Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2007DC88B

Decision Support System to Deal with Water Emergencies for Metropolitan Washington DC

Institute: District of Columbia
Year Established: 2007 Start Date: 2007-03-01 End Date: 2008-02-29
Total Federal Funds: $15,000 Total Non-Federal Funds: $15,820

Principal Investigators: Shivraj Kanungo, Pradeep Behera

Project Summary: The current regulation on Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act, requires drinking water utilities serving more than 3,000 people to perform vulnerability assessments and to prepare an Emergency Response Plan (ERP). The ERP also must include actions, procedures, and identification of equipment which can obviate or significantly lessen the impact of terrorist attacks or other intentional actions on the public health and the safety and supply of drinking water provided to communities and individuals. (EPA 2003). For water utilities, however, enhancing physical security and compliance of current regulation is one of many priorities. Because of the competition for limited resources, including financial and personnel, the current compliance requires a very balanced approach across each of the following five dimensions (i) financial (ii) personnel (iii) management tools, (iv) operational approaches, and (v) physical security design features. This complex decision problem requires a holistic response especially in an emergency. Like many other metropolitan systems of the nation, the Metropolitan DC water system is a large and complex system. Moreover, the nature of vulnerability and preparedness for DC system is unique given that it is the nations capital. Therefore there is a need to develop an efficient decision support system (DSS) for the water utility system which would not only provide day-to-day management support but also during emergency situations. This is a collaborative research project between George Washington University (GWU) and the University of the District of Columbia (UDC). This interdisciplinary research, addressing decision making and information technology use in water security, is being carried out as a precursor to a longer-term research effort. By conducting this preliminary study, we aim to delineate and prioritize decision and information requirements based on their relevance to practicing managers and policy makers in the DC Metro area. The specific objectives of this research are: Identification of different vulnerabilities to the water system; Identification of gaps in the information gathering and sharing framework; Identification of gaps in the decision making framework as it currently exists; Development of a framework to address those gaps and improve response readiness and reactions to water emergencies; Develop a larger proposal that will develop and deliver a suite of DSS that will be field tested and validated.