Developing a Risk Management DSS for Supporting Sustainable Vietnamese Catfish Farming

The development of a prototype DSS, named Fish@Risk, for risk management in Vietnamese catfish farming is detailed in this paper. The prototype enables aquaculture farmers to manage risks in catfish farming systematically and efficiently. It facilitates risk analysis, risk evaluation and prioritization, and selection of the most efficient risk management strategies for mitigating risks. Fish@Risk has three main components, a database component, a model component, and a graphical user interface. The database component allows users to manage data on risk and risk management strategies. The model component accommodates formulas and predetermined probability distribution functions (PDF) of risk consequences and likelihoods that facilitates risk analysis. For ease of use and accessibility reasons, the DSS was developed using Visual Basic for Application on the Microsoft Excel platform. We demonstrate the usefulness of Fish@Risk by illustrating its use in a commonly encountered scenario in catfish farming. Fish@Risk provides four main outputs: (1) a table of Levels of Risk (LOR), (2) a matrix matching risks and risk management strategies (RMS) by RMS efficacy, (3) a matrix matching risks and risk management strategies by RMS net benefit, and (4) a two dimensional graph mapping risks with risk likelihood on the vertical axis and with risk consequence on the horizontal axis.