Planning improvements in natural resources management : guidelines for using Bayesian networks to support the planning and management of development programmes in the water sector and beyond

The guidelines are arranged into five chapters. The first chapter provides a brief description of the concepts of integrated water resource management (IWRM) and presents some general ideas about how IWRM strategies can be formulated.
The second deals with the specific ways in which decision support systems in general and Bayesian networks (BNs) in particular can and should help in the formulation of IWRM plans.
Chapter 3 gives a short technical description of Bayesian networks and then presents the key skills that you will need to acquire to use them effectively.
Chapter 4 contains the core of the guidelines, divided into 12 consecutive steps. The first step is crucial in that it encourages you to identify the problem clearly. Steps 2 to 8 are largely concerned with stakeholder consultation. The remaining steps guide you in building and using a Bayesian network which represents your best understanding of the nature of the problems to be solved and contains the best information available to solve it.
Finally, Chapter 5 presents a hypothetical case study, describing the development of a single BN through each of the 12 steps.