The Role of Ex-Post and Ex-Ante Integrated Assessment Frameworks in Conceptualization of the Modeling Process in the Context of Integrated Water Resources Management

Reconnaissance and conceptualization of the system are the first steps to perform an integrated assessment study and step towards sustainability. This paper focuses on the conceptualization phase of the integrated assessment using frameworks to identify the key variables of a system and their relations. Authors believe that in an integrated assessment study, it is important to include both “ex-post” and “ex-ante” aspects. This paper adopts Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) as an ex-post, and Goal Oriented Framework (GOF) as an ex-ante framework to the model conceptualization process in the case of water resources system in South Khorasan, Iran. It is shown that DPSIR framework is well adapted to describe past and present interactions of the system and provide a retrospective view, also more focused on the environmental dimension, while GOF is able to capture the future interactions as well and it can also encompass the three dimensions of sustainability. By adopting both frameworks, a more integrated and comprehensive view of the system has been achieved, which can be helpful to shed lights on knowing the key variables and relations to be relied on in the phase of developing efficient models to analyze the system.