Applying the EVDT decision support model to manage water resources in Angola: lessons from systems architecture
- Paper ID
87883
- DOI
- author
- company
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Angolan National Space Program Management Office (GGPEN); University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)
- country
United States
- year
2024
- abstract
This project is a multi-stakeholder international effort that leverages the Environmental-Socioeconomic Vulnerability-Decisionmaking-Technology (EVDT) framework developed by the Space Enabled Research Group to inform solutions to complex sociotechnical problems. Specifically, we apply the EVDT framework to water resource management in Angola. Southern Angola–particularly in the Cunene, Huila, and Namibe provinces–experiences a periodic drought-flood cycle. Approximately 1.37 million people live in the directly impacted area; the drought-flood severity has worsened in the past decade. Water management in these provinces is a national problem in Angola, which is looking to leverage technology, international collaboration, education, and research to address these complex issues. Satellite Earth observation technology plays a key role in this effort. This project will create a web dashboard that stakeholders in Angola can use to access and visualize multiple data types for affected areas of Angola: satellite Earth observation data from NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite, socioeconomic vulnerability data indicators collected from administrative and survey data such as incidence of malaria, and weather data such as rainfall. Using these indicators, stakeholders in Angola can decide how to deploy support to affected populations experiencing a water-related crisis–for example deploying drinking water supplies in times of drought. Using varied data types to support decision-making is a hallmark of the EVDT framework. In order to successfully implement the EVDT framework in a given area, it is necessary to understand the problem and any potential solution as a complex sociotechnical system. Both are situationally dependent–on stakeholders, available resources, constraints on actions, and other factors. In order to understand water management in Angola as a sociotechnical system, we have employed a systems architecture framework. Systems architecture is a systems-engineering framework that allows complex systems to be described and understood in terms of their external context, constraints, opportunities, stakeholders, objectives, forms, functions, and emergent properties. We have conducted qualitative research in Angola and the United States to understand these features of the existing water management system in Angola. Using this information as well as input on how an improved water management system should ideally function, we are designing a unique web dashboard support system for this particular complex system. This paper focuses on an overview of the project as a whole, as well as insights from the systems architecture process. This work provides an example of how systems engineering frameworks and decision-support models can be used to solve problems in a sociotechnically specific context.