<i>Water Expert</i>: a conceptualized framework for development of a rule-based decision support system for distribution system decontamination
Significant drinking water contamination events pose a serious threat to public and environmental health. Water utilities often must make timely, critical decisions without evaluating all facets of the incident. The data needed to enact informed decisions are inevitably dispersant and disparate, ori...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2015-08-01
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| Series: | Drinking Water Engineering and Science |
| Online Access: | http://www.drink-water-eng-sci.net/8/9/2015/dwes-8-9-2015.pdf |
| Summary: | Significant drinking water contamination events pose a serious threat to
public and environmental health. Water utilities often must make timely,
critical decisions without evaluating all facets of the incident. The data
needed to enact informed decisions are inevitably dispersant and disparate,
originating from policy, science, and heuristic contributors. <i>Water Expert</i> is a
functioning hybrid decision support system (DSS) and expert system framework
that emphasizes the meshing of parallel data structures in order to expedite
and optimize the decision pathway. Delivered as a thin-client application
through the user's web browser, <i>Water Expert</i>'s extensive knowledgebase is a product of
inter-university collaboration that methodically pieced together system
decontamination procedures. Decontamination procedures are investigated
through consultation with subject matter experts, literature review, and
prototyping with stakeholders. This paper discusses the development of
<i>Water Expert</i>, analyzing the development process underlying the DSS and the system's
existing architecture specifications. <i>Water Expert</i> constitutes the first system to
employ a combination of deterministic and heuristic models which provide
decontamination solutions for water distribution systems. Results indicate
that the decision making process following a contamination event is a
multi-disciplinary effort. This contortion of multiple inputs and objectives
limit the ability of the decision maker to find optimum solutions without
technological intervention. |
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| ISSN: | 1996-9457 1996-9465 |