Decision Support Systems for implementing the European Water Framework Directive: The MULINO approach

The EU Water Framework Directive, WFD (Dir. 2000/60/EC) introduces an innovative, integrated and holistic approach to the protection and management of water resources. New methodologies and tools are required to support implementation of the new policy. To fulfil these requirements, tools such as Decision Support Systems (DSSs) that integrate environmental, social and economic concerns and that facilitate the involvement of interested parties in the formulation of strategies may be useful. The MULINO project has developed a methodology and a DSS tool to tackle such problems. Focus is on connecting environmental tools and decision support methods by combining the DPSIR (Driving force, Pressure, State, Impact and Response) approach with multi-criteria analysis methods in a Decision Support System called mDSS. The proposed approach can be applied in decision processes in which a group of people (i.e. decision makers and stakeholders), share a common conceptual framework and procedure, to structure the problem, discuss the decision and communicate the proposed solution. In this paper, the MULINO approach is presented, focusing on its potential for the current implementation process of the WFD, according to the recently released guidance documents and the experience gained in several case studies carried out during the research project. The evaluation of the potential of the tool for applications in real-world management problems is carried out by taking into account the feedback from project partners and from end users, within and outside the research consortium.