The Human Dimensions of Water-Resources Planning

A framework was developed for incorporating human factors (those which concern human well-being and quality of human life) along with technical and economic factors into the water-resources planning-decision process. Initially, 388 water-resources concepts from the human domain were collected, screened, and grouped to define 42 different factors. Then, from ratings of similarity-dissimilarity by 300 raters, a matrix was generated of mean distances between all 861 possible factor pairs; the matrix was analyzed by computer-based multidimensional scaling techniques to determine the underlying dimensional structure. Finally, using procedures that paralleled those for determining factor similarity-dissimilarity, a value reflecting social importance was developed for each of the 42 factors and for the 5 basic dimensions which emerged from the multidimensional analysis. These values were found to cover a wide range; however, values for the same factors and dimensions were found to be nearly identical among different subgroups of people, even those with potentially divergent viewpoints, such as behavioral scientists and water-works professionals.