Multiobjective Water Resource Planning

Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Water Resources Monograph Series, Volume 4.

This volume, the fourth in the American Geophysical Union’s Water Resources Monograph Series, is an exposition of multiobjective water resource planning. The multiobjective approach is, I believe, an approach that will enable water resource planners to improve substantially the social value of the projects that they build or, in the case of management plans, implement. As a not unwelcome side effect the multiobjective approach should provide a more satisfying professional life to planners and engineers. It requires more effort in the early stages of planning than simpler criteria such as the traditional benefit-cost analysis that it replaces, but at the same time, multiobjective analysis frees the planner from the burden of designing projects that are not fully representative of the social, economic, environmental, and other objectives that govern public investment in water resources.