Institutional and Technical Barriers to Risk-Based Water Resources Management: A Case Study

Abstract

Implementing risk-based Great Lakes water level management and forecasting, as recommended by the International Joint Commission, would allow managers and other interests affected by fluctuating water levels to consider the wide range of potential future lake levels, incorporate some of the uncertainty inherent in forecasts, and allow explicit consideration of risk. Decision making that requires knowledge of future lake levels would potentially improve, resulting in economic and environmental benefits. Significant institutional and technical barriers preventing implementation exist, among them the lack of International Joint Commission authority to mandate other agencies to implement its recommendations, and the lack of objective evidence that risk-based water level management is an improvement over current procedures. Strategies for overcoming these and other barriers are suggested. The barriers and strategies specific to this case study are generalized so that other water resource managers may consider them when applying risk-based management to their systems.