Does Collaborative Modeling Lead to Better Management of Our Water Resources?

Shared Vision Planning (also known as Collaborative Modeling or Computer Aided Dispute Resolution) is a relatively new but growing field. Advocates claim that the method increases the quality of decisions and policies in a way that is "cheaper, better, and faster" than traditional decision making or dispute resolution without computers. But can we prove this? In an attempt to find out, the Corps of Engineers' Institute for Water Resources and SRA International developed an array of performance measures to see if the benefits of shared learning and better policies are achieved, as well as to explore what factors (e.g., transparent model, trusted facilitator) are critical for producing the intended outcomes. The performance measures seek to characterize the quality of the participatory process, the quality of the resulting model, what impact the model had on the process and any policy recommendations, and if the process produced any longer-term impacts such as building institutional capacity and social capital. Results of assessing case studies using the performance measures will be presented.