Twenty-nine essays from the conference examine such topics as regulatory reform, environmental world views and water resources, policy and engineering decision making under global change, modeling and solving water resources engineering design problems, reliability of a box culvert structure under a levee during project floods, project planning in developing countries, the influence of trust on risk-based decision making, urban stormwater quality management, risk reduction of lead and mercury, and measures of water distribution system reliability. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Decision making in environmental projects is typically a complex and confusing process characterized by trade-offs between socio-political, environmental, and economic impacts. Comparative Risk Assessment (CRA) is a methodology applied to facilitate decision making when various activities compete for limited resources. CRA has become an increasingly accepted research tool and has helped to characterize environmental profiles and priorities on the regional and national level. CRA may be considered as part of the more general but as yet quite academic field of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). Considerable research in the area of MCDA has made available methods for applying scientific decision theoretical approaches to multi-criteria problems, but its applications, especially in environmental areas, are still limited. The papers show that the use of comparative risk assessment can provide the scientific basis for environmentally sound and cost-efficient policies, strategies, and solutions to our environmental challenges.

Confronting Climate Uncertainty in Water Resources Planning and Project Design describes an approach to facing two fundamental and unavoidable issues brought about by climate change uncertainty in water resources planning and project design. The first is a risk assessment problem. The second relates to risk management. This book provides background on the risks relevant in water systems planning, the different approaches to scenario definition in water system planning, and an introduction to the decision-scaling methodology upon which the decision tree is based. The decision tree is described as a scientifically defensible, repeatable, direct and clear method for demonstrating the robustness of a project to climate change. While applicable to all water resources projects, it allocates effort to projects in a way that is consistent with their potential sensitivity to climate risk. The process was designed to be hierarchical, with different stages or phases of analysis triggered based on the findings of the previous phase. An application example is provided followed by a descriptions of some of the tools available for decision making under uncertainty and methods available for climate risk management. The tool was designed for the World Bank but can be applicable in other scenarios where similar challenges arise.

Proceedings of the Fourth Engineering Conference, held in Santa Barbara, California, October 15-20, 1989. This collection contains 20 papers that address the application of risk analysis to a wealth of water resources problems. Current risk-assessment issues confronting water resources planners are evaluated along with areas of uncertainty. Requirements and procedures currently promoted by engineers in federal and state water resources agencies are identified. Decision analysis methods and/or models that can explicitly incorporate risk preferences are reviewed. In addition, various risk methodologies are discussed as they apply to dam safety, flood control, environmental impacts, and other social, economic, and technological aspects of water resources planning and management.

Comprises edited papers from the proceedings of the Eighth Engineering Foundation Conference held in Santa Barbara, California, on October 12-17, 1997. This work discusses legislative initiatives and risk assessment, climate change, El Ninako, maintenance and rehabilitation, reliability of physical infrastructure, and the risk of extreme events.