Decision Support for River Quality Management: The REKA Model in Bulgaria

A decision support system linking a geographic-information-systems-based simulation of basin-scale water quality with a linear programming decision model for improving water resources management was developed using the Yantra River Basin in Bulgaria as a case study. This chapter describes the structure and purpose of the three model components of the River Environmental Knowledge and Assessment (REKA) model, focusing on challenges and solutions encountered in the building, parameterization, and testing of the model (particularly on issues of environmental data input), and reports on the difficulties in system implementation. Our intent is to inform other investigators of the kinds of problems encountered by the REKA research team (consisting of American and Bulgarian scientists), including challenges in locating and acquiring data and identifying and translating environmental parameters from the socialist scientific system to the conventions used in the West where basic model components originated. Instances of sparse and incomplete data and the processing to develop appropriate spatial and attribute data compatible with the model structure are presented. The chapter also speaks to the frustration of the research team and local environmental officials that the developed system could not be implemented for practical pollution management due to lack of funding for integrated practices and policy adoption.1