Exploring Distributive Justice In Many-Objective Optimization: A Comparative Analysis of A Priori and A Posteriori Approaches to Implementing Distributive Justice Principles

Addressing the global challenge of water scarcity, particularly in the context of Sustainable Development Goal 6, underscores the critical need for effective water resource management. Central to this management is the control of dams in river basins, which poses complex decision-making challenges often labeled as wicked problems. Many-Objective...

Policy Tree Optimization for Climate Policy Modelling: An EPA Master Thesis

Forest BORG, a novel framework using the BORG multi-objective evolutionary algorithm, optimizes policy trees for socio-economic systems. Tested on real-world case studies, Folsom lake and RICE IAM, it addresses multi-objective challenges under deep uncertainty, offering effective and explainable decision support for climate change policies.<br/>...

Exploring distributive justice in water resource allocation: A rival framings approach on the operationalization of equality in multi-objective optimization models for water systems

Water, an essential resource for diverse purposes like environmental protection, urban water supply, energy generation, and agriculture, faces intensifying demand amid depleting supplies. Multi-Objective Optimization (MOO)-models are vital for addressing complex water system challenges with limited resources. However, varying approaches to...

Evaluating Stability of Adaptive Water Allocation Strategies in the Eastern Nile Basin

As the impact of climate change becomes increasingly urgent, conflicts over transboundary water resources have become more complex, particularly in light of the role of water in shaping socioeconomic and regional power dynamics. The challenge of optimizing objectives and strategic behavior across multiple stakeholders simultaneously makes it...

Robust decision making for future train maintenance: Illustrating the abilities of decision making under deep uncertainty within the train maintenance context

This research has illustrated the abilities of incorporating robust decision making within train maintenance. Both scheduled and unscheduled maintenance processes of the Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS) have been examined, after which exploratory modeling and analysis enabled developing valuable insights for decision makers. Scenario analysis through...

Catching the trigger?: Including automated event data in interstate conflict prediction

This thesis evaluates the effects of including automated event data for interstate conflict prediction. Automated event data are web-scraped news stories converted into data and they may allow conflict models to increase their performance. Accurate models can then be used for early-warning purposes.<br/><br/>To predict three separate problems,...

Climate Justice Behind the Veil of Aggregation: IAMs, Equity, and Pareto-Optimal Abatement Pathways

Humanity faces the unprecedented global challenge of climate change. The sheer complexity and uncertainty of this problem renders mere intuitive reasoning insufficient. To aid global climate negotiations, Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) are used to analyze the interplay between climate and the economy. More specifically, IAMs account for how...

Characterizing the spatio-temporal dynamics of social vulnerability in Burkina Faso: A comparison of Principal Component Analysis with Equal Weighting

Global climate change has results in a higher frequency of extreme disaster events and is therefore a serious challenge in disaster impact management. Disaster risk is composed of several components, such as vulnerability, susceptibility, exposure and the probability of occurence and intensity of a hazard. Vulnerability has become a topical...

Trans-boundary water management modeling framework: How cooperation impacts water resources in a river basin

This research explores the effects different cooperation levels between countries have on water resources from a shared river. The water resources that are taken into account are: hydro electricity generated per dam, water that flows to the environment per dam, and irrigation water per station. The Zambezi river basin is selected as study area...

Exploring Trade-offs in Reservoir Operations through Many Objective Optimisation: Case of Nile River Basin

Water storage and diversion capacity of reservoirs in the Nile Basin are benefited for various purposes including agricultural irrigation and hydro-energy production. Filling and operation of the recently constructed Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) have been subject to heated debate for its implications on downstream countries Sudan and...

Factors influencing the adoption of adaptive policy by water utilities

Over recent decades there have been advances in the research behind adaptive policy approaches. More recently, emerging qualitative approaches for managing deep uncertainty has drawn the attention of planners in the water industry, particularly in water utilities. Despite interest from both the water industry and the research community to see...

Will the Benefits Keep Flowing?: Analysing the Effects of an Uncertain World on the Objectives of the Akosombo Dam

The Akosombo dam in Ghana's Lower Volta River Basin provides essential economic benefits through hydropower generation, flood protection, and irrigation opportunities. However, since its construction was completed in 1965, the livelihood of the riverine communities drastically changed. The seasonal peak and low flows in the river, which provided...

Multi-sector Water Allocation: The impact of nonlinear approximation network hyperparameters for multi-objective reservoir control

Operationalising stability and fairness in transboundary water resource allocations

This research identifies a method to evaluate the fairness and stability of existing Pareto optimal policies in the context of transboundary water resource allocations. Using the case study of the Susquehanna river basin, the fairness of efficient policies was evaluated using utilitarianism, egalitarianism and prioritarianism. Stability was...