What happens to the data ad models? These elements can be considered to be part of a larger integrated decision support systems platform that combines the data with analytical tools to provide stakeholders the right information and insights at the right time in the right format.
These systems help move up the data value chain to transform observations (e.g. water level data) into information (e.g. streamflows) and then into knowledge (e.g. probability of a flood) and then to provide wisdom to make decisions (e.g. planning decision such as flood zoning or operational decisions such as recommendations to evacuate communities because of an impending flood). Unfortunately, we are often faced with systems that do not link the data collected or the modeling conducted with actual planning or operational decisions. Institutional/governance with technical failures often unfortunately mean a continuing culture of “data-free analysis and analysis-free decision making”!
There is a need to have a strong framework starting from the other side of this pyramid – starting from the decisions that need to be made, and then find the cascading knowledge products, information and analytical systems, and the relevant data to be collected. This is illustrated below for two cases – one related to long-term planning and one to operations in a basin/watershed context.
