Application of Bayesian Networks in Watershed Management to Deal with Uncertainty

Watershed management, in addition to considering an integrated natural resource management approach, requires the involvement of stakeholders. Furthermore, it must deal with a wide range of variables: physical, biological, social, among others. This multidisciplinary aspect, it makes the analysis process difficult. To deal with those difficulties, managers began to use decision support tools in integrated natural resource management. Bayesian networks is one of those tools used with promising results.

In Peru, watershed management is a practice in many mountainous areas called Sierra. Among the difficulties mentioned before, managers must face with high uncertainty due to lack o data. In this work, the performance of Bayesian Networks as a decision support tool in the management of the Sierra de Perú watershed was tested through the application to a case study of a small basin.