Towards a Web Decision System Support for Planning Dagua Watershed in Colombia

Tropical watershed faces many problems that hamper its sustainability, such as land degradation, water pollution, water scarcity and several socio-economic pressures. This paper presents both a conceptual and operative web decision support systems (DSS) for assessment of a tropical watershed called Dagua in Colombia. Dagua river is located to the west of the department of Valle del Cauca, Colombia. Decision support systems (DSS) have been wildly developed in the recent decades, in various areas of decision making. In the 21(st) century, the advances in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) have brought the era of cloud computing, in which network-distributed resources (simulation and optimization models, data, etc.) are integrated in decision support applications. The utility of Web-based decision support system in enhancing communication and decision-making capability in a distributed environment or a multiple stakeholder process (MSP) has been developed with diverse application from the real world, in some case in water resource planning.

Here a combination of pressure-state-response (PSR) indicators and logic fuzzy were used to build a Web based DSS to support social and environmental planning in Dagua watershed. The PSR model is based on the concept of causality: human activities exert pressures on the environment (P) and change its quality and quantity of natural resources (S). Society responds to these changes through environmental, general economic and sectorial responses (R). Fuzzy logic is a sub-topic of Artificial Intelligence often used in both control systems and decision theory. The theory of fuzzy logic provides a mathematical strength to capture the uncertainties associated with human cognitive processes, such as thinking and reasoning.

In this study five indices were defined. Each index is a combination of qualitative and quantitative indicators PSR. The indicators were defined by both literature review and conceptual relation between variables. Fuzzy functions were defined to generate operability in each index. Trapezoidal, triangular and singleton functions were defined. The inputs are the indicators value in each zones of the watershed. Outputs of WebDSS are the value of each index. The Web DSS was applied in a watershed named Dagua, in Colombia. The results indicate the high degradation level in the watershed, evidenced by the indices values. This study indicates the possibility of building and applying a DSS to support management decision process in Colombian watersheds.

Keywords: Logic fuzzy, Dagua watershed, Pressure-State-Response (PER) framework, Web -Decision System Support (DSS), watershed in Colombia.