Prof. Edie Zagona
		Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural 	
		Engineering
		Director, Center for Advanced Decision Support for 	
		Water and Environmental Systems (CADSWES)
		University of Colorado at Boulder
		http://cadswes.colorado.edu/about/team/zagona

	River System Management: CADSWES Tools and Applications

				Abstract

Rivers are the primary source of water for sustaining all aspects of human existence, 
notably food, energy, industrial fabrication, mining, sanitation and domestic life; flow 
regimes are controlled and waters diverted to provide these benefits. Rivers are also the 
arteries of the natural ecosystem, supporting complex biological systems, biodiversity, and 
land forms; unregulated flows best meet the needs of the natural system. In addition to the 
human vs. ecosystem competition, conflicts among human uses of water and between 
neighboring political entities sharing waterways add to management challenge. Management of 
rivers to sustain all of these benefits now and in the future is a major focus of 
organizations from global to local, and addresses the management on timescales from minutes 
to centuries. Climate variability and change further complicate long term management. 
Collaborative stakeholder processes and adaptive management concepts also must be 
considered. CADSWES for over 25 years has assisted organizations engaged in critical river 
management by providing new analysis techniques and decision support tools. The RiverWare 
and RiverSMART tools have been applied to river systems with a variety of management 
challenges. This talk will describe key features of the tools needed to address a range of 
specific river management problems and some applications of the tools to several river 
systems.