The Transnational Guide towards Optimal WAter REgime (GOWARE) has been developed as a Decision Support Tool (DST) in the framework of the PROLINE-CE project. Its main objective is to support interested Users and stakeholders in the decision-making process for the selection of the most suitable Best Management Practices (BMPs) for sustainable land use, drinking water management and flood risk protection. GOWARE design includes two main stages of analysis:
- Stage 1 – Analysis scoping: this phase consists in defining the context that appropriately represents the issues that the User is facing in the decision-making process. It permits reducing the list of the suitable options among the full catalogue included in the tool.
- Stage 2 – Criteria ranking: this phase consists in assigning a “relative importance” to a number of characterizing criteria by means of pairwise comparisons, i.e. considering the defined criteria two-by-two. It permits ranking the alternatives according the preferences of the different Users.
Two different versions of GOWARE have been released: one works as off-line tool (Excel-based) and it is aimed at supporting the decision-making processes carried out by both single User and groups of Users. The other one is a web-tool designed for supporting online decision processes carried out by a single User.
