Computer‐Aided System for Ground‐Water Resources Management

Abstract

This paper describes the use of a computer‐based environment to facilitate engineering decision‐making tasks. A prototype system is developed as an exploration tool and as a demonstration of the techniques and principles proposed for improving the effectiveness of decision‐making analysis tasks in ground‐water resources management. Several mathematical techniques, a modeling language, graphic displays, and a friendly interactive user interface are used. The mathematical techniques are: (1) A finite‐element method for ground‐water simulation modeling; (2) linear programming; (3) a new method for obtaining the exact non‐inferior set of a multicriterion problem; and (4) a modeling‐to‐generate‐alternatives (MGA) approach for generating potential alternatives. The modeling language is designed to relieve the analyst of the burden of formatting a general mathematical model for solution using existing mathematical programming packages. The graphic displays provide visual data for ease of data manipulation and effective comparison, and the friendly interactive user interface is designed for engineers who are not necessarily computer experts.