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<br />M <br /> <br />::-- <br />~n <br />N <br />L..J <br />(:~ <br /> <br />ABSTRACT <br /> <br />A joint research effort by the Utah Water Research Laboratory and the Nevada Center for <br />Water Resources Research applied two multiobjective planning models to the Virgin River <br />Basin in order to test the efficiency and praetieality of applying such tools in water resources <br />planning. The Surrogate Worth Trade-off (SWT) method couples mathematical optimization to <br />quantify trade .offs among noncommensurable objectives with interviews to compare public <br />preferences with respect to these trade offs. PROPDEMM uses information on interest group <br />objectives, values, willingness to pay, influence, level of information, etc. to compare the <br />political feasibility of alternative courses of action. Both models were applied to assess the <br />difficulties in doing so and the usefulness of the results. The trade offs identified by the SWT <br />method showed agricultural water use to be so dominant in the basin that slight adjustments in <br />irrigation efficiency could supply all foreseeable needs for additional water for other uses, such <br />trade offs to be too inconsequential to identify and compare public preferences, and other trade <br />offs to be impossible because of the position taken by ecologists that any environmental change <br />would destroy a rare species of minnow. Prior to analyzing a situation by the SWT method, the <br />planner should make sure that the trade offs will be of a magnitude meaningful to the public and <br />that the model selected will be sufficiently refined in analyzing small units in time and space to <br />identify loeally significant trade offs. PROPDEMM showed the politieally most controversial <br />trade off to be between construction of energy generating fa.,ilities and life support for the <br />minnow, a controversy that would probably be decided in favor t fthe environmentalist because <br />of their power and non-openness to change. Improvements to the model to do a better job of <br />interfacing environmental with social data were recommended. Social modeling in such low <br />population areas was found to be restricted by laws against diaclosure of private information <br />because of the very small numbers of individuals living in many evaluation units. <br /> <br />ill <br />