
| Year | 2003 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | School of Engineering and Technology (SET) |
| Department | Department of Civil and Infrastucture Engineering (DCIE) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Transportation Engineering (TE) |
| Chairperson(s) | Pannapa Herabat;Gupta, Ashim Das; |
| Examination Committee(s) | Yordphol Tanaboriboon; |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | Asian Institute of Technology Fellowship;Canadian Bureau of International Education;Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada; |
| Degree | Thesis (M.Sc.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2003 |