At the end of the driest year on record, California faces water shortages whose impacts will be felt with progressive severity through the summer and fall of 1977. Electric power is not entirely exempt from these impacts and could, if severly affected, compound the direct distresses of the...

Historically, regulators imposed resource-planning rules on electric utilities because of the utility`s obligation to serve. Given that obligation, regulators wanted utilities to plan for and procure a portfolio of resources that provided customers with low-cost electricity, stable prices, and a...

The purpose of the Programmatic Risk Management System (PRMS) is to evaluate and manage potential risks associated with proposed projects (i.e., new products or processes, or possible research and technological development projects). Although the PRMS considers some technical aspects of risk,...

The Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC) in cooperation with US Department of Energy (DOE) has developed a workshop format to allow state regulatory officials and industry representatives the opportunity to participate in frank and open discussions on issues of environmental...

The complexity of water resource issues, its interconnectedness to other systems, and the involvement of competing stakeholders often overwhelm decision-makers and inhibit the creation of clear management strategies. While a range of modeling tools and procedures exist to address these problems,...

This report documents The Nambe Pueblo Water Budget and Water Forecasting model. The model has been constructed using Powersim Studio (PS), a software package designed to investigate complex systems where flows and accumulations are central to the system. Here PS has been used as a platform for...

The ecosystem service concept has been proposed as a meaningful framework for natural resource management. In theory it holds concomitant benefit and consequence for the forest product sector. However, numerous barriers impede practitioners from developing concrete and enduring responses to...

Bayesian belief networks (BBNs) are useful tools for modeling ecological predictions and aiding resource-management decision-making. We provide practical guidelines for developing, testing, and revising BBNs. Primary steps in this process include creating influence diagrams of the hypothesized...

To support moves towards more sustainable modes of natural resource management, the research community has been engaged in an evaluation of paradigms, theories and methods which might provide useful and usable insights into such a complex problem set. A particularly influential family of...

Doctor of Philosophy