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decision
support:
Decision
makers need to find the best way to make sound decisions about operating a
river/reservoir system or a groundwater basin with limited resource in an
environment of competing demands and changing public values.
Also, decisions require a solid foundation on data and analyses to be
acceptable and defensible.
WRIME,
Inc. is a leader in innovation in providing decision support services to
resource managers and water managers. At
WRIME, Inc., we work with our clients to understand the needs of the decision
makers and develop necessary decision support tools or models to help the
decision making process. It is our
goal to help our clients save money by avoiding unnecessary data collection and
analyses by analyzing the project needs.
Our
cost-effective approach is based on the Data-Decision hierarchy pyramid shown on
the right. This pyramid shows the
transformation of Data to Information to Knowledge
to Decision, with rapidly
increasing value as we move from the bottom of a decision pyramid to the top.
Data by themselves have little value; once they are processed, analyzed
and organized, they become information. Once the information is processed by the
user to develop and enhance understanding of a situation or a problem, it
transforms into knowledge. This knowledge can reduce the risk of undesirable
consequences of a decision.
A
more effective approach is to start at the top the decision pyramid and travel
down the pyramid to determine what subset of data and processing is essential
for decision support on a specific set of decisions. This pragmatic approach can
result in significant cost savings in data collection and analyses because it
prioritizes decision support needs.
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“We
cannot build a system [Decision Support System] that makes human
interaction unnecessary”
--Eileen
Salenik, Program Manager
Snake
River Resources Review
Bureau
of Reclamation, Boise
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