WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT AND PLANNING

PROGEA designs and implements Decision Support Systems for planning and management of water resources based on the proprietary software WATERSTRATEGYMAN DSS and PRODAM DSS; both of them have been developed in collaboration with the University of Bologna, under the guide of Prof. Ezio Todini.

WATERSTRATEGYMAN DSS is a comprehensive Decision Support System for the development of sustainable water management strategies and water resources planning in the framework of the European Directive 2000/60

PRODAM DSS is a Decision Support System for the management of dams and artificial lakes. It was originally developed to manage water release from the Como lake, pursuing the optimal compromise between long-term exploitation of lake water and management of management of short term events like floods.

Water resources management

PROGEA offers its services to agencies or local stakeholders in charge of integrated water management and water services, who are looking for a Decision Support System founded on the paradigm IWRM (Integrated Water Resource Management) and developed according to principles of Water Frame Directive 2000/60/CE (WFD).

Disciplinary areas include:

Environmental modeling, water in particular;
Management of natural resources;
Land and environmental planning.

Design and implementation of the DSS

WATERSTRATEGYMAN DSS is based on a methodology for the integrated analysis of environmental and socio-economic aspects of water resources management. It uses a computer system constituted by mathematical models, database, Geographic Information System (GIS) and application software.

PROGEA works together with end user's technical staff to develop the most suitable solution. Implementation of WATERSTRATEGYMAN DSS includes the following activities:

Analysis of actual water management strategy

Building of a scheme of the study area through the GIS interface of the software in order to simulate relationships among the different components of the water system

Building of a geo-database containing information on the study area

Long term simulation of the actual water management strategy (Business as usual)

Simulation of future development scenarios and different politics of water resources management, for instance an increase of the population, the realization of new waste water treatment plants, the construction of new urban or industrial areas.

For each scenario the effects of the different management politics are evaluated and the DSS estimates the amount of water that will be necessary to satisfy the existing and future water demand, it determines needed structural interventions to be realized and it evaluates the economic incidence of the different management choice.

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