Decision Support System Elbe-DSS

Currently the German Federal Institute of Hydrology (BfG) is funding the development of a Decision Support System (DSS) for the Elbe river system. The aim of the project is to couple simulation models that were developed for the Elbe river system to a DSS that supports the user on decisions concerning the management of the elbe catchment. The great flooding in summer 2002 demonstrated the importance of this subject.

The project is realised by an international consortium of institutes and companies. It has been started in march 2002 and will end after 34 months in december 2004. In this context Intevation was contracted by University of Osnabrück to integrate the georeferenced simulation system GREAT-ER within the Elbe-DSS. For this purpose GREAT-ER has been extended to include diffuse input of substance in the river system. Silke Reimer is managing the project on GREAT-ER integration supported by Frank Koormann as second project manager.

Regulary developer team meetings with all partners help to coordinate all actions between the developers. Aside it is considered as very important that the users to-be of the Elbe-DSS are involved in design decisions. Therefore a so called steering comitee has been established which gives advice to the developer team.