A MULTICRITERION ANALYSIS OF THE WATER ALLOCATION CONFLICT IN THE UPPER RIO-GRANDE BASIN

The water allocation conflict in the Upper Rio Grande basin is a multi objective decision problem with multiple decision makers. The problem is analyzed by two Multicriterion Decision Making (MCDM) techniques. T he criteria used to rank alternatives consist of: 1) economic factors including operation, maintenance and allocation costs: damage losses, benefits for flood control, recreation, water supply, and water qualit y; 2) environmental factors which comprise aesthetics (scenic reaches, social impacts), fish habitat (number of species by reach, catch-per- hour, temperature), recreation (water quality, recreation by visitor-d ay), riparian land (percent protection, development possibility), and erosion control (tons of sediment produced, capacity exceedance); 3) g roundwater management policies, including equity of allocation; conjun ctive use possibility and allocation subsidies, and 3) biological reso urces factors consisting of flora and fauna species. These criteria ar e defined numerically. Compromise Programming and ELECTRE III are appl ied to rank the alternatives selected. The numerical results are analy zed, compared,and interpreted.