A decision support system for integrated water management
2002
Since the appearance of the Brundtland Report (WCED, 1987) sustainable development is a well recognized aspect of coastal zone management. Various definitions of the concept of sustainability have been given. Most of these are implicitly based on an expected behavior of the social and natural interactions in the coastal zone. However, an appropriate methodology to predict these interactions and thereby facilitate the management of the coastal zone is still lacking. The aim of the ongoing research program (Development) is to obtain the scientific knowledge required to support the sustainable management of coastal resources in tropical countries. This requires information on the main (bio)physical, socio-economic and socio-cultural processes affecting the sustainable use of coastal resources such as mangroves, seagrass beds, coral reefs and associated fish species. In order to facilitate the communication with end-users and provide a modeling tool a prototype version of a decision-support system for coastal-zone management (RaMCo) has been developed.