Added value of deterministic models in Decision Support Systems

Abstract

Abstract Management of water uses requests to harmonize demands and needs which are getting more and more complex and sophisticated especially with the growing urbanization. Modern cities request a larger number of services for their inhabitants and expect, at the same time, to limit investments to constrain the tax pressure. The need of optimization appears at various levels and request the wide spread of monitoring strategies. At the same time, urban growth mobilizes last available spaces that are frequently under the thread of natural hazards like inundations. Decisions Supports Systems that may integrated various components both for real-time monitoring and forecast through model, appear as one of the most relevant answers to the urban environment management’s expectations. The model’s integration is a challenging task that requests to build a global vision that ensures both technical feasibility and sustainability. As demonstrated with the AquaVar approach implemented in several catchments on the French Riviera, several deterministic models can be orchestrated within a single environment that can address the diversity of the water related issues handled by local technical services. The model’s selection must integrate the evolution of the tools and the possibility to integrate gradually new approaches and methods that are more data oriented and using the results produced from the implemented deterministic tools. The recent extreme events recorded in October 2020 during the ALEX storm and the disaster within the Vésubie valley have underlined the interest of the deterministic tools. In fact, those models are the only solutions that can produce a meaningful estimation of the extreme hydrological processes and deliver the expected results to decision makers.