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Department of Geology and Geological Engineering Van Tuyl Lecture Series- Spring 2015 4:00-5:00 p.m. in Berthoud Hall Room 241 Thursday, January 22, 2015 Dr. Joseph Kasprzyk University of Colorado Boulder Assistant Professor Civil Environmental and Architectural Engineering Department “Many Objective Analysis to Advance Decision Making for Complex Systems Undergoing Change” Abstract: In recent years, there has been an increasing number of calls for improved decision support to aid in responding to climate change, extreme events, and population growth. For example, in water management, the observance of changing extremes (floods, droughts) has required modifications of management strategies and, in some cases, the construction of new infrastructure. Another example is decision making for new and existing buildings on how to respond to multiple natural hazards while considering sustainability. While Multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithms (MOEAs) have shown promise in research applications, they have only been recently employed to assist decision making for large public sector systems. Of particular interest is the problem formulation: objectives that measure performance; management options that decision makers can change; constraints that represent acceptable limits for performance; and selection of an appropriate simulation model to represent the water infrastructure system. Key questions include how to coproduce problem formulations in collaboration with stakeholders, as well as how the problem formulations impact MOEAs' ability to efficiently and reliably solve problems. This presentation will give some examples of how to create problem formulations for MOEA-based decision support to aid real-world decision making in multiple problem domains. Results for multi-reservoir regional planning for the Tarrant Regional Water District in Texas demonstrate how evolving problem formulations can help managers gain better insights into the operation of their system and potentially increase the efficiency of providing water given hydrologic uncertainty.