Enabling Participatory Development of Decision Support Systems in Water Resources Planning Using Off-the-Shelf Dashboarding Tools

Decision support systems (DSSs) in water resources planning are typically developed to translate complex data and modeling results into information for decision-makers. The success of DSSs, however, is often limited in practice due to insufficient stakeholder participation in their development and use. This paper presents evidence of the benefits of iterative DSS codevelopment using off-the-shelf dashboarding tools to enable stakeholder participation. Three case studies were used to demonstrate how to adopt a structured participatory approach to gather and include insights from stakeholders in DSSs. This is coupled with data processing pipelines that refine data and modeling results according to the stakeholders’ needs at the required level of detail. The case studies are (1) fast integrated system models for flood risk reduction in Semarang City, Indonesia; (2) a planning kit for water-energy-food-ecosystem nexus in the Pinios Basin, Greece; and (3) a metamodel for evaluation of the National Delta Plan, Bangladesh. These cases illustrate how codeveloped DSSs can be implemented in diverse contexts to promote better-informed and inclusive decision-making. The resulting DSSs have been proven to enhance the success of the respective projects, showcased by end-user testimonies.