Model-based Decision Support Methodology With Environmental Applications (Mathematical Modelling: Theory and Applications)

The complexity of issues requiring rational decision making grows and thus such decisions are becoming more and more difficult, despite advances in methodology and tools for decision support and in other areas of research. Globalization, interlinks between environmental, industrial, social and political issues, and rapid speed of change all contribute to the increase of this complexity. Specialized knowledge about decision-making processes and their support is increasing, but a large spectrum of approaches presented in the literature is typically illustrated only by simple examples. Moreover, the integration of model-based decision support methodologies and tools with specialized model-based knowledge developed for handling real problems in environmental, engineering, industrial, economical, social and political activities is often not satisfactory. Therefore, there is a need to present the state of art of methodology and tools for development of model-based decision support systems, and illustrate this state by applications to various complex real-world decision problems. The monograph reports many years of experience of many researchers, who have not only contributed to the developments in operations research but also succeeded to integrate knowledge and craft of various disciplines into several modern decision support systems which have been applied to actual complex decision-making processes in various fields of policy making. The experience presented in this book will be of value to researchers and practitioners in various fields. The issues discussed in this book gain in importance with the development of the new era of the information society, where information, knowledge, and ways of processing them become a decisive part of human activities.