ABSTRACT
The Netherlands are a flood prone area situated in a major delta of large European rivers. The water management in the low lying Dutch polder-areas is complex. Climate change and ageing of assets for water management increase the stress on financial budgets. The asset manager has to decide for questions on several levels of detail. To develop and apply an asset management strategy a multi-level decision support system (DSS) is required. This paper presents a showcase for the Beemster Polder area in the North West part of the Netherlands. It demonstrates the first steps for the development of such a DSS. The requirements for a DSS are e.g. the availability of asset data, asset-ageing knowledge, system-environmental knowledge, knowledge of failure probabilities and consequences of failure of assets. Multi-sector planning decisions have to be made if budgets have to be distributed over different functions. This type of strategic decisions requires a more aggregated approach then operational decisions. An aggregated approach requires more expert knowledge to define e.g. metrics and scenario’s. The showcase Beemster Polder is used to investigate the approach for strategic decision making.
