NorthPlatteBasinWaterSupplyandNeedsReport

• Basin Roundtable: North Platte
• Title: Water Supply & Needs Report for the North Platte Basin
• Date: 6/1/2006
• Author: CDM
• Basin Roundtables - Doc Type: Needs Assessment Documents

The approach to developing alternatives for each basin
in subsequent phases of SWSI could be based on the
use of options - individual projects or solutions - as
"building blocks" for basinwide alternatives. Alternatives
could be developed using options that have the likelihood
of being preferred by the stakeholders in each basin, as
described more specifically below. This approach
consists of the following steps:

. Develop options based on Basin Roundtable
Technical Meeting discussions

. Group options into families of options, as described in
Section 9

. Evaluate families of options against objectives and
sub-objectives using performance measures and
Basin Roundtable member preferences

. Identify preferred families of options and use them
(with specific options from those families as
available/appropriate to the basin) to construct
alternatives to meet the demand gaps for each basin
in subsequent phases of SWSI

These options were evaluated against a set of
performance measures, developed by the SWSI team
and confirmed by CWCB and Basin Roundtable
members. Stakeholder preferences (weights of
importance assigned to each objective) were also
factored into the evaluation as described below.

The unique aspect of this approach for SWSI is that the
preferences (or objective weights) for each individual
Basin Roundtable member are maintained. In other
words, this evaluation method was applied to all of the
participating stakeholders. This helps allow for discovery
of common ground through facilitated discussion, rather
than a strictly numeric or "voting" approach (Keeney
1992).

Quantitative scoring provides guidance to
decision makers, but it is not intended to "make" the
decision. Depending on the weights placed on the
objectives, the quantitative comparison will differ from
person to person and illuminate the tradeoffs associated
with each option.

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Section 10
Evaluation Framework

Figure 10-3 illustrates the overall evaluation framework
used in SWSI. By deliberately first analyzing the
objectives (our goals in water management) separately
from the options (specific projects or solutions intended
to meet those goals), we are better able to draw out
interests over positions, illustrate tradeoffs, and identify
creative solutions that might otherwise not come forward.
Additional discussion about interest-based dialogue
versus position-based debate is provided in Section 10.4.

"Why"

"How"

Options
-I
-/

Evaluation
J 1
I
Score Card

Figure 10-3
Evaluation "Road Map"

The "why" portion outlines which aspects of water
management are important to someone, as illustrated
through the objectives. The "how" portion describes how
one addresses a water management need - specific
projects or ways in which the objectives could be
accomplished.

10.3 Defining Objectives and
Performance Measures

The first step in the evaluation framework was to define
the water management objectives for Colorado water
users and uses and the associated performance
measures. These form the evaluation criteria that options
and alternatives can be compared against

CONI

10-3