HR: 09:00h
AN: GC31A-05 INVITED [Abstracts]
TI: Working backwards -- Decision analysis for water resource and natural hazard management under
nonstationarity: not just a climate story
AU: * lall, u
EM: ula2@columbia.edu
AF: columbia university, Dept of earth & Environmental Eng, 918 Mudd, 500 W 120th Street, New York, NY
10027
United States
AB:
The Harvard Water program was instrumental in dramatically shaping the field of water resources management through
influential and systematic analyses of key problems. This legacy dominates much of the current public sector project analysis
procedures and also the instruction in this area. A key attribute of this legacy was the notion that systems analysis needed
to recognize and quantify risks and use expected utility or related notions for the management of this risk. This concept is
central to both infrastructure design and operation.
A central question that has emerged over the years is how to deal with a number of factors including changing conditions and
risk estimates, as well as changes in exposure to risk due to changes in the landscape and assets. The latter issue is most
poignant in the natural hazards context with New Orleans being a key example.
This talk seeks to explore how an adpative management framework could be developed to address a changing world. Specifically,
drawing on examples from the recent efforts at a quantitiative understanding of the role played by climate variability and
change, a general direction is developed for research on global and environmental change that can address issues of
infraastructure development and management .
DE: 1635 Oceans (1616, 3305, 4215, 4513)
DE: 1821 Floods
DE: 1833 Hydroclimatology
DE: 1836 Hydrological cycles and budgets (1218, 1655)
DE: 6334 Regional planning (1880)
SC: Global Climate Change [GC]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005