ABSTRACT
Water resources systems management is an iterative process of integrated decision-making regarding the uses and modifications of waters and related lands within a geographic region. It relies on the application of a systems approach to formulating water resources management problems, and the use of systems analysis in finding their solutions. System analysis is the use of rigorous methods to help determine preferred plans, design and operations strategies for complex, often large-scale, systems. Simulation models describe how a system operates, and are used to predict what changes will result from a specific course of action. Simulation models play an important role in water resources systems management. They are widely accepted within the water resources community and are usually designed to predict the response of a system under a particular set of conditions. System dynamics is an academic discipline introduced in the 1960s by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
