International Environmental Modelling and Software Society (iEMSs) 2010 International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software Modelling for Environment’s Sake, Fifth Biennial Meeting, Ottawa, Canada David A. Swayne, Wanhong Yang, A. A. Voinov, A. Rizzoli, T. Filatova (Eds.) http://www.iemss.org/iemss2010/index.php?n=Main.Proceedings Environmental Information Management Systems as Templates for Successful Environmental Decision Support N.W.T. Quinn Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (nwquinn@lbl.gov) Abstract: The mantra that successful Environmental Decision Support Systems (EDSS’s) are those that benefit from a high level of end-user involvement during the design phase and subsequent implementation is well founded. However the practical matter of eliciting the relevant information from stakeholders to develop a useful and robust EDSS is rarely adequate and this weakness contributes to the high rate of failed EDSS’s. Stakeholders sometimes have difficulty articulating the decisions they are called upon to make and cannot definitely describe the bounds of the decision space within which they operate. The EDSS developer is challenged by having to understand the system he/she is attempting to simulate to the same degree as the stakeholder. Environmental Information Management Systems (EIMS’s) have a better record of success than EDSS’s, though the distinction between the two is often blurry since information needs to organized and presented in an appropriate manner to inform decision making. The “handshake” between the stakeholder user of the EDSS and the EDSS itself is one of the most difficult features to determine. In the agricultural salinity management arena EDSS’s do not appear to have a high rate of adoption. However there have been very successful EIMS’s – some of which have user communities that number in the thousands. Perhaps the answer is to use the EIMS as a stepping stone to developing a fully functional EDSS. This paper examines a number of failed EDSS projects and compares and contrasts these systems with successful EIMS projects. The paper suggests some lessons for future EDSS initiatives. Keywords: Environmental decision support, environmental information management systems, salinity management, water quality. 1. INTRODUCTION There are a number of definitions of Environmental Decision Support System in the published literature – however most coalesce around the idea of using computers to support decision making. Simon (1977) – one of the early pioneers of decision science – described a systematic decision making process which he broke down into four sequential phases : intelligence, design, choice and implementation. In the intelligence phase the problem to be solved is defined, the ownership of the problem is established and essential descriptive background data is collected. In design phase a simulation model or analog that emulates the behavior of the system is developed – the model is validated during this phase and a decision framework identified. The decision framework describes the various actions the decision maker will need to choose between. The choice phase follows which identifies a proposed solution identified by the model or model framework – though this solution is not necessarily a solution to the original problem. The fourth phase is the implementation phase which applies the decision support system or modeling framework to solve the original problem. Hence when EDSS tools fail it is important to identify the phase within which specific problems begin to surface. This is more difficult than it sounds because the same myopic thinking that led to failure of the system can prevent accurate pinpointing of the seeds of failure. This can also be a problem of perception – where two analysts, presented with the