Policy analysis of water management for the Netherlands. Vol I: Summary report

Summarizes the PAWN project, documented in RAND Notes N-1500/2 to N-1500/20, which designed alternative water management policies for the Netherlands and assessed their consequences. Considers both short- and long-term policies, including building new facilities and changing facility operating rules to improve supply as well as using prices and regulations to reduce user demands. Describes a widely applicable general approach to complex policy problems and presents the specific system of models developed to assess policy effects on agriculture and hydrology, irrigation, shipping, industry, drinking water companies, power plants, salt intrusion, groundwater supplies, and environment. Discusses the policies that were designed and their detailed consequences. Indicates how the study's results were incorporated into the new Dutch water management policy and how the methodology was institutionalized in the Netherlands. Provides a thoroughly documented case study showing how a policy analysis of complex natural resource and environmental questions can be carried out.PAW

Protecting an estuary from floods: A policy analysis of the Oosterschelde. Vol 2: Assessment of security from flooding

The second volume in a series of reports describing the methodology and results of a joint research venture between RAND and the Netherlands Rijkswaterstaat. The POLANO project was founded to help the Dutch government analyze the different alternatives (open, closed, and storm-surge barrier cases) for protecting the Oosterschelde region from North Sea floods. Volume II describes the methodology developed to estimate the likelihood and severity of flood damage to people, property, and land under each of the alternatives. These are subjected to many simulated threats expressed in terms of storm water levels. The methodology's damage estimates compared favorably with the actual damage observed in a severe 1953 storm. Also assessed is the reliability of the storm-surge barrier. The report demonstrates how security varies, in both the long-run and construction periods, with changes in the alternatives and assumptions.Polan

Protecting an estuary from floods: A policy analysis of the Oosterschelde. Vol 1: Summary report

The first volume in a series of reports describing the methodology and results of a joint research venture between RAND and the Netherlands Rijkswaterstaat. The POLANO project was founded to help the Dutch government analyze the different alternatives (open, closed, and storm-surge barrier cases) for protecting the Oosterschelde region from North Sea floods. Volume I describes the approach and summarizes the results of the complete analysis. The many impacts of each alternative--including financial costs, flood security, ecological changes, and selected economic and social effects--are presented and compared through the novel use of colored scorecards. The report shows how the impacts vary with changes in the design of the alternatives and in certain assumptions. This work, combined with special studies by the Rijkswaterstaat, was the foundation of the report on which the Parliament based its selection of an alternative in June 1976.Polan

ON BECOMING MORE OF A POLICY SCIENTIST

This essay presents some subjective thoughts on becoming more of a policy scientist, based on nearly thirty years of intense interest in policymaking and its improvement. Written as a token of gratitude for the privilege of receiving the first Harold Lasswell Award from the Policy Studies Organization, the essay takes the form of advice to striving policy scientists in nine desiderata followed by five operational recommendations. Some readings for exploring the suggestions presented in this paper are included in the reference section. Copyright 1984 by The Policy Studies Organization.