Water Resources Directory/Education/Planning/Decision-Making




Model Curriculum, Core Course #3:

Social Decision-Making edit

Learning Objectives: edit

  1. To gain an understanding of the major ways that public policy decisions about water resources are made, together with an appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. More specifically,
  2. To be able to describe the current water resources decision-making environment in terms of factors such as presence of multiple interest groups with competing values and priorities, multiple sources of power, etc. and the challenges that this environment presents for decision-making.
  3. To describe major public decision-making models, and their strengths and weaknesses in the water resources decision-making environment.


Subject Areas edit

  • current WR decision-making (environ. decision-making)
  • market mechanisms
  • regulation
  • litigation
  • collaborative methods - public participation
  • collaborative methods - alternative dispute resolution
  • collaborative methods - shared visioning


Related Professional Courses edit

References edit

  • Acknowledgment: The concept for this course and the original text for learning objectives here were taken from the model MS degree in water resources planning for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.