I.2.2 - CRiSP.1 in the Decision Making Process

The question arises: Can the results of a model be trusted? Answering this question is difficult and involves good judgement which must also include societal, economic and political considerations. To proceed, decision makers need to know if a model is in agreement with the existing data, with other models and with the general qualitative understanding of how the system works. The CRiSP.1 model has tools to address these needs.

• Qualitative understanding: users are provided with several tools to develop a qualitative intuition of how the model works
  • Runs of the model done in Scenario Mode allow a decision maker to study how each model element affects fish migration and survival
  • The DamIBM tutorial graphically illustrates dam passage and can be used to understand how reservoir drawdown changes fish guidance efficiency
  • The Travel Time tutorial graphically illustrates how CRiSP.1 moves fish through river segments
  • The theory manual (available both printed and on-line) provides information on how CRiSP.1 is formulated.
• Comparison with data: to provide users information on how CRiSP.1 fits data, the calibration manual is available (both printed and on-line).
• Predictive understanding: users can obtained quantitative probability based predictions of survival and travel time using the Monte Carlo Mode of CRiSP.1. Results can be compared to the quantitative results of other models such as those mentioned above.