RESOURCE-USE-ANALYSIS FOR AN ECONOMIC AND ECOLOGICAL WATER MANAGEMENT

Strategies of horticultural companies to respond to a growing scarcity of the natural resource water are strongly determined by the firms’ own operational goal system.

Based on results, of entrepreneur and customer surveys, a new resource-use-analysis has been developed.
It integrates multiple objectives, goals and constraints which are relevant for water use decisions in horticulture.
Its application targets two purposes: firstly, an accounting step describes the current water use situation in a specific firm.
Based on the resulting water-use-matrix, measures of communication policy can then be used to form a positive environmental image of this company.
Secondly, the approach generally supports environmental controlling by providing the decision maker with suitable information to establish economically and ecologically reasonable water management.

Ongoing research is underway to apply the method not only to single firms but to whole growing areas.
The research is being completed with a simulation model linked to lexicographic goal programming.

International Symposium on Water Quality & Quantity-Greenhouse

U.R. Orth

water, resource economics, multiple criteria decision making, public image

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1998.458.52